BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 “Eroica”; R. STRAUSS: ornorn Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 11 – William Caballero, horn/ Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/ Manfred Honeck – Reference Recordings Hybrid FR-728SACD, 65:15 (9/21/18) [www.referencerecodings.com] ****:
Recorded at Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts, Pittsburgh on 27-29 October 2017 and 22-24 September 2012, respectively. In his lengthy accompanying liner notes on the Eroica, conductor Manfred Honeck makes it clear his desire to inject the kinds of forceful interruptions and calculated syncopes, hemiolas, sforzati, and sudden intrusions into the rhythmic flux, that perpetually startle us into a confession that this one symphony changed the course of music history. Beethoven deliberately creates a dramatic tension that arises between meter and rhythm, the asymmetry to be considered a “weakness to be overcome.” The temptation of the D-flat Major melody may well represent a spirit of compromise, which Beethoven categorically rejects. The Recording Engineer Mark Donahue, in close collaboration with conductor Honeck, makes the Pittsburgh brass, strings and tympani especially alert to the dynamic gestures that mark our clear progress through the first movement, truly refreshed in its notion of “heroism” as an expression of (Nietzschean) self-overcoming.
Ludwig van Beethoven,
by Hornemann
The Marcia funebre, we recall, signals the first time such a movement appears in a symphony; and here, it represents the heart of the matter. The martial triplet upbeats from the first movement fanfare now proceed in C minor to suggest the price of the heroic gesture. Principal oboe Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida bears the brunt of the lyric tragedy projected in this movement’s tender, valedictory moments. The force of the ensuing fugato becomes virtually grueling and unbearable, the stretti assuming a crushing dissonance. A soft pianissimo precedes the two chords that usher us into a kind of Dantesque descent. The third horn – after some truly dire riffs in the tympani – presents a motif quite indicative of “fate” in the manner of the Fifth Symphony. The music becomes more tragically transparent as it proceeds, much in the manner of a funeral coterie with chiming bells, to a tearful farewell, perhaps even the musical equivalent of Leb’wohl that we know from Op. 81a.
The Scherzo movement spares no vigor to project the vehement energy in Beethoven’s sense of the dance. The nervous syncopations constantly refuse to let us fall into a sense of complacency that this usual, minuetto movement would have granted us. A true hunting-horn group intones with marcato upbeats. The da capo does not reduce the sense of menace that lies just below the rollicking surface. Perhaps it now becomes beholden to us to recognize Principal Timpanist Edward Stephan. Honeck wants each of the variants that comprise the last movement, based on the “Prometheus” contredanse and ballet motif, as well as the piano variations in E-flat, Op. 35, to assert a distinctive character. Honeck makes a point of Beethoven’s use of Hungarian “Verbunkos” effects to insinuate a more elastic, wild dance. At the Poco Andante Honeck slow the motion to a kind of elegiac stasis. The oboe once more rises in a kind of lament, though rife with woodwind colors in the manner of a Mozart cassation. The triumphal march effect ensues, brilliant in the Pittsburgh brass, nobly heroic. The metric pulse shifts, and the music assumes a thickening, a pressured layering, heavy with tragic menace confronted by an indomitable will. This drive to spiritual victory, Presto, casts aside all doubts, the triplet figures now liberated and finding a Mannheim rocket for the ages.
Richard Strauss, by Max Liebermann
The 1885 Horn Concerto No. 1 of Richard Strauss owes debts to the composer’s father Franz Strauss and to Oscar Franz. Following the model of Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto, the first movement Allegro, attacca, flows into the Andante. The scoring follows the traditional Romantic syntax, not yet stretching the harmonic limits in the manner of the tone-poems like Don Juan. Nevertheless, the challenges posed by the technique daunted the composer’s horn-player father, who declared the work unplayable. From the thrilling call-to-arms of the first chord – after the manner of the Schumann Piano Concerto – Principal horn William Caballero establishes a tenor and line that might be said to equal the lyric virtuosity that Dennis Brain established in this piece more than a half century ago. The range of the instrument traverses the highest and lowest notes, often in quick succession. The rich arpeggios of the horn find support from the Pittsburgh brass and timpani. The Andante proffers Strauss of the Black Forest or the Harz Mountains, in lyric meditation. The volcanic, breezy energy of the final Allegro has a foil in the lyric writing for high winds like the flute, though the underlying impetus continues and even refers to the opening of the Concerto. The timpani, too, asserts itself in the furious, pompous mix that sets the sound of the French horn in a kind of glorious haze. The last pages set a tempo that barely allows players or auditors to catch their collective breath. Heartily recommended.
—Gary Lemco
