After all, this is the only outing you’ve had in three months! Watch Lenny talk about Beethoven’s proclivities directly into the camera, and imagine that you will brush elbows with him at the reception later.Īre you looking for meaning to this madness? Have you already cleaned out every junk drawer in your home and organized your books according to size, shape, and the colors of roy g biv? Nobody can tame chaos like Arturo Toscanini. Put some lip gloss on, dress up and make it into an event. I hope you have some microwave popcorn somewhere in the back of your pantry. You will have all the drama and passion and intrigue you crave. You will literally feel your brain cells multiplying.Īre you stir crazy, and would do anything to get out and go to the theatre? Watch the Hollywood version of this piece conducted by Leonard Bernstein in 1978. The clarity is astounding, and never gets old. His is the only ensemble that sounds like an alien with twenty different distinct voices, all playing as one sentient being. Did you write your dissertation on this symphony? Szell will show you passages and lines you were not aware of. Watch the whole thing and you will be rewarded in the climactic end by seeing him mopping his face and then frantically trying to stuff the handkerchief back into his lapel pocket before anyone notices that he’s actually human.ĭo you need an intellectual challenge? Have you already conquered the chemistry of sourdough baking, having mastered the boule, now using your starter in focaccia and even pancakes? Okay, do this: Put on George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra and I guarantee you will hear notes that you never knew existed in this piece. Those ascending passages transform the humble scale into profound statements on humanity’s greatest accomplishments. Listen to the way he builds momentum in the prologue. He gets magisterial things out of the orchestra using only his eyebrows. You will have a lot of fun watching Reiner and his shocking economy of movement. Wait, there is Janos Starker at the front of the cello section! And Ray Still’s brilliant predecessor, Florian Mueller! It’s a pageant of the greats, with close ups in all the right places. Oh Fritz, with your toy soldier right arm, mechanically moving up and down while the REAL conducting is done with your eyes. This is the symphonic metaphor of putting on your bathing suit for the first time in summer.Īre you feeling sentimental, lamenting the “good old days?” Watch Reiner’s video with Chicago from 1954. There is no time to despair, the third and fourth movement are soon there to take your cares away with their exuberance. You won’t get bogged down in the sadness of the second movement because Kleiber takes it at a cheery clip that hypnotizes you into the soothing balm of the major section. If you want to obliterate the dark days of quarantine, this is the recording for you. You won’t be able to stop yourself from whistling along with the jaunty flute when it presents the theme. As the fourth piano concerto seems to say everything there is to say about G major, this symphony is the house that holds A major, with room after room of its joy, its spirit, its hope. Each note of the ascending scales in the prologue is a puff of Schlag atop rows and rows of Sachertorte. On everyone’s top ten list, this is the version that radiates light and love and sprinkles irresistible charm at each barline. (And couldn’t we all use a little human triumph about now?) Norman tells me that the seventh symphony is up next, and we already know better than to offend our audience by claiming that one version is the “best ever,” and so I will leave it to you to decide which Beethoven 7th YOU need right now, in this bizarre time.ĭoes your body need sunlight and vitamin D to ramp up your immune system? Then go for Carlos Kleiber’s 1976 Vienna recording. We have donated the ticket costs and cancelled our travel, and all that is left is for us to play some of the late bagatelles on our piano that desperately needs a socially distanced tuning, or to scroll through an overtaxed youtube to get our fix of this titan, the man who changed sonata form forever and transformed the symphony into an expression of indefatigable human triumph. One of the most bitter casualties of the Great Virus of 2020, Beethoven lost out on all of his 250th birthday celebrations worldwide. Welcome to the 81st work in the Slipped Disc/Idagio Beethoven Editionīefore we come down to the final selection, pianist Lori Kaufman in Chicago has sent us these thoughts of pressing relevance:
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