Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
The New Complete Beethoven: Essential Edition
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 486 0594 [95 CDs: ca 115 hrs]
To begin on a positive note, this box teems with very fine performances, as well as many others that do not pass my personal standards and prejudices but have won proven support among other music-lovers and collectors.
I do need to get rather grouchy, however, when it comes to the presentation. The box, a good stout one, arrives with one and three-quarter inches (four centimetres) of spare space which is filled with those unsightly cardboard squares used by record stores for packing up CDs. What is one supposed to do with this spare space? It makes one wonder if some aspect of the presentation was cut back at the last minute.
The booklet, not especially thick, turns out to be a very strange artefact, as it covers only Discs 19 to 26; 39 to 46; 51 to 54; 59; 72; 74 to 90; and 93 to 95. For the others, you are expected to consult the backs of the individual disc pochettes. There is no index. In other words, there is no single place where you can find an overview of the 95 discs.
I find myself trying, and failing, to envisage a possible buyer for this production. A young Beethoven-loving couple setting up house and wanting the complete works of Beethoven? In this day and age, they would bypass CDs altogether. An older collector who fancies having a lot of alternate performances in a single box including virtually every squeak written by the greatest of all composers, even the ‘Contrapuntal Studies and Doubtful Works’ on Disc 95? Your guess is as good as mine…
As to what is actually here, Discs 1 to 10 contain two complete cycles of the Symphonies. The first cycle has 1, 2 and 8 plus the Overtures from the Gewandhaus/Chailly set, a fair enough decision; 3, 4 and 6 from the BPO/Abbado set, the latter showing particular signs of using Jonathan Del Mar’s edition; 5 by Los Angeles Philharmonic/Giulini, a rather large-scale, old-fashioned performance that sounds as if it was recorded in an aircraft hangar; 7 by VPO/Andris Nelsons, a well-recorded 2017 performance new to me which I greatly enjoyed; and 9 from Karajan’s second cycle, a bit unsatisfactory: (i) is all right, with a good impetus, but in (ii) some of the timpani strokes sound distinctly hollow, Karajan does not penetrate below the surface of (iii) and (iv) gives the impression being recorded piecemeal. Karajan also takes care of Wellington’s Victory, recorded in 1969.
The second cycle is entirely played by the VPO, which suits my own orchestral prejudice: 1, 2 and 9 are from Bernstein’s live set, which I love; 3 is the 1957 Monteux, not really heaven-storming but pleasing; 4 is from Schmidt-Isserstedt’s worthy set; 5 and 7 are the famous Carlos Kleiber versions; 6 is the beautiful Böhm; 8 is by Nelsons from 2017, very fine; and Szell’s well-known 1969 Egmont music acts as a filler.
Discs 11 to 18 contain Concertos, most of them twice. The first cycle of the Piano Concertos has WoO 4 in E by Brautigam/Norrköping/Parrott, excellent; 1 and 2 by Argerich, with Ozawa and Chmura respectively and predictably good; 3 and 4 by Brendel/VPO/Rattle, not to my taste; and 5 by Zimerman/VPO/Bernstein, very worthwhile, with what the acting profession call ‘size’. The Violin Concerto by Repin/VPO/Muti is among my favourite modern versions, strong yet tender and straightforwardly musical, but the alternative by Mutter/BPO/Karajan is one of my least favourite – every time Mutter shows a sign of getting my attention, she lets me off the hook. Her Romances, live with NYPO/Masur, are glutinous.
A second Piano Concerto cycle has 1 by Buchbinder/BPO/Thielemann and 2 by Gulda/VPO/Stein, both okay; 3, 4 and the Choral Fantasy by Pollini/VPO with Böhm or Abbado, all splendid; and 5 by Kempff/BPO/Leitner, a little underpowered. The Violin Concerto in piano-and-orchestra form is well enough done by Barenboim/ECO, though no match for a refined Italian Pollini/Abbado version I have; the Triple Concerto is very well performed by the Chung family with the Philharmonia; and to get Beethoven’s cadenzas for Mozart’s K466 we are given Serkin’s entire 1981 performance with Abbado/LSO, late Serkin but still treasurable. Oddments are well enough despatched by Kremer, Richter and Arrau.
Disc 19 has the ballets: the Ritterballett with Karajan is fun, The Creatures of Prometheus is in the safe hands of the Orpheus CO. Disc 20 contains Dances and Marches, Discs 21 and 22 the Incidental Music: a better-recorded Egmont sequence by BPO/Abbado, live; The Ruins of Athens by BPO/Klee from 1970; König Stephan by Roman forces under Chung; Die Weihe des Hauses by BPO/Abbado. Discs 23 to 26 house the operas: Leonore by Gardiner, good if not the equal of EMI’s Masur version; and Fidelio, Abbado’s fine live Lucerne performance.
Discs 27 to 46 bring the Keyboard Music, a fair amount by Brendel and fortunately not too much by Arrau: for me they are respectively the Professor Branestawm and PC Plod of pianism. Quite a lot comes from the more humane Emil Gilels, whose death just before completing his Sonata cycle was widely deplored, and a certain quota from Pollini – it is fascinating to compare them in the ‘Hammerklavier’, for instance. First we get a complete Sonata cycle by various players, beginning and ending with Pollini, and then individual discs. New to me and very good are Kocsis’s Op. 10/1; Freire’s ‘Moonlight’ and ‘Waldstein’; Hélène Grimaud’s ‘Tempest’; and Kissin’s live ‘Les Adieux’. It is nice to reacquaint myself with Kovacevich’s ‘Pathetique’ and Op. 31/3; Lupu’s ‘Pathetique’; and Uchida’s Op. 111. I am unsure about Gulda’s ‘Appassionata’, as so often with this pianist: it is impetuous, with rackety piano tone, and certainly worth hearing. Performances by Ashkenazy and Perahia leave no imprint on me. Bagatelles, Dances, Duets and miscellaneous pieces all seem to be well handled by artists including Cascioli, de Larrocha and Pletnev, not to mention the duo of Demus and Shetler, both Lieder accompanists; and the Variations discs offer both Curzon and Gilels in the ‘Eroica’ set, as well as Brendel’s live 2001 ‘Diabelli’ set, showing him at his best. Now I jump to Disc 93, where keyboard addicts will find a number of fortepiano performances of interesting oddments.
Discs 47 to 50 feature the Violin Sonatas and a few lesser pieces: the first four are given to Kremer and Argerich, her playing expressing more joy than his; the ‘Spring’ and Op. 30/1 are from the Perlman/Ashkenazy set and excellent; but the C minor and ‘Kreutzer’ by Mutter and Orkis are not for me, the violinist self-regarding, the pianist mediocre; and the finest playing comes on the last disc, with Op. 30/3, another ‘Kreutzer’ and Op. 96 from the wonderful Dumay/Pires set, like a reincarnation of the old Grumiaux/Haskil partnership but with the special qualities of Dumay, a Grumiaux pupil, and Pires. On Discs 51 and 52, the partnership of Maisky and Argerich is simply splendid in the Cello Sonatas and associated Variations, terrific virtuosity put to the best musical use. Sundry other Duos (Discs 53 and 54) feature fine artists – and there is a surprise, the cello version of the Horn Sonata from the aged Pablo Casals and the ageless Horszowski.
The Piano Trios on Discs 55 to 58 are mostly a mixture of both Beaux Arts line-ups, very competent, with some lesser works from the Kempff/Szeryng/Fournier ensemble – I would have liked their Op. 70/2. Kempff, Leister and Fournier do the Clarinet Trio nicely. For the ‘Archduke’ we get Previn, Mullova and Schiff, most enjoyable – does Previn’s playing get a little mechanical in the finale? The Trios with winds (Disc 59) include the two legendary performances by Holliger, Elhorst and Bourgue. For the String Trios (Discs 60 and 61), I am sorry DG have chosen the 1988 set by Mutter, Giuranna and Rostropovich, in preference to Giuranna’s previous cycle with the Trio Italiano d’Archi, the best complete set on record. Mutter makes the faster movements into competitions, especially the finales, which is not my idea of chamber music, and she tends to skate over the slower movements. Her tone also sounds stressed a lot of the time. It was the same when I saw her doing three of the Trios at Snape Maltings with Giuranna and Rostropovich. You will have gathered by now that she is not my favourite violinist! Miscellaneous Trios on Disc 62 are well enough done by various musicians.
With Discs 63 to 72, we come to one of the great Beethoven specialities, the String Quartets, in ten of which my benchmark is the Busch Quartet. On the day of his death, Adolf Busch wrote a brief letter to his former second violinist Ernest Drucker, congratulating him on the birth of a son, Eugene. That same Eugene Drucker leads the Emerson Quartet in the first ten of the Quartets (in this ensemble the violinists generally swop the lead, a practice I abhor for many reasons, but DG is unequivocal in saying that Drucker leads everything here). I wish I could say that the spirit of Busch had inhabited the Emersons, but everything sounds slick and efficient. Take the Second ‘Rasumovsky’ in E flat. The second repeat is omitted in the first movement, yet we know that by this time, if Beethoven marked a repeat, he meant it. In the Molto adagio, that wonderful moment where the second violin introduces the second theme goes for nothing; we might as well be listening to a pleasant barcarolle. Op. 95 to Op. 135 are in the hands of the Takács Quartet (the line-up of Dusinberre, Schranz, Tapping and Fejer). These players are intellectually more formidable and I like their Op. 127, but all the others fall just short of true inspiration. At least they will not traduce any listener coming new to the Late Quartets. Thankfully, DG still have some aces up their collective sleeve, the discs that the Hagen Quartet made of the Late Quartets, consistently interesting, alive and beautifully played. The Hagens also present the first version of Op. 18/1, while the F major piano sonata arrangement comes from the old Amadeus Quartet. A couple of items also come from the superb Endellion Quartet set, which makes me wonder why DG did not take over their cycle wholesale.
On Discs 73 to 76, the early Piano Quartets are represented by the Eschenbach/Amadeus recordings, very nice; the C major String Quintet, Op. 29, by the genial Amadeus/Aronowitz performance; and the Piano and Wind Quintet by Radu Lupu and Concertgebouw soloists. Of the String Quintet arrangements, Op. 4 is by Endellion/Adams, Op. 104 by Lindsay/Williams, both splendid. Various accomplished players present the wind pieces, including the Netherlands Wind Ensemble – who get the marvellous Octet – and BPO soloists. A version of the Septet new to me is attributed to members of the ‘Wiener Oktett’, which by 1991 featured Werner Hink with two members of his Vienna Quartet, Johannes Auersperg, double bass, Peter Schmidl, clarinet, Willibald Janezic, horn, and Stepan Turnovsky, bassoon – I give these details because the performance is lovely, delightfully Viennese and a highlight. I should now jump to Disc 94, where among various chamber music oddments is the Piano Quartet arrangement of the Piano and Wind Quintet, a favourite of mine. For this DG have licensed the lovely Sony performance by Ax, Stern, Laredo and Ma.
On Discs 77 to 80 we find Lieder and Partsongs, where Discher-Dieskau and Demus make a powerful combination and some of the rarer things have been licensed from Berlin Classics, often featuring Peter Schreier and Walter Olbertz. The Folksong Settings on Discs 81 to 87 are the familiar – and very agreeable – performances by various British singers with Malcolm Martineau, Krysia Osostowicz and Ursula Smith as the accompanying piano trio. Here I must mention that I greatly enjoyed the new recordings made by French artists for the competing Warner Beethoven box; and in fact that box shares a performance with this one, the Thielemann recording of the Cantata, WoO 88 (his version of WoO87 is also used here – for that one Warner had a Cracow rendition). Disc 88 has Work for Solo Voice with Orchestra, of which only ‘Ah! Perfido’, sung by Cheryl Studer with Abbado/BPO, has any currency.
For the Mass in C, Gardiner’s version will do nicely; it shares Disc 90 with Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt, also by Gardiner, and Der Glorreiche Augenblick, by Roman forces under Chung. For the Missa solemnis, I would have preferred James Levine’s Vienna performance to Karajan’s 1966 Berlin one, but I suppose Levine is persona non grata now. The oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives is very well handled by Bernhard Klee, with terrific singing by Elizabeth Harwood, James King, Franz Crass and the Wiener Singverein, with the Wiener Symphoniker.
You would save £25 on Amazon by buying the 80-disc Warner Complete Works, but then you would miss out on DG’s wealth of alternative performances. I hope I have conveyed at least some idea of the scope of this DG edition.
Tully Potter
For contents see here
