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CHAMBER ORCHESTRA REVIEW
Beethoven Familiar and Forgotten
April 21, 2001
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By Marvin Tartak
For the first time in its 20 years of concerts, the famous Berkeley orchestra devoted to Baroque music attempted a complete evening of music by Beethoven, playing works rarely heard in concert halls. Admittedly, finding unknown works by the most popular composer of classical music is a difficult task, but the orchestra accomplished its goal, unearthing some wonderful, little-known musical gems.
Philharmonia, the Bay Area's oldest and best-known period-instrument orchestra, is hugely successful with its subscription public. Whether the music is Bach or Beethoven, the players apparently can do no wrong. They earned a foot-stomping response from an exuberant audience at the first performance (Saturday) of an evening of powerful Beethoven. Nicholas McGegan led this noble band in punchy performances and won hearty approval with works mostly unknown to Bay Area audiences.
The gems of the evening were three excerpts from Beethoven's first version of his opera Fidelio, or Leonore as it was initially called. The opera premiered in Vienna in 1805. But the composer's loyal audience had fled the city that November because of Napoleon's invasion, and the work was not well received. Beethoven tried again a year later with revisions, mostly cuts, but still it did not satisfy him. Nine years after the premiere, Beethoven made a final attempt, the one everyone knows. The 1814 version is clearly the best of the three. The earlier versions were at fault here and there, and any performance reveals the truth. Less-than-great Beethoven can often be illuminating, however, particularly in this work, and much beauty can be found in these rejected sections.
McGegan chose three majestic numbers: "Komm, Hoffnung" for Leonora, "In des Lebens Frühlingstagen" for Florestan, and the duet "O namenlose Freude!" for the two together. Particularly new to those well-acquainted with Fidelio were the orchestral recitatives preceding the excerpts, all discarded by the composer for the final version. This dramatic music was beautiful, and a particular joy for being so unfamiliar. Jessica Jones was the Leonora, a soprano with a powerful voice, occasionally a bit metallic, but all the more effective in her projection of tone and character. The tenor was Richard Liszt, who was adequate in singing the role but who had no clue about the personality or the desperate situation of the hapless Florestan. The triumphant duet was well done, and McGegan's rapid conducting revealed something usually lost to listeners in more traditional performances: how much the duet sounds like a beefy number from Mozart's Magic Flute. The program began with the least well-known of the four overtures to the opera, and the only one not performed while Beethoven was alive: "Leonore No. 1." The orchestra was at its peak of interest and control, the pacing was extraordinary, and McGegan gave an exciting, electric rendition of the work.
Following the intermission came the least interesting piece: Beethoven's G Major Romance for violin and orchestra. This decidedly minor work is often used as a filler for recordings of the more effective Violin Concerto. Elizabeth Blumenstock gave an accomplished performance, but she had little to do. Her rendition was sweet and modest, but the piece is without tension and rather bland. After the excitement of the Leonore excerpts, it seemed dull. To conclude the concert, the Philharmonia Baroque played Beethoven's Eighth Symphony. This magnificent work pales in energy and diversity beside the dynamic contrasts of the Seventh. It has no genuine slow movement, and it turns the dance movement into a rather atavistic minuet. Written about the same time as the Seventh, it acts as a slighter companion to it, much as the Sixth cools off the force of the Fifth. Unfortunately, McGegan let the Eighth ride with all the power it doesn't deserve.
The strengths of the early part of the program were here stretched to a fault in the performance of the Eighth. What had been a plummy, rich sound in the Overture now became dense thickness in the violas and cellos. Balances were off: the first measure of the first movement gives the melody to the violins but here the lower instruments overpowered them. The sforzando accents that usually give strength to the drive of Beethoven's climaxes were overdrawn — they sounded like assaults. Indeed, by the last movement the orchestra got carried away and hit downbeats with such force as to be offensive to the music. This sort of playing gives audiences an adrenaline rush. The ensemble was overcome by such active rhetoric, and the public went wild. But it's an easy fix, pushing the middle movements too quickly, exaggerating the dynamic contrasts for rhythmic power (and in the ensuing excitement getting a bit ragged). It sounds like the angry Beethoven we all know and love. It just isn't his Eighth Symphony. (Marvin Tartak, a pianist noted for contemporary music, teaches a course in Opera at City College of San Francisco. He has written program notes for the San Francisco Symphony and Opera, has also has edited two volumes of Rossini for the Fondazione Rossini, and is soon to embark on a third.) ©2001 Marvin Tartak, all rights reserved |
