Holde Kunst

The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Sandow “misses” the excitement he’s read about when Beethovn’s symphonies were first being played. Do we know these works too well to hear (quoting E. M. Forster) the third movement of Beethoven’s Fifth as “full of goblins?”

And one problem is that — even in performances by our most famous conductors — the tune won’t sound truly joyful. It’s too well known. How can professional musicians catch the divine fire every time — the 32nd time, the 95th time — that the piece shows up on their music stands?

Sandow really likes Pletnev’s recording of the complete Beethoven Symphonies

But Pletnev does catch it. In his performance, when the tune appeared — first softly, then radiant with light — it sounded like a discovery. When finally it called to heaven with the massed voices of the full orchestra, I wanted to get up and shout. I wanted to sing along. When has that ever happened to me? I just rechecked that moment, as I’m writing this, cuing the first appearance of the tune on my iPod. And I wanted to get up and shout all over again.

I know this is a little of a cop-out but I don’t know Pletnev’s conducting well enough to provide a real opinion. I just listened to last movement of the 9th and I have to say it’s very exciting. It didn’t send me into the kind of epiphany that Sandow experienced — maybe he had the rare pleasure of hearing the music just as he never knew he always wanted to hear it. Hasn’t that happened to all of us? (In my case a recent example is the death of Siegfriend on the Karajan Gotterdammerung.)

Another conductor whose Beethoven I would recommend is Carlos Kleiber - I found myself saying “I never knew Beethoven’s Fifth was like this!” The seeming newness of his interpretation had me on the edge of my seat.

Listen to Pletnev on Rhapsody
includes the Complete Beethoven Symphonies on Deutsche Grammaphon

Listen to Carlos Kleiber on Rhapsody
Beethoven’s 5th and 7th Symphonies available

Rhapsody offers 25 full tracks free every month - no registration

Tags: Beethoven, beethoven symphonies, Mikhail Pletnev