Beethoven - Symphonies 1-9 · Overtures / London Classical Players · Sir Roger Norrington

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Music reviews of Beethoven - Symphonies 1-9 · Overtures / London Classical Players · Sir Roger Norrington

Music Review: Beethoven Symphonies At Their Best
Rating: 5 Stars

The most impressive symphony on this recording is the Fifth. Sir Roger Norrington conducts an orchestra that perfectly captures the dramatic flair and conflict that Beethoven wrote in every line. The opening theme of the four staccato notes are more in lines of what Beethoven said about it himself- Fate knocking at the door. During WWII, the four notes in Morse Code equaled the letter V and stood for Allied Forces victory. The first movement is powerful, dramatic, a struggle between what seems small, frail beings againt overwhelming cosmic forces. The adagio movement is classically perfect, a musical coloration of every individual instrument makes a movement that is unforgettable. The last movement, the finale allegro, is exuberant and bombastic, the trumpets are extremely loud, the orchestra beats with triumph. The happy ending of the Fifth foreshadows the happy finale to the 9th, in my personal opinion, and its grandeur is epic, stratospheric in scale. It was the Fifth that officially marked Beethoven a star of the Romantic Era, and took his career in a more challenging direction.

The 6th Symphony, Pastoral, is exquisite, the slowest in tempo of the symphonies, the most varied. It has a cheerful opening movement, and accurately describes an arrival at a sunlit countryside. Listening to the strings, the winds, and the rustling of the instruments, we feel involved in the action of the music. There is a change in time of day toward the end of the symphony. It is night, the serenity of the landscape fills the orchestra and the most sensitive listener, and the elegance of the strings are ethereal. The Seventh symphony has always been likened to a ballet. There is something dance-like in its beat, its music lines that leap and flow with a rhythm that can be indeed danced to. The allegretto movement is a mixture of funereal themes and a quasi-religious march, an inspirational music that is structured as perfectly as any classical symphony before Beethoven's day had been made. Beethoven was an admirer of Mozart, had studied as a boy during Mozart's day, but he strove to perfect music and to take it into newer levels. The Romantic Era born, Beethoven was free to compose music that has become the soundtrack of the human experience. In his symphonies we find the emotions, the darkness, the light, the hope, the spirituality that is everywhere and everyone at once. The loftiest humanitarian ideals compose the meat of Beethoven's music. Beethoven once composed a piece of music for a German prince. The anecdote goes something like this, and in this way, I will conclude: After the Prince sneered at Beethoven's music and said he genuinely disliked that piece and had heard better music in the past, Beethoven became furious, his hallmark temper was aroused. He took his music sheet and started for the door of the Prince's study room. Before he departed, he looked at the Prince and said, "Princes there will always be...but there will be only one Beethoven!."

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