Performers: Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano/London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Bernard Haitink
Program: The Five Piano Concertos; Leonore Overture No. 2; Leonore Overture No. 3;
Egmont Overture; Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93
Studio: Decca DVD 074 3214, 2 discs (Distrib. Universal)
Video: 4:3 full screen, Color
Audio: PCM Mono
Duration: 277 minutes
Rating: ****
Recorded by the BBC in London’s Royal Festival Hall in March and April 1974, this integral set of Beethoven piano concertos and selected symphonic works provides over four hours’ worth of a Beethoven festival of significance. Introduced by commentator Basil Moss, the entire sequence of works enjoys complementary graphics on Beethoven to fill out the historical context of the compositions. While Decca offers a disclaimer as to the video quality of the videos, I find the visuals vivid and pointed, no smears or
wash-outs in either the concerts or transitions.
Haitink opens with a measured, classically-balanced realization of the C Major Leonore Overture No. 3, which moves inexorably to its song of freedom. The camera moves from strings to solo flute to the colossal coda in streamlined fashion, much like the youthful Haitink himself, the model of restraint and clarity. A touch of the romantic impulse does manage to infiltrate the opening tutti for the C Major Piano Concerto, Op. 15. Haitink’s left hand is quite active, ushering tremolos and emotional urgency from his players. Flute, bassoon, and clarinet join Ashkenazy for the light-footed textures that proceed from Beethoven’s whirling and declamatory filigree, rising to tender poetics in the dolce passages. The overhead shots give us a sense of Beethoven’s epic panorama just prior to the key shift to the development section. Ashkenazy’s Steinway is a model of clear but unpercussive clarity. Closeup on Ashkenazy’s fierce concentration, and then the recapitulation enters, strings, winds, tympani. Haitink sweats intensely under the hot lights, but his face radiates only serenity of execution. Wonderful, nervous energy in Ashkenazy’s runs, pianissimi, and stabbing staccati, which suddenly melt into long, legato arias. A seething eddy for a cadenza ending with a wicked trill and the trumpets from Haitink, this festive movement utterly gripping. Thoroughly loving treatment for the Largo, with leggierissimo effects from Ashkenazy as pearly as they are quiet. Rambunctous virtuosity marks the finale, the French horns and woodwinds having as much of a frolic as Ashkenazy with his syncopated riffs and crossed hands. Even Ashkenazy relishes the final chords from the orchestra.
The Beethoven Eighth remains a model of classical compression, the Eroica transformed into Homeric laughter. A pumped-up Haitink assumes the helm, and we are off to the Empyrean races. Measured, temperate, stately, but occasionally witty and mischievous, the music allows the LPO to strut is virtuosic stuff. Happy harmonies, exalted pedal points in the first movement. Lustrous string tone from the LPO. The loving tribute to Maazel’s metronome giddily proceeds through all sorts of metric evolutions, genial, and eventually touched by divine madness. The quirky menuet flows, bassoons and horns insistent and impatient, in bubbling fashion. The LPO is almost over-refined in this Haydn moment. Sweetmeats and sparks for the finale, a paean to Nature’s energies, which occasionally explode in delightful frenzy.
The Haydnesque B-flat Concerto enjoys a good-natured, relaxed tempo, Haitink’s leaning into the dolce statement before the dark cellos and wistful strings take us back to the martial dance that occupies the first movement. Ashkenazy plays the work for its finesse and sprightly bravura, a showpiece for the chasing of affects after one another. He lingers over the dolce theme and then briskly scampers through Beethoven’s runs and syncopated gestures. The camera often sequesters the orchestra apart from the soloist, providing us a sense of the burgeoning symphonist in Beethoven. That the eruptive cadenza (1809) far outweighs the rest of the movement deters Ashkenazy not at all, and it evolves almost like an interlude from an independent sonata. The Adagio explores Beethoven’s capacity to transcribe vocal aria to instrumental means; Haitink might be conducting a moment from the D Major Symphony. Now the camera includes solo and ensemble, a family effort—especially the superimposition of the clarinets–gracious and intimate at once. The dervish antics—flute and clarinet adding their aerial pursuits–of the Rondo usher in high comedy, a gaiety born of inventive and digital mastery. Concertmaster Rodney Friend rises for the applause almost simultaneously with Ashkenazy for the fervent applause.
Proceeding chronologically through the five concertos, we can appreciate the decisive change of style for the C Minor, its decided evolution of dramatic form over merely instrumental virtuosity and sonata-form. Clarinets, strings, and tympani appear lustrous in both sight and sound, with Haitink’s punching the air for added emphasis. Ashkenazy’s contribution spins out fast and furious, though with great care on the staccato notes to the statement of the dolce theme; great trill. Excellent tension back to the recapitulation after the fearsome key changes of the development. Poetry for the cadenza, and even the dark counterpoint retains the spirit of the dance. Let’s not forget the air of mystery of the orchestra’s re-entry, a mere raised left eye from Ashkenazy to cue in Haitink’s thunderous volley. The E Major Largo theme seems compelled from Ashkenazy through duress, until kindly winds and strings relieve him of the burden, intoning a hymn that might belong to the Pastoral Symphony. Beautifully tempered dynamic adjustments from Ashkenazy complement the intimacy of the orchestra, almost an augmented quintet for piano and winds. No pause to the dashing Rondo, Ashkenazy all business and staccato gallops and trills. The cadenza and coda coalesce as one brilliant rush to judgment, full of sound and engaging fury.
Haitink’s Egmont Overture proceeds naturally and fluently, the camera more on him than on the oboe and flute parts, and he leads a sculpted introduction that soon whips its way to furious assertions in the cause of freedom. Then comes the Aeolian Harp of all piano concertos, the G Major, whose four-beat pulse softens the tissue and issues of the Fifth Symphony. Ashkenazy proffers liquid fire for his part, deft as it is poetic, a transparency of texture dominating the interplay of piano and woodwinds. This is not to deny the occasional swell from the orchestral tuttis, raised in amorous praise by Haitink’s sure hand, easily applying the requisite subito to hush the aroused maenads. The Andante has Ashkenazy and orchestra at mezzo-voce, the dynamics dipping into ppp; and only at the quasi-cadenza’s wicked trill does the dynamic tension mount prior to the hushed entrance of the Rondo. Grace and light feet mark the explosive exchanges between Ashkenazy and Haitink, accompanied by lustrous colors from the LPO strings and winds. Ashkenazy’s final cadenza projects as much beauty of tone as it does quicksilver poetics, and the coda rounds off a veritable embarrassment of tonal riches.
The last of the concerts opens with the “demonic” Leonore Overture No. 2, which Haitiink shapes entirely along classical lines, despite its frequent, emotionally charged outburtsts and calls to freedom. Only at the last page does Haitink unlock the gates to allow the ‘battle symphony’ to whirl itself to final victory. The Emperor Concerto culminates the series in every sense, with Ashkenazy’s brilliant entry, the runs smooth, the figures njuanced, and the trill sturdy. Haitink’s enthusiasm takes its spur from Ashkenazy’s presence, so the tuttis resound thick and shapely in the horns, strings, and tympani, rife with heroic moment. Some visual flutter made it look like piano keys were depressed by an invisible hand. When Ashkenazy’s on-camera presence stabilizes, he is all smooth meditation and well-wrought staccati. The development section enjoys fine tuning between piano and winds, the air of mystery thick enough to slice, right up to those detached scales that made Bernard Shaw’s ears act like staring eyes. The recap insists on boldness and nuanced power as its themes, coddled by Ashkenazy’s dreamy pianissimos against the French horn and woodwind choir. Inexorably, the whole moves to the final statement of the ritornello, heraldic assertions, the last cadenza vividly tense to the alla musette, then the orchestra wraps us in a luxuriant blanket of sound to the grand peroration. A graciously paced, sonorous Adagio, piano and winds rapt; then, the half-tone preparation for the lunge to the final Rondo. As the variants on the ritornello proceed, Ashkenazy’s head and shoulders keep time to the orchestral cadences and entries. The camera pulls back for the last big statement of the theme; and Ashkenazy takes the momentum down, diminuendo over the unseen tympany. The convulsive coda has the London audience cheering for the concerto and the entire cycle well before the last note has fully decayed. A powerful, often exciting series of concerts, well documented.
— Gary Lemco
