In the dying days of the LP you could pick up amazing bargains
and my copy of what was then almost a new digital recording still
bears the price-tag of 9,500 liras (about £3). My recollections
are of a bland “Pastoral” and an 8th with some odd
tempi. I haven’t played it for years, so it was interesting to
catch up with it in CD format.
The
first movement of the “Pastoral” gets a straight-down-the-line
reading with big-band sound, smooth phrasing, sometimes ragged
playing, occasional spurts of enthusiasm and no apparent love
for the music. The “Brook” opens with some promising phrasing,
then a rallentando and an unconvincing pick-up suggest this
will be a fidgety reading. A few minutes in, however, it settles
down, with just the right sort of lazy summer afternoon feeling
combined with unending flow. Tennstedt’s balancing is acute,
with the syncopated wind chords all clear without being obtrusive.
From here onwards, most of this movement is as good as I’ve
heard.
The
scherzo is less fine, moderately paced, reasonably lilting but
never making you want to dance with it. The “Storm” is fairly
deliberate but here Tennstedt finds something to suit his temperament
and unleashes terrific power. The final “Shepherd’s Hymn” is
grandiose and finds considerable vitality at a slowish pace.
Mostly it’s magnificent but unfortunately Tennstedt lets the
last pages sag instead of simply wind down in tempo. A few years
earlier Boult, with this same orchestra, gave an object lesson
on how to do that.
The
first movement of no. 8 is triumphantly fine when the music
is striding forward purposefully, “Eroica”-style. Tension sags
when other moods take over. I had remembered the Allegretto
as being disconcertingly fast. A lot of Historically Informed
Practice has gone under the bridge since then and it now sounds
brisk but not unreasonable. I should have thought, though, that
such a swift tempo would need a leaner orchestral sound. I never
greatly cared for Monteux’s very fast performance of this movement
– which I see is only a few seconds shorter than Tennstedt –
but he does prove the point about a slimmer texture making it
work, so if you want a fast Allegretto in the context of an
old-fashioned-style performance, that’s where to go.
I
also remembered the Menuetto being very slow, and this hasn’t
changed. It has a certain stately lilt but is too insistently
ceremonious for me. There’s nothing really wrong with the finale
but it delivers little. Indicative is that crucial moment towards
the end where the music has got into the “wrong” key and is
wrenched back by the trumpets and drums. You hardly notice it
here. Interesting that this symphony needed three days to set
down, the “Pastoral” only one.
Hardly
an urgent recommendation, then. Those with large Beethoven collections
might feel it worth adding for those movements where Tennstedt
offers some illumination. Tennstedt admirers will want it for
these same movements – or disagree with me anyway. This style
of performance calls for comparison with older versions. Klemperer,
Böhm and Cluytens in the “Pastoral” have been praised down the
years. Less touted, Boult probably belongs among them. Munch
is gorgeous if you don’t worry about repeats – even the scherzo
is pared down. For the 8th I’d put in a word for
two versions made in Cleveland, under Szell and – more surprisingly
– Kubelik.
Christopher
Howell
See
also Review
by Owen Walton
London Philharmonic
Orchestra/Klaus Tennstedt 
