Hats off, boys. This one is for real. I'm talking about the series of
recordings of the Beethoven symphonies in the new Baerenreiter editions
(edited by Jonathan del Mar - anyone able to tell me whether he's related
to the British conductor, Norman del Mar?) and performed by David Zinman
and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra.
I now own Symphonies 3, 4, 5 and 6. (I haven't seen 7 & 8 locally.) All
on the super-budget label Arte Nova. (I paid only $4.99 each for the two
discs so far.) And they're all like a breath of fresh air. When I can
listen to Beethoven and its sounds new, that's something. And that's
what happens with these recordings. Part of my impression is due to
the wonderfully engineered recordings - lively, breathing sound. But
it's mostly that Zinman conducts as if these were original-instrument
performances; of course, the orchestra, the Tonhalle, is decidedly using
modern instruments. Still, the articulation is livelier, the percussion
in particular sounding crisp rather than mushy. And there are, here and
there, little differences - as, for instance, when the oboe in the funeral
march movement of the 'Eroica' makes little melismas in its melody - that
are due to the new editions. I had one cavil with the tempo of the first
movement of the 'Eroica' until I heard it again a second and third time.
Now it sounds right and Klemperer, say, a bit stodgy.
Del Mar went to original materials and avoided carrying forward the
mistakes, misprints, and the editing of the old Breitkopf scores and
parts, used by just about everybody these past 100 years. These are Urtext
editions with that use only a very light editorial hand when it comes to
regularizing phrasing, slurs and the like. Otherwise, though, this is what
Beethoven wrote. Del Mar, in his notes, comments that he looked at the
manuscripts so much that he got so he could immediately spot Beethoven's
(rather than a later editor's) hand in something as small as a staccato
mark.
As to Aaron Rabushka's query about side drums, I agree, I don't hear any.
And no bass drums either. Just timps being played with wooden-headed
sticks.
Scott Morrison
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