MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS
Download: Classicsonline

 

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op.36 (1802) [33:19]
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op.92 (1812) [41:36]
Minnesota Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä
rec. Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, January 2008
BIS BISSACD1816 [75:49]
Experience Classicsonline


This pairing of Beethoven symphonies brings to a conclusion the cycle Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra have been working on since 2005. The previous releases can all be found reviewed on these pages, and in general the response has been positive. There always has to be an element of swings and roundabouts in evaluating re-recordings of repertoire which has been manifest in myriad guises for as long as music has been preserved for posterity, and while I’ve been listening to and greatly enjoying this disc over the last few weeks I was glad to have a second opinion.

Long car drives for performances in obscure corners on Europe are invariably helped along with small wobbly heaps of discs one has yet to hear from beginning to end. I have to admit to the system in my car being less than ideal, but having a passenger who also happened to be the compiler of Dutch radio’s ‘Composer of the Week’ programme was too good an opportunity to let slip. With this CD already tucked into the player, I let the music take effect. It took a while – the compiler of Dutch radio’s ‘Composer of the Week’ programme is an energetic character, and so it was a good 20 minutes or so when she suddenly sat forward and said, “hey this is really good!” Surprised and pleased to see it was an American orchestra and enjoying the individual nature of the cover design, we discussed the Nordic origins of the conductor and one or two other points, but the mission was accomplished: my own positive opinion had been vindicated in a blind listening test through a dodgy car stereo in a noisy Nissan, and can now truly report that this release is really good.

Potential purchasers can of course relish the sumptuous SACD sound, and this may indeed be a good enough reason to prefer this set over some others. Glorious sonics are no substitute for excellent performance however, and Osmo Vänskä has made of his Minnesota Orchestra a genuinely crack team of musicians. There is indeed a breadth and depth to the sound which is the equal of and better than most, but the ensemble and sonority in the strings is also a real plus. The sense of chamber-music making is strong in the lighter movements, such as the shorter scherzo Allegro third movement of the Symphony No.2. Vänskä works the contrasts of the music to their reasonable limits, and the dynamics go a long way to making these performances a revival of why we find these pieces so inspiring in the first place. There is a freshness of spirit at work here which makes these symphonies sound new – not ‘modern’ in the sense of any kind of avant-garde wilfulness, just an openness that combination of lyricism, energy and drama which keeps bringing us back for more.

As far as timings go, Vänskä tends to be more measured than 1960s vintage Karajan, coming in a good 8 minutes longer overall in the Symphony No.7. He is closer to Abbado’s Berlin timings, being almost identical in the Symphony No.2. A peek at Pletnev shows a few real extremes of divergence in the opening movements of both symphonies, and Pletnev is generally faster throughout. Yes, there are differences, but timings are of academic interest without a sense of where a conductor is leading us. What Vänskä does is allow the music to breathe where he feels it needs that extra bit of space. His orchestra is well up to the multiple climaxes in the complicated first movement of the Symphony No.7, and the gorgeous Orchestra Hall acoustic also helps carry this kind of performance: showing the drama inherent in the score, rather than treating the music as an opportunity to promote orchestral virtuosity. There is however a forward momentum in the music which is unstoppable, and an accuracy in the articulation and observance of dynamics which is almost forensic. This keenness to follow Beethoven’s instructions results in warmth and care in peformance, but also allows the musicians to let rip where the score allows – the horns peals forth with tremendous penetration in their calls during the final Allegro con brio of this symphony. The essential second movement Allegretto is as it should be: one of the great emotional centres of the piece, but light in texture – unencumbered by externally imposed funereal associations.

Colour, weight and balance are all given an equality of importance in these performances, but I do have one small criticism. Especially in the Symphony No.7 there is a good deal of repetition of one kind or another, and while the music has its own onward flow and sense of urgency I do have the feeling of ‘sticking’ rather in these repetitions. I was always taught that these cyclic passages have to have meaning both implied and imposed in some way. Their function is of course one of Beethoven’s elemental building blocks for the development of material, but, however subtle, there should at least be the ‘feeling’ of some sense of change or variety in repetitions both micro and macro, and despite all the well measured dynamic rises and falls there are some moments where I couldn’t help feeling myself being in a kind of rut, watching a procession of musical-fragment clones. Taking an opposite extreme and listening to Pletnev’s recording with the Russian national Orchestra on DG, and the effect is that of driving faster over a certain kind of bumpy road: the sense of any kind of static hanging around is smoothed over by the sheer tumult of the journey. This is probably quite subjective and I don’t want to labour the point, but the side-effects of Vänskä’s kind of perfectionist performing can in some ways distil the music into an over-abundance of clarity – if you can understand what I mean... at least, that’s the way it seems to me.

If the other releases in this cycle are as good as this one then I can recommend the whole set with virtually no reservations. Both the recording quality and performance are second to none, and I find the restrained use of vibrato in the woodwinds entirely to my taste: there is more than one classic performance which is spoiled by wobbly flutes and oboes, or flat clarinets, and this is most certainly not one of these. Intonation is also luxuriantly stable – and what a bonus this is in reality. The character of the whole production can be viewed in a broad sense, as being one which holds no dangers and few surprises, but being one which will grow on you, allowing your appreciation of Beethoven to deepen with each session, rather than that of any one ‘special’ conductor or orchestra. It can also take close examination and aural scrutiny at every moment throughout, and this means all your favourite moments will be every bit up to scratch. This combination of qualities is special enough, but best of all it allows the great composer’s musical utterance the freedom it demands without any kind of artificiality of interpretation – if perhaps missing that last nth of excitement and risk which can be found elsewhere.

Dominy Clements       


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.