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| Symphony No.7 | Symphony No.9, "Choral" |
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"Prodigious."
Sir George Grove
"One of those works for which there is no model and no match; it falls, complete, out of heaven into the mind of the artist."
Hector Berlioz, on the Allegretto
Another problem-child. Composed in the summer of 1812, Beethoven's "jovial" symphony, with no real slow movement, the famous metronome effect in the allegretto and a finale whose coda is longer than the rest of the movement, it, like the Fourth, suffers from the greatness of its immediate predecessor and successor.
The symphony was first performed on February 27, 1814 in Vienna, at one of several repeats of the concert at which the Seventh was premiered. It followed the Seventh in the programme, and was harshly judged in comparison. Beethoven, said to have been irritated by the audience reaction, protested that the new work was "much better" than its predecessor.
I was astounded by Harnoncourt's Eighth in his complete cycle - fiery and precise - and was quite prepared to declare it the greatest Eighth I had ever heard (BUT see below). Nevertheless it remains a first choice for modern stereo.
First choice here is the superb Norrington. This was the first instalment in his cycle and still - together with the coupling, the Second, remains the best. For once the claims of the period performance advocates actually seem reasonable: there is a freshness and an excitement about this disc which is all too rare.
It was only a couple of weeks after acquiring the Harnoncourt set - and being totally bowled over by his Eighth, that I bought the Scherchen MCA 2CD set (no longer available in that form). It has since been reissued on MCA's new Millenium line, again sharing a disc with his stereo Pastoral; after that, the narrowly focused, somewhat constricted 1954 mono sound of the Eighth comes initially as a shock, but within seconds the listener is swept up in the whirlwind that is Scherchen's opening movement.
Although the keynote of the outer movements is excitement, Scherchen still finds time to relax and I've rarely heard a more genial account of the allegretto scherzando.
If you own the Double Decker original of this there is no need to replace it; while the Millenium transfer is quieter in terms of tape hiss, I can't help feel they've removed some of the life from the recording.
For me, Scherchen's is incontestably the finest interpretation of this work bar none.Well, actually bar one: a while after acquiring the Scherchen a friend in the US tracked down an old Westminster LP of Barbirolli conducting the First and Eighth symphonies. Barbirolli's Eighth is every bit as great as Scherchen's. As far as I'm concerned these two head the list, with Harnoncourt and honourable third - or first, if you insist on modern stereo. Perhaps Vanguard will reissue this, or does it, like the other Barbirolli Pye recordings (for such I suspect this to be) now belong to EMI? Will they ever reissue them?
The Scherchen and Barbirolli are the only performances I know which would tempt one to agree with the composer that the Eighth really is "much better" than the Seventh.
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| Symphony No.7 | Symphony No.9, "Choral" |
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| Survey menu | Discography (this symphony) |