Tag Archives: Ludwig van Beethoven

In concert – Guy Johnston, Britten Sinfonia / Thomas Gould @ Barbican Hall: The Protecting Veil

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Guy Johnston (cello, above), Britten Sinfonia / Thomas Gould (violin)

Beethoven arr. Weingartner Grosse Fuge Op.133 (1826)
Bartók Divertimento for String Orchestra Sz113 (1939)
Tavener The Protecting Veil (1988)

Barbican Hall, London
Thursday 15 February 2024

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

The Protecting Veil is a special piece. Written by John Tavener in 1988, this musical meditation for cello and orchestra is based on and inspired by the Greeks resisting Saracen invasion in the early tenth century. They are heartened by a vision of Mary, the Mother of God, surrounded by a host of saints and spreading out her Veil as a protective shelter over the Christians.

In what is effectively a single-movement concerto, the cello represents the Mother of God, leading the string orchestra in eight prayerful chapters that respond to landmark events in which she is present. It may sound elegiac and deeply ambient for much of its duration, but to achieve this elevated state the performers require poise, concentration and inner strength.

It is hard to imagine a better performance than this one experienced at the Barbican. Guy Johnston led us in contemplation, the serenity of his upper register cello line immediately establishing a mood of calm, in complete contrast to the bustling city outside. The Britten Sinfonia responded in kind, conducted where necessary by violinist Thomas Gould but largely following the cello, a congregation responding to his prompting.

In spite of its inner serenity, The Protecting Veil is troubled by the shadows of violence throughout the world. This performance was a stark reminder of how little has changed in eleven centuries, for in the ominous falling motif that recurs for the cello it was impossible not to think of bombs and missiles raining down in the many warzones we see today. The Barbican fell largely silent as those images undoubtedly projected to many listeners, aided by a sympathetic light show that cast the distinctive markings of the back of the stage as a wooden chapel. When Johnston played alone in the central section, The Lament of the Mother of God at the Cross, he could easily have been playing solo Bach, the intimacy of his and Tavener’s thoughts laid bare.

There was, ultimately, consolation and redemption, and the lights burned yellow when the music soared back to the heights with which it began. Feverish anticipation gripped the strings as they responded excitably to the higher cello, and with a surety of tone that never dimmed, Johnston led us to the end. His was a remarkable performance of stamina and poise, those long notes held for what seemed like an eternity, their pure tones never dipping.

The musical contrast with the opening piece, Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, was notable. Here is a piece that still sounds as new and every bit as challenging as the day it was written, the Everest of fugues. In this arrangement for string orchestra by Felix Weingartner, its angular subject is a touch smoother at the edges, though here the sharp lines were just as clear as in the string quartet original, the fugue subject escaping its restrictions. The Britten Sinfonia found its core in a well-drilled performance.

Bartók’s Divertimento for String Orchestra was lighter in mood to begin with, the ensemble celebrating the great outdoors as the folksy first tune went with a swing. Yet here too there were troubled minds, the slow movement wary of its place in history. Bartók wrote the Divertimento in 1939 in Switzerland, with Europe on the brink of the Second World War. The oppressive approach of the conflict could be felt in a profound slow movement, which began with feathery violas and reached a forbidding climax, emotion wrought from its pages. Those worries were largely banished by the finale, whose powerful unisons were led by Gould as the piece swaggered and bustled to the finish.

Guy Johnston and the Britten Sinfonia continue their tour with The Protecting Veil to Dublin and Manchester – for more details visit the Britten Sinfonia website

Published post no.2,090 – Saturday 17 February 2024

In concert – Natalya Romaniw, CBSO / Vassily Sinaisky: Beethoven and Tchaikovsky

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Natalya Romaniw (soprano, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Vassily Sinaisky (below)

Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (1869, rev. 1872 & 1880)
Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin, Op.24 (1877-78) – Letter Scene
Beethoven Ah! Perfido, Op.65 (1796)
Beethoven Symphony no.2 in D major Op.36 (1801-2)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 14 February 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

It might have been billed as a concert for Valentine’s Day and, though there was little about tonight’s programme to reinforce ‘true love reigns supreme’, it did make for a welcome new collaboration between the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Vassily Sinaisky.

Whether or not there is any more personal significance in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, it remains a potent encapsulation of Shakespeare’s tragedy. The brooding introduction seemed a little inhibited, but Sinaisky brought suitable incisiveness to the warring families and growing ardour to the love music. Nor was there any lack of drama as this ‘fantasy overture’ unfolded to its fateful denouement – after which, the benedictory chorale as Friar Laurence movingly apostrophises these doomed lovers brought an eloquent response from the CBSO woodwind.

Tchaikovsky’s reputation as an opera composer may have altered markedly over the decades, but Eugene Onegin has held the stage since its premiere; the Letter Scene, in which Tatyana knowingly risks all for love of a cynical anti-hero, its highlight. The Welsh-Ukrainian soprano Natalya Romaniw responded with real impulsiveness and, if her projection was too full-on to convey the emotional ambivalence and fragility of its central stages, the joyous abandon of its beginning and reckless determination at its close were duly rendered with unfailing charisma.

Romaniw sounded even more in her element as the jilted lover of Pietro Metastasio’s lyric Ah! Perfido which Beethoven set in his mid-20s. The latter wrote few such concert arias, but the immediacy of his response can hardly be gainsaid and Romaniw gave it her all – whether in its despairing introduction, the more consoling yet hardly untroubled expression that follows, or the steely resolve of those closing pages where the former ‘loved one’ is denounced in no uncertain terms. As in the Tchaikovsky, it was a pity neither text nor surtitles were provided.

Quite how Beethoven’s Second Symphony fitted into tonight’s conception was unclear, other than with its determination to defy fate and live life to the full, but Sinaisky evidently relished putting the CBSO through its paces – not least a first movement whose imposing introduction prepared for an Allegro of driving impetus and emotional fervour ideally intertwined prior to the blazing coda. Easy to underestimate, the Larghetto impressed with its lilting elegance and, in the central development, its teasing modulations – alongside a pay-off of disarming poise.

If, given its textural weight and unabashed rhetoric, this was ostensibly a performance of the ‘old school’, there was nothing portentous about Sinaisky’s take on the Scherzo – as lithe and quizzical as its trio was capricious, then the final Allegro had the character of an opera buffa ensemble refashioned for the post-Classical symphony toward which Beethoven was striving. Not the least attraction of this reading was its differentiation between soft and loud dynamics – crucial to the impact of a lengthy coda which fairly crackled with energy in its closing bars.

A gripping performance of a symphony which, while hardly unknown, is likely the least often played (albeit in the UK) of Beethoven’s nine. Sinaisky has enjoyed a productive relationship with the CBSO across the years, and it is to be hoped that this will continue in future seasons.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the names for more on soprano Natalya Romaniw and conductor Vassily Sinaisky. To read more about the Beethoven works in the program, follow Arcana’s Listening to Beethoven series – which has already included Ah! Perfido and the Symphony no.2

Published post no.2,089 – Friday 16 February 2024

Listening to Beethoven #226 – 6 Ecossaises WoO83

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Design for a Beethoven commemorative coin for 5 German marks, 1969 – photograph of an unmarked model

6 Ecossaises WoO83 for piano (c1806, Beethoven aged 35)

Dedication unknown
Duration 2″

Listen

by Ben Hogwood

Background and Critical Reception

The general Wikipedia definition for an Ecossaise is ‘an energetic country dance in duple time in which couples form lines facing each other’. Keith Anderson, writing notes for Naxos, states that ‘the so-called Scottish dance was, in fact, a form of contredanse, a product of French imagination’.

Beethoven wrote a small number of these dances for piano, and according to the brief notes for the DG Beethoven Edition, ‘some of these were intended to be used in ballrooms to accompany actual dancing, as seems to have been the case with the ecossaises and waltzes WoO83-86.’

These examples were published in 1807, though there is some doubt over their authenticity.

Thoughts

These lively dances are a lot of fun – and Beethoven shows that even in supposedly minor works like this, he is still capable of writing a tune that will stay in the head. It is the refrain that ends the first dance, and then comes back for a repeat after each of the six little variant dances.

Anyone who had ventured on to the dance floor at the sound of the first dance will surely have stayed for the duration, and hoped for more of the same in successive works!

Recordings used and Spotify playlist

Ronald Brautigam (BIS)
Jenó Jandó (Naxos)
Olli Mustonen (Decca)
Alfred Brendel (Vox)
Wilhelm Kempff (DG)
Martino Tirimo (Hänssler)

Some lively recordings here, and some notably different approaches. Martino Tirimo is curiously stilted, while Brendel, Kempff and Jenó Jandó are typically elegant. Ronald Brautigam is brisk and lively, his dancers whirling around in circles.

Also written in 1806 Hummel 12 Minuets

Next up String Quartet no.7 in F major Op.59/1

Listening to Beethoven #224 – Leonore Overture no.3 Op.72b

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Beethoven’s Leonore as seen in a production by Buxton Opera, 2016

Leonore Overture no.2 Op.72b, used by Beethoven for a revision of his opera in three acts (1804-05, Beethoven aged 34)

Duration 14’30”

by Ben Hogwood

Background and Critical Reception

As the writer Herbert Glass points out, in program notes written for a concert by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, “Beethoven spent more time writing the overture to Fidelio than Rossini and Donizetti spent on entire operas, overture included”! He goes on to qualify this investment of time, asserting that “No. 3…distils the essence of the opera itself, transmitting its power in less than a quarter-hour’s playing time’.

No.3 – confusingly – is the second in order of composition, following no.2 which was used in the first performance of the opera. No.1 – a heavily trimmed version – would follow later, with the Fidelio overture itself a reinvented prelude to the finalised opera.

Robert Simpson, in an essay about Leonore and the resultant Fidelio, points out that the advantage of this overture over its predecessor is “its very accurate delineation of all these key relationships” – by which he means the conflict between the opera’s ‘home’ key of ‘C’ and the ‘prison’ key of B flat major, where the malevolent character Pizarro is found. He describes Beethoven using C major as “an open sky”, and B flat as “the oppressive atmosphere of the jail”, then discussing at length the key of Florestan (A flat major) and Leonore herself (E major). His conclusion is that “no-one will ever exhaust all this great music, surely the greatest ever written for the theatre”.

Thoughts

While listening to the Leonore Overture no.2 I noted that the orchestral dialogue ‘operates on the scope more of a symphonic poem than an overture’ – and that is even more a case in point with the third overture. As an orchestral piece it may be longer but it is a thrilling listen, especially when Beethoven’s ‘open sky’, as Simpson calls it, is found.

To get there we have to traverse the awful claustrophobia of the prison, but there are always shafts of light – the flute solo in Florestan’s key around two-thirds of the way through, and the offstage trumpets that set an incredibly vivid scene. After the uncertain groping in the dark, the blazing light of C major. On the way there we experience some trials, most noticeably a striking dischord right before the end – a wonderful dramatic touch that carries the deepest possible impact.

Recordings used

Berliner Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan (DG)
Cleveland Orchestra / George Szell (Sony)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch (DG)
Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Teldec)
Philadelphia Orchestra / Riccardo Muti (EMI)

Once again Herbert von Karajan, with the silvery strings of his Berliner Philharmoniker machine, comes up trumps with a wholly satisfying version. Yet Igor Markevitch is arguably more dramatic still, his final pages a terrific release of tension built up earlier, in a reading that undercuts most others by a minute. Any of the other three serve as ideal guides, too.

You can listen on the links below:

Also written in 1805 Carafa Il Fantasma

Next up 32 Variations in C minor, WoO80

Listening to Beethoven #223 – Leonore Overture no.2 Op.72a

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Beethoven’s Leonore as seen in a production by Buxton Opera, 2016

Leonore Overture no.2 Op.72a, used by Beethoven for the first edition of his opera in three acts (1804-05, Beethoven aged 34)

Duration 13′

by Ben Hogwood

Background and Critical Reception

Beethoven’s struggles with writing his first opera extended to finding the right overture. In all he composed four overtures for Leonore / Fidelio – three for the former, and one for the latter.

Lindsay Kemp, writing booklet notes for LSO Live, explains how the problem was not one of musical quality, but one of function. Originally his idea was ‘to provide a programmatic prelude that would foreshadow the ensuing drama and its music in the manner of the overtures of contemporary French opera.’ He describes the results as ‘grand but architecturally loose’.

Confusingly this is known as ‘no.2’ – which was followed the next year by ‘no.3’, then a heavily trimmed ‘no.1’ and finally Fidelio.

Thoughts

Drama is to the fore in this overture, and it is immediately clear that Beethoven’s efforts to find a suitable prelude led to a great deal of invention.

The opening pages are redolent of a French overture; also more than a little reminiscent of the Representation of Chaos that begins Haydn’s Creation oratorio. The tension barely lets up, save for a softer episode where a tender love theme is aired. All too soon, though, we are back in stormy C minor – Fifth symphony territory – from which Beethoven navigates to the major key for an episode of power and precision.

This is a serious orchestral dialogue that operates on the scope more of a symphonic poem than an overture, and the final arguments are thrilling in their execution. The trumpet fanfares towards the end are a case in point, setting the scene perfectly for a triumphant final coda – and also for the action to follow.

Recordings used

Berliner Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan (DG)
Cleveland Orchestra / George Szell (Sony)
Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Teldec)
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique / Sir John Eliot Gardiner (DG Archiv)
Freiburger Barockorchester / René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi)

There are some terrific versions of this overture. Maximum theatricality can be achieved by listening to any of Karajan, Szell, Harnoncourt and Gardiner – though the silky strings of Karajan’s version really do set the tension. René Jacobs, too, in his version of the complete opera, starts with high stakes.

You can listen on the links below:

Also written in 1805 James HookThe Soldier’s Return

Next up Leonore Overture no.2 Op.72a