Eloq uence

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 1 Symphony No. 2 Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica’ Symphony No. 4 Coriolan Overture

L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

Ernest Ansermet

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) CD 1

75’09

1 2 3 4

Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21 I Adagio molto – Allegro con brio II Andante cantabile con moto III Menuetto (Allegro molto e vivace) IV Finale (Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace)

5 6 7 8

Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 55 ‘Eroica’ I Allegro con brio II Marcia funebre (Adagio assai) III Scherzo (Allegro vivace) IV Finale (Allegro molto)

14’34 15’15 5’59 12’15

CD 2

76’12

1 2 3 4

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36 I Adagio molto – Allegro con brio II Larghetto III Scherzo (Allegro) IV Allegro molto

10’34 11’59 3’46 6’59

5 6 7 8

Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 60 I Adagio – Allegro vivace II Adagio III Allegro vivace IV Allegro ma non troppo

12’39 9’46 5’54 7’15

9

Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Ernest Ansermet

Total timing: 151’21

9’41 7’10 4’04 5’57

7’06

It is customary, when discussing Beethoven’s First Symphony, to mention the influence of Franz Joseph Haydn, with whom Beethoven studied between 1792 and 1794, until the elder composer departed for London. In some ways, Beethoven picked up where Haydn left off. One should not assume, however, that Beethoven’s admiration for his mentor was unconditional, or that he contented himself with imitating Haydn’s symphonic models. Even early in his career, Beethoven was an original, and by the time of the First Symphony, he was also no beginner. He already had several major works under his belt (the Op. 18 string quartets, the Piano Concerto No. 1, the ‘Pathétique’ Sonata), and had made a name for himself in Vienna as a piano virtuoso. The symphony received its first performance on 2 April 1800 at a Viennese Akademie concert, open to the paying public. The program – long by today’s standards, but not by those of 1800 – also contained his C major Piano Concerto, his Septet, a piano improvisation, and works by Mozart (a symphony, although which one is not known) and selections from Haydn’s oratorio The Creation. A reviewer in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung called it ‘the most interesting concert in a long time’, while complaining of the orchestra’s performance, which suggests that its musicians were more

interested in collecting their payment than in giving the music its due. From the First Symphony’s very first notes, Beethoven lets listeners know that the future has arrived. Although the symphony is in the key of C, it opens with a seventh chord in the subdominant key of F, and doesn’t establish the C-major tonality until several bars later. It is difficult for modern ears to appreciate how cheeky that is. The third movement, although designated a Menuetto, is a rough-and-tumble scherzo in everything but name. In the finale, Beethoven teases listeners with a slow introduction in which a scale must be ascended note-by-note before the brakes are removed and the movement proper goes whirling merrily on its way. Another innovation in this symphony is Beethoven’s treatment of wind instruments as equals to the strings. In the 1700s, winds were rarely given such prominence. Yet, for all these departures from the norm, the First Symphony is relatively conservative, especially when compared to other music that Beethoven was writing at about the same time. Biographer Maynard Solomon has suggested that Beethoven wished to master Viennese Classical style in all instrumental genres, and having already done just that in his early string quartets

and piano sonatas, he felt more free to experiment in those than in the symphonic genre, in which he was less experienced. When the First Symphony appeared, Beethoven had already been aware for a few years that his hearing was worsening, but in 1802 he experienced an emotional crisis over it. Attempts to treat his condition had failed, and he was coming to understand – and to anticipate – the full implications of what it would mean to be a deaf composer. In the so-called Heiligenstadt Testament (named for the village on the outskirts of Vienna where he penned it), an uncharacteristically self-pitying Beethoven gave voice to his anguish and frustration. ‘Ah, how could I admit a debility in the one sense that should have been more perfect in me than in others,’ he lamented. The document, which alternates between despair and hope, suggests that Beethoven had been considering suicide. In his biography, Barry Cooper calls it ‘a turning point’ for the composer and ‘a symbol of his determination to overcome his fate rather than to succumb to it.’ Intended for his brothers, Beethoven never sent this document, and it was discovered in his effects after his death. The Second Symphony was completed in Heiligenstadt that autumn, although Beethoven had begun it in 1801. Like the First Symphony, it

is written in a Classical style derived from Haydn, but it is even more creative in its departures from that style. This time, Beethoven dispensed with the traditional third-movement minuet not just in substance but also in name, and called it a Scherzo. A contemporary critic compared the fourth movement, which throbs with an elemental lust for life, with the tail-lashings of a wounded dragon in its death agony. It has often been remarked that the Second Symphony expresses nothing of the emotional despair that its composer was experiencing at the time. Some hear heroism in it; Hector Berlioz heard ‘smiles throughout’. Even the second movement, despite its wistful shadings, speaks of peace and rest. Musicologist Sir Donald Francis Tovey called this movement ‘luxurious’ and praised its ‘reckless opulence of themes’. The Second Symphony was heard for the first time on 5 April 1803 in a performance conducted by the composer. Also on the program were the Piano Concerto No. 3, the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives and another performance of the First Symphony. This gave attendees an opportunity to compare the two symphonies, and some of them shook their heads and complained that Beethoven had tried too hard to be innovative in the new work.

Today, we recognize such statements for the nonsense they are. Beethoven took a giant step forward in his Third Symphony, today known as the ‘Eroica’. In fact, it has become one of the most frequently and intensely analysed works in the orchestral literature. What enabled Beethoven to compose this titanic symphony – almost as long as the first two symphonies combined – seems not to have been an external influence, but rather a transformation in Beethoven himself. After the crisis of 1802, an artistically defiant and uncompromising Beethoven emerged – a composer who would not hesitate to act upon his radical impulses. Of course there was another person who played an important role in the genesis of the Third Symphony, and that was Napoleon Bonaparte. The story is frequently told that Beethoven greatly admired the First Consul of the French Republic, whom Beethoven perceived as a paragon of revolutionary ideals, and as an advocate for ordinary people and the poor. (Ironically, Beethoven took pains to ensure that others would not include him among the common or the ordinary, but that is another story.) Whether the idea of composing a symphony

dedicated to Napoleon originated with someone else or with Beethoven himself is not clear. In any case, after the score had been completed, Beethoven clearly indicated Napoleon’s name on the title page. However, in May 1804, when Beethoven was informed that Napoleon had proclaimed himself Emperor of France, the composer became enraged, denounced his former idol as a tyrant and tore up the title page. This makes a good story, and although it may be substantially true, it seems there is more to it than that. Suffice it to say that when the Third Symphony was published in 1806, Napoleon’s name had been replaced with the inscription, ‘Heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man’. Another name is associated with the ‘Eroica’ – that of Prometheus, who in Greek mythology stole fire from Zeus and gave it back to man. Prometheus is also credited with fashioning men from clay, and educating them, and this legend was the basis of a ballet that Beethoven had composed a couple of years earlier – The Creatures of Prometheus. A theme from this ballet appears in the fourth movement of the ‘Eroica’ and is the subject of several variations. Perhaps Beethoven simply wished to reuse a good tune – after all, most ballets have a limited shelf-life. On the other hand, perhaps Beethoven

was making a connection between the beneficent Prometheus, and the humanitarian ideals represented by Napoleon, at least at one time. In that light, the ‘Eroica’ becomes a ‘celebration’ that is both specific and general, as well as both concrete and abstract. The second movement, a funeral march, often has been played on memorial occasions, such as following the deaths of heads-of-state, or after the terrorist attacks at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. In his late work Metamorphosen, for 23 strings, Richard Strauss alludes to this movement in what essentially is an elegiac farewell to a Germany destroyed by World War II. Having climbed Mount Everest in the ‘Eroica’, Beethoven contented himself with fortifying already secured territory in the Fourth Symphony. It is perhaps for this reason that it probably is the least frequently programmed of his nine symphonies. However, it is by no means weak, and it has its champions, including Robert Schumann, who famously called it ‘a slender Greek maiden between two Norse gods’ – an allusion to the ‘Eroica’ and Fifth Symphonies. The Fourth Symphony was composed in 1806 after Beethoven visited the estate of Count Franz von Oppersdorff, a Silesian nobleman who was

related to Beethoven’s patron, Prince Lichnowsky. The Count heard Beethoven’s Second Symphony, liked it, and wanted Beethoven to write a symphony for him. Beethoven already had been at work on what was to become his Fifth Symphony, but rather than complete it for the Count, he began a new symphony instead. The reasons for this are unknown, but perhaps Beethoven calculated that the Fifth Symphony would make a bigger splash in a different setting. Possibly he thought it would have been too revolutionary for the Count’s tastes, or perhaps the Count’s personal orchestra would not have been able to do it justice. Nevertheless, the Fourth Symphony was performed for the first time not at the Count’s estate, but at a private concert in Vienna the following March. Also on the program was the first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 4, and the Coriolan overture. Beethoven received the generous sum of 500 florins for the symphony. The Count apparently was pleased with the work and soon made a downpayment on another. This time, Beethoven viewed the Count’s money as payment for the still incomplete Fifth Symphony, although (unlike the Fourth) it was not dedicated to the Count when it was finished, and it was first heard at a public concert.

There are several parallels between the Second and Fourth Symphonies: for example, a slow introduction to the first movement and a seraphic second movement. In the case of the latter symphony, however, the introduction is not grand but mysterious, even suspenseful, like a coiled spring. The rough play of the third and fourth movements reminds us why Beethoven is often considered to be one of the most masculine of composers. The bassoon solo near the end of the last movement reminds us that he can be one of the most amusing. Beethoven composed the Fourth Symphony (like the Second) while floating in a sea of troubles – the initial failure of his opera Fidelio, romantic disappointment, family troubles – but these are not apparent in what is essentially an optimistic work. When he composed the Coriolan overture early in 1807, Beethoven was thinking not of Shakespeare’s drama but of the then recent tragedy by his acquaintance Heinrich Joseph von Collin. Beethoven might have intended the overture to precede a performance of the play, or he simply might have composed it out of an affinity for the subject. Coriolanus, a Roman general of legend, after his unjust banishment from Rome, allies himself with its enemies, the Volscians. He leads a Volscian attack on the city,

but is dissuaded at the last moment by his wife and mother. Having betrayed both the Romans and the Volscians, Coriolanus then stabs himself. Beethoven ends the overture not with a bang but with a whimper, illustrating Coriolanus’s failure and death by disassembling his once haughty, confident theme. Although Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969) was primarily associated with French music, and also with the music of Igor Stravinsky, he also was at home in the works of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. In fact, at his first concert in 1910, Beethoven’s music led the program. Ansermet regularly programmed Beethoven’s music with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the orchestra he founded in 1918, and he also programmed it when he was a guest conductor – for example, with Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra in the 1940s. There are those who might have regarded that as ‘carrying coals to Newcastle’, but Ansermet’s approach to the German repertoire was very different from that of Toscanini or Furtwängler or Karajan. When Ansermet recorded Beethoven’s symphonies for Decca between 1958 and 1963, contemporary reviewers did not always appreciate the results – particularly in comparison with the aforementioned

conductors. One area of concern was the orchestra, whose playing was deemed not on par with what one could expect from major orchestras in Vienna, Berlin and London, for example. To that, one must reply ‘guilty as charged’, except for the fact that, under Ansermet, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande routinely played with a character sometimes missing even from today’s great orchestras. As for Ansermet, his understanding of Beethoven’s idiom, while different from that of his contemporaries, was no less valid. In Beethoven, he heard not just a titan but a romantic, sensual man, not just a thunderer but composer of sensitivity and subtlety. Even the mighty ‘Eroica’ was allowed to a reveal a softer, perhaps even a more feminine aspect. Whether he was conducting Beethoven or Ravel, Ansermet had a fine ear for instrumental colour, and a talent for keeping rhythms well-sprung and flexible. At times, Ansermet’s Beethoven even seems to anticipate the ‘authentic’ Beethoven performances that became popular in the 1990s, although Ansermet got his results without having to rely on the sometimes unpredictable behaviour of period instruments. Almost a half-century later, Ansermet’s Beethoven is enjoyable not as an exercise in nostalgia, but as a reminder that masterworks

can tolerate – better yet, thrive upon, or even demand – different points of view. Raymond Tuttle

: DECCA PHOTO

The great Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet was a significant figure in the world of music from 1915 until 1968. A contemporary and friend of the greatest composers of the twentieth century, he founded the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva in 1918. He then moulded his orchestra in his own image, obliging the players, sometimes inflexibly, to tackle his favourite repertoire. For the fifty years of his almost despotic reign, Ansermet featured those composers whom he believed in, paying no attention to those who, in his opinion, had abandoned the ‘true path’ of tonality. Most of his illustrious contemporaries did much the same, without however publicising their beliefs in print, as Ansermet did so spectacularly. It is no exaggeration to say that his influence was almost universal – we should not forget that he conducted orchestras all over the world.

Ernest Ansermet

Few other conductors have given so many world premieres: Parade, The Soldier’s Tale, The Three-Cornered Hat, Pulcinella, Renard, Les Noces, the Symphony of Psalms, The Rape of Lucretia, La Tempête, Le Mystère de la Nativité, Chout – works whose composers’ names spring immediately to mind. Then there are the many Swiss composers whose works he premiered: Honegger, Martin, Roy,

Marescotti and Wiblé; in all, a sum of more than eighty first performances. After World War II, the record industry began to take a close interest in Ansermet and he was one of the first conductors to have the chance to record practically his entire repertoire. With the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande a whole series of Stravinsky pieces were recorded for the first time, and many of the records he made still count as classics of the gramophone. Ansermet’s readings of many twentiethcentury classics have historical value, since he discussed these works and their problems of performance with the composers concerned: Debussy, Ravel, Roussel, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartók, Honegger and Martin to mention only those he recorded for Decca. Around 1956, with the arrival of stereo, he re-recorded a large part of his repertoire in considerably better sound. The 1960s saw a new departure for Ansermet when he began to record the classic symphonic repertoire: Haydn (his was the first recording of the ‘Paris’ symphonies), Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms. His readings split the musical world down the middle: the French (and the Latin

countries in general) found him cold and lacking in poetry, while in German and Englishspeaking countries he was praised for his warmth and his sense of line and tempo. At this time the musical world was still under the influence of the tradition handed down from Mahler through Furtwängler and Mengelberg to Karajan. Ansermet, unformed by this tradition, was able to return to the written score, following the example of Toscanini or René Leibowitz.

what strikes us is the extraordinary feeling he shows for tempo, his rhythmic energy, his precise sense of orchestral colour and his acute ear for musical form. Without excessive rubato or exaggerated effects he gets right to the heart of the music, using the simplest of means. Ansermet’s art has been described as ‘the poetry of precision’ (Poésie de l’exactitude), and indeed his interpretations are all marked by great precision and the search for the ‘correct feeling’ as he himself wrote.

For example, the new vision he brought to the Beethoven symphonies was astonishing. Perhaps he was too early in what he did, in his respect for the text and in his weeding out of all the Romantic touches and subjectivity which held sway at the time. Without recourse to so-called ‘authentic’ instruments, Ansermet was trying to return to the composer’s intentions, as given in the score, avoiding the imposition of any responses of his own on the audience. His supposed coldness in the classical repertoire was in fact nothing less than perfect respect for the text. His recordings of the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies are, in this respect, quite remarkable, in spite of an orchestra with little experience in the repertoire.

‘It is easy for a conductor to fill a musical phrase with feeling, because one can do more or less what one wants with a musical phrase. In any case, it is easier to do than to find the correct feeling, the one that puts the phrase in its context and takes account of its contribution to the piece as a whole. […] It is the interpreter’s job to assimilate as much as possible the feeling which the composer turned into music, and to express it in such a way that the listener can hear it in terms of melody, harmony, rhythm and tempo. I have made my choice. First I imagine the musically sensitive listener. Thus I have faith in the listener, just as I have faith in the music, and the two things hang together. My idea is that the listener is able to understand and so all I need to do, insofar as I am able, is to let the

When we listen nowadays to his recordings,

music speak, without recourse to the sort of effects that one can always produce, but at the expense of truth.’ Balance, precision, a beautiful style and a warm interpretation: these are the hallmarks of Ansermet’s performances, and the reasons why his art will always be unaffected by fashion and false traditions, and continue to have the power to move the listener. François Hudry Translation DECCA 1992

Ernest Ansermet’s Beethoven recordings on Decca Eloquence

Symphonies Nos. 1-4 Coriolan Overture 480 0391 (2CD)

Symphonies Nos. 5-8 Egmont Overture 480 0394 (2CD)

Symphony No. 9 Overtures – Prometheus, Fidelio, Leonore 2 & 3; Grosse Fuge 480 0397 (2CD))

Recording producers: Michael Bremner (Symphony No. 1); Ray Minshull (Symphonies Nos. 2, 3); James Walker (Symphony No. 4, Coriolan Overture) Recording engineers: James Lock (Symphony No. 1); Roy Wallace (Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, 4, Coriolan Overture) Recording location: Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland, November 1958 (Symphony No. 4, Coriolan Overture), January 1960 (Symphony No. 2), April 1960 (Symphony No. 3), November 1963 (Symphony No. 1) Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-Homji Art direction: Chilu Tong · www.chilu.com Booklet editor: Bruce Raggatt

480 0391