As if the catalogues were not bursting to the seams with complete
Beethoven symphony cycles and a plethora of highly recommendable
individual releases, Hyperion has now added its own. Mackerras
has already, and relatively recently, recorded an excellent cycle
with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic for EMI (Classics for Pleasure
575751-2; review).
Hyperion has a reputation for generally avoiding the central repertoire
in favour of more obscure fare, and so the announcement of this
release came as something of a surprise. We are constantly being
told of the impending demise of the classical recording industry
yet also comforted by the knowledge that labels such as Hyperion
will continue to generate a market for their releases due to their
enterprising approach to artists and repertoire. Quite where a
Beethoven symphony cycle conducted by a man who already has an
eminently recommendable set to his name fits into their strategy
I was not quite sure.
What we are presented
with here is, I believe, something of a unique proposition.
These performances were given live at the Edinburgh Festival
in September 2006. Each symphony was presented on its own in
early evening concerts, to wide critical acclaim, and broadcast
by the BBC. Hyperion have now licensed those radio tapes and
released them at mid-price.
Interestingly enough,
in terms of budget priced sets, the earlier Mackerras is in
direct competition with David Zinman’s groundbreaking Arte Nova
set (Arte Nova 74321 65410-2; review).
Zinman was the first to record the cycle in accordance to Jonathan
Del Mar’s recent critical edition of the symphonies. Much flag
waving and sounding of fanfare accompanied the individual releases
of Zinman’s cycle, rather eclipsing the roughly contemporaneous
Mackerras recordings. What very few mentioned, however, was
that Mackerras had been using the fruits of Del Mar’s research
for quite some time and that Zinman merely beat him in terms
of authenticity by being able to say that he was using the latest
published research. Zinman, obviously wanting to stress
novelty value above artistic integrity, proceeded to litter
his performances with outrageously exaggerated effects within
the context of an extremely bland approach to dynamics.
Mackerras could
never be accused of lacking artistic integrity, and this set
is a fitting summation of his many years of experience. I will
say immediately that this latest cycle is perhaps the finest
that I have heard, if such a statement does not appear absurd.
For here we have all the gains of historically informed performance
and up to date research without the studied caution that so
many conductors have brought to the period performance movement
in recent years. If you were not aware of the provenance of
these recordings you would certainly not guess their conductor.
Mackerras conducts these works with an awe-inspiring energy
and sense of discovery. We will never know exactly how Beethoven
intended these symphonies to sound, but I’d wager that Mackerras
comes closer than most to conveying the originality, temperament
and sheer humanity of the composer’s vision.
Mackerras used his
Scottish Chamber Orchestra for the first eight symphonies. As
recorded here, the brass are extremely prominent (too much so
for many listeners I imagine) as are the timpani (hard sticks,
of course). Vibrato is kept to a minimum but not prohibited.
The overall orchestral sound is explosive, vibrant and occasionally
strident. Internal balances are immaculately controlled. I do
not intend to give a blow by blow, movement by movement account
of these performances; much of the joy that I have experienced
in listening to them is a result of pleasant surprise. But I
will attempt to give a general overview of each symphony so
that readers will have some idea of Mackerras’s general approach.
The First Symphony
is given a relatively ‘straightforward’ reading; that is not,
of course, to say that it is in any way dull, merely that Mackerras
understands that this is not exactly Beethoven at his most revolutionary.
It is an approach that works, as it would in any other ‘minor’
masterpiece - such as Schubert’s Fifth, for example.
The opening of the first movement struck me as surprisingly
broad and led me to think that this was going to be, shall we
say, a more ‘mature’ mans cycle, such as Colin Davis gave us
back in the mid-90s with the Dresden Staatskapelle (a personal
favourite and still, I believe, available in all its granite
hewn glory on Philips 446 067-2). First impressions can me misleading
and such is the case here. The pace certainly picks up once
Mackerras reaches the main allegro section of the movement,
but I don’t think he drives the music too hard in the manner
of Zinman, Harnoncourt and, I’m afraid, Gardiner. What we hear
is a sensible rendition of this music that merely treats it
with the respect it deserves, imbued with a great regard for
tasteful levels of contrast and clarity of balances.
To describe Mackerras’s
approach to the second movement as ‘Mozartian’ may be indulging
in cliché, but that is exactly what we get; grace and refinement
are the key notes here. The ensuing Menuett is taken
at quite a pace but is once again expertly articulated and balanced,
and with thunderous timpani where appropriate. The final movement
is once again fleet without being over-driven. Some may prefer
greater weight to the orchestral sound, and I certainly would
have welcomed a sense of sostenuto to the sforzando
minims.
Truth be told, Mackerras’s
performance of the Second Symphony displays many of the
same virtues. Again, tempi are swift without exaggeration, and
the extra space given to the third movement Scherzo allows
more spring and lift to the rhythms. I was expecting this approach
to be less successful in the ‘Eroica’ Third Symphony.
Yet in the first movement Mackerras takes what strikes me as
being the ideal tempo, charting a middle course between the
electrifying scramble of Gardiner and the broader, more graceful
bluster of the ‘old school’ for which Klaus Tennstedt’s 1994
live traversal - a recording I will return to shortly- is an
exemplar. Mackerras is expressive without being indulgent and
the movement really does have a balletic feel, as sense of schwung
that has eludes so many in the past.
Obviously no historically
informed performance with a reasonably sized orchestra is going
to be able to create the sense of tragedy at the opening of the
Marcia Funebre that you get with a Furtwangler or a Karajan.
Yet Mackerras, by virtue of taking a swifter tempo and encouraging
his string players to play with minimal vibrato certainly creates
a chilly effect. This works marvellously when contrasted with
the brighter passages later on in the movement. The finale goes
off like a shot and is certainly among the most uplifting Beethoven
performances I have heard, capping an exceptionally fine recording
of this work. In the final analysis though, I did find something
lacking here. There are depths to this music that historically
informed performances prohibit and, though I certainly can’t use
that as any kind of justifiable criticism, I would have perhaps
expected Mackerras to indulge himself a little more here and there.
My case in point is when the music of the last movement slows
down to reflect on what has preceded it. Mackerras, very reasonably,
sounds like he’s stood at the summit of an alp and admiring the
awesome view, which is probably what the composer intended. In
the aforementioned Tennstedt performance (available coupled with
the Sixth and Eighth, EMI Gemini 371462-2; review)
you get the impression that the conductor is gazing out over eternity,
reflecting on a life beset by most of the greatest political and
social upheavals of the twentieth century. Tennstedt’s music-making
was informed by horrors that Beethoven had probably never contemplated;
he once described the first movement of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony
as predicting the Nazi menace. The problem of historically
informed performance is that it leads to a kind of ‘museum culture’;
in the pursuit of knowledge I would quite happily listen to a
Beethoven performance exactly as the composer intended it. But
I would listen once, maybe twice, and then move on, just as the
world has in the past two hundred years. In fairness to Mackerras
his is pretty much the only performance of this work that, for
myself, presents an accurate image of the work as Beethoven intended
whilst expressing some of the loftier ideas of some of his contemporaries.
That in itself is a remarkable achievement and it is only personal
taste that prohibits me from recommending this as the ‘Eroica’
of choice.
No such qualms about
the Fourth Symphony, or in fact the Fifth, both
of which receive blistering accounts. I don’t think I’ve heard
a finer performance of the earlier work, whilst its famous successor
certainly ranks with the greatest recordings. In the first movement
of the Fifth I felt that Mackerras’s lightning pace robbed the
music of a certain amount of buoyancy, and there is a definite
feeling of a triplet rhythm to the iconic opening gesture. Yet
the ensuing movements pack an enormous punch, the Andante
particularly well paced. Throughout this work, Beethoven
plays on the contrast between the nihilistic, descending motif
of the very opening and its optimistic, ascending equivalent
(heard most obviously as the upbeat to the first theme of the
second movement); many conductors highlight this struggle simply
by beating the listener over the head with as many extremes
of dynamic as possible. Mackerras is content to play out the
musical battles at the heart of the work with an intellectual
rigour which is supremely satisfying. No more intelligent reading
of this difficult symphony exists on record and it is certainly
instructive to compare it with the recording by young firebrand
Gustavo Dudamel (DG 4776228; reviews);
the Venezuelan conductor is superficially exciting, yes, but
listening to Mackerras only goes to highlight what decades of
experience and academic study can add to a performance.
I was expecting
the Sixth Symphony to be a disappointment. It is the
one symphony of the entire cycle that I feel really needs a
warm, ‘traditional’ orchestral sonority. It is the most gentle
of these works and I initially felt that the timbre of the Scottish
Chamber Orchestra would be unsuitable to reaping the extraordinary
riches of this work. Happily I was mistaken; Mackerras tones
down the more abrasive qualities of the earlier performances
to give a truly rewarding reading of this score. Once again,
though, personal preferences preclude making this a first choice.
I don’t think anyone who has heard Carlos Kleiber’s recently
unearthed live recording - remarkably the only time he
ever conducted it - will ever forget it, and for me every performance
of the work that I hear will struggle to compete with it. The
true mark of a great performance is how the audience respond
to it; on the Orfeo release of Kleiber’s performance (Orfeo
C600031B) the applause is retained. The nature of that applause
is in itself remarkable. The audience, obviously mesmerised
by the performance, are initially reticent. After a brief silence,
a few members tentatively begin to clap but, realising that
the other occupants of the Bayerische Staatsoper are still in
a trance-like state of absolute pleasure, cease. After a few
more seconds of silence the house erupts. At the end of Mackerras’s
performance I was wishing that I had been present on that afternoon
in Edinburgh; at the end of Kleiber’s I felt like I had been
transported to Munich on a lovely summer’s afternoon - the performance
was actually given in November 1983.
The only performance
on the Seventh that touches me more than Mackerras’s
present one does so for very different reasons. Leonard Bernstein’s
final concert (with the Boston Symphony) is one of a kind. The
tensile strength of his vision, so unfashionable these days,
takes the breath away and, in the Allegretto, you can
almost feel the chill of death in those horribly protracted
pauses that Bernstein introduces. Happily Mackerras’s performance
of the same work is altogether more enjoyable. In that same
Allegretto movement the antipodean conductor (at a much
swifter tempo) still manages to convey a sense of depth, but
the major-key interjections are carried more successfully by
the more suitable tempo. The lack of vibrato at the start of
the movement aids the generation of atmosphere and the long
crescendo thereafter, so difficult to bring off, is a model
of control and a clear indicator of years of experience. In
my mind only Haitink, at a Proms concert with the Berlin Philharmonic
several years ago, has managed the same feat. Beethoven certainly
knew what he was doing when he wrote that crescendo, but may
have been a little naïve in terms of the practicalities of executing
it.
This has always
been a favourite symphony of mine, with its combination of geniality
and visceral excitement. Wagner, famously, referred to it as
the ‘apotheosis of dance’. That said, I’ve never heard a satisfying
performance of it. The tempi were always wrong and, if they
weren’t, the textures were too heavy… The closest I’ve heard
to perfection recently was at the hands of the aforementioned
Dudamel, who at least had something interesting to say. I recall
a conductor of mine once praising to the hilt a recording of
the aged Stokowski conducting this piece, sighting the absolute
rhythmic rigour as the reason for its success. That’s what Mackerras
gives us here, and a great deal besides. Tempi are not especially
quick, but textures are so clear that it feels like you’re looking
at a new restoration of the Mona Lisa only to find that her
drab green frock was actually dazzling emerald. That is Mackerras’s
great achievement here, a truly enlightening reading, revolutionary
without having to resort to point-scoring. What attracted me
to that Bernstein recording was that the stoic act of absolute
conviction in the music even at a remarkably slow pace spilled
over into exultation by the end; Bernstein presented a struggle
of such cosmic dimensions that you couldn’t help but be engulfed
in it. Mackerras gives the exultation without the struggle and
that, for me, represents the best of all possible worlds. My
only slight reservation is that I would have welcomed more breadth
to the trio sections of the third movement. It is that
thing with the Alps again … Mackerras sounds like he’s going
for a brisk walk; I think Beethoven was probably thinking a
little taller.
Once again, the
Eighth Symphony is given a truly exceptional performance.
Anyone knowing this work will hopefully have gathered from my
previous comments that Mackerras’s general approach to Beethoven
as evinced in this set is perfectly suited to the ‘little’ Eighth
Symphony. It is a lovely performance, and the opening of the
second movement has never sounded as Rossinian as here.
For the Ninth
Symphony Mackerras chose to use the Philharmonia instead
of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. I can see his point; the
loftiness and progressive thinking behind the work do require
larger forces. What one has to weigh against this is the obvious
inconsistency in timbre between the previous eight works and
this final, monumental one. There is also that fact that it
becomes very clear quite early into the first movement that
whilst the SCO performances were borne of a familiarity between
conductor and orchestra honed over many years the Philharmonia
Ninth was probably a little more ad-hoc. The results, while
undeniably exciting, can seem a little crude. The first movement
is taken quickly enough for it to sound hurried, and ensemble
is not always as polished as we are accustomed to. Not so long
ago Haitink gave us big-band Beethoven that more successfully
integrated period practices with ‘old-school’ tendencies (LSO
0598). And yet…Mackerras elucidates so much detail within Beethoven’s
orchestration that the experience is absolutely electrifying.
If the conductor was trying to demonstrate just how revolutionary
this movement was at the time of its composition then attention
has been paid.
The molto vivace
second movement is not quite as extreme in tempo as its
predecessor and yet still generates considerable excitement.
The third movement hears the Philharmonia as you do not normally
expect them to sound; Mackerras’s ‘sparse vibrato’ policy applies
even here. More than at any point within this new cycle here
sense a level of engagement with Beethoven’s music that transgresses
sublime and moves on to realms of achievement that are rarely
heard in the concert hall let alone on record. Several years
ago, Simon Rattle in his television series ‘Leaving Home’ equated
the passing of time in this movement to the ticking of a clock,
corresponding with a fundamentally human instinct. Mackerras
provides us with a convincing musical argument to back up Rattle;
this really is music making that penetrates the soul and reminds
us what it is to be human.
The belief in the
spirit of humankind has always attracted me to the finale of
this symphony. Some have expressed bewilderment in its apparent
lack of formal unity; this I have excused on the basis that
it is composed around the structure of Schiller’s text. Others
have adopted it for more sinister purposes. George Steiner once
informed me that in the sketches for Theodor Adorno’s (unfinished)
book on Beethoven he had circled a passage of Schiller’s prose
referring to brotherhood and written the name ‘Hitler’ beside
it. Without wanting to pass judgements on the activities of
various conductors during and after the Third Reich, the teutonic
quality of many Beethoven performances after the Second World
War can largely be seen as due to influence of conductors such
as Fürtwängler, Karajan and Böhm, none of whom were completely
innocent of collaboration. One only has to look at Karajan’s
Unitel film of this particular work (DG) to see how, consciously
or not, Beethoven’s humanitarian spirit had been grotesquely
transformed into some kind of proto-fascist rally. If you don’t
believe me then borrow a copy and witness regimented lines of
choristers with immaculately coiffeured appearances participating
in probably the most joyless ‘Ode to Joy’ of all time.
Bernstein, of course,
was the conductor of the most obviously political performance
of this work, on Christmas Day 1989, drawing together musicians
from the four nations that were united after the fall of the
Berlin Wall (Britain, America, Germany and Russia). Bernstein
was already ill and, despite dubious political choices in the
1970s, chose this work above all to express the feeling of optimism
and faith in humanity that was fitting for such a land-mark
occasion. Fittingly he chose to replace ‘Joy’ with ‘Freedom’
(ironically Schiller’s original intention), which not only added
a greater vibrancy to the vowel sounds of the choral lines but
also provided the Western world with one of its truly iconic
musical moments. No-one who saw the broadcast of those concerts
on TV or who have heard the CD are likely to forget the impact
of having an already iconic piece of music sum up an entire
period of political history.
So, where does that
leave Mackerras? Well, I doubt that I have ever heard a more
moving, exciting, optimistic performance of this movement. There
may not be the political, historical or emotional ties of that
Bernstein performance, and yet Mackerras is absolutely in-tune
with Beethoven and Schiller’s message. This is about as humane
a performance as you are likely to hear. Rarely have I heard
a performance of anything that embodies such optimism and faith
in humanity.
That is certainly
a comment I can make about all of the performances in this set.
To have the greatest works of one of our finest composers conducted
with such understanding by one of the late-twentieth century’s
finest and most enquiring conductors would be a privilege even
at full price. At Hyperion’s modest price tag this is certainly
the Beethoven set to have. Even the packaging looks good; instead
of the usual photo of the artist that we tend to get these days
we get a water colour (by June Mendoza) of Mackerras sitting in
his study looking content with the world. Anyone buying this set
will probably look the same.
Owen E Walton
Janice Watson
(soprano); Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mezzo); Stuart Skelton (tenor);
Detlef Roth (bass); Edinburgh Festival Chorus; Scottish Chamber
Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra/Sir Charles Mackerras 
