tream said:

I recently acquired the new recording of Beethoven’s 4th and 5th symphonies with the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vanska, a laudable project for a large number of reasons: Based on other recorded evidence (I haven’t seen him in the flesh), Vanska is an excellent conductor, this is the first (I believe) Beethoven cycle by the Minnesota Orchestra (one of the US’s really fine regional orchestras-they have done some of the symphonies under other conductors), the cycle is being recorded by one of our best labels, BIS in a rare foray into the US, it is being recorded in multichannel, and so on.

While I had heard fine things about the disc, (here on SA-CD.net and in Gramophone) I was not prepared for the quality of the readings, which for both symphonies are extremely high. What came across more than anything else was the freshness – I was excited to hear what that fellow Beethoven was going to do next. However, listening sessions are subjective, and I could not be sure that at least part of what I was hearing was due to the fact that these days, when I listen to Beethoven, I am more likely to put on recordings of the piano sonatas or the string quartets than I am of the symphonies or the concertos, and perhaps I was simply hearing what amounted to a rediscovery (yes, Beethoven’s 5th really IS a great work of art) rather than something intrinsic in the recordings. And, I did not want to post a review here on SA-CD.net of a recording of what is, after all, core repertory without having heard a few other SACD’s of the 5th (I have lots of RBCD’s and LP’s of the symphonies, but the BIS was my first SACD of the 5th).

So I decided to listen to ALL of the versions of the 5th available on SACD, and write a comparative review. Then, reason prevailed and I decided to be more selective, and include the Karajan 62, the Carlos Kleiber, and the Masur for comparison. I simply didn’t have the time to do more, and in fact found this to be a time consuming (but enjoyable) process. Besides the sheer time involved in multiple listening sessions, in stereo and multichannel, with and without score, I also kept hearing details in a performance that I then needed to listen for in other performances.

I picked these particular recordings for the following, subjective, reasons: the Karajan is a standard edition of the Beethoven symphonies, and I suspect that it is the best selling set of recordings of the symphonies of all time. It is interesting that DG released this set as part of the Beethoven edition a few years back, and also chose it for SA-CD over the 76 and 83 Karajan sets (Karajan did the complete cycle 5 times-once with the Philharmonia for EMI, 3 times with the Berlin Philharmonic for DGG, and once on video for Sony with the BPO, not to mention a few other sundry recordings of individual symphonies along the way). Kleiber’s recording is also famous, and a common first choice, and it also gave me the opportunity to compare a RBCD to an SACD of the same recording. Last, Kurt Masur is one of the grand old men of music, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus a storied orchestra. Masur has made some classic recordings of Schumann, Mendelssohn, etc., and in fact he was the conductor of my first ever live Beethoven cycle in the late 70’s. I excluded the Davis, Walter and Ozawa recordings –Davis and Ozawa, as much as they have made other admirable recordings, aren’t particulary known for their Beethoven (I have owned recordings on LP of Ozawa in the 5th, and Davis in the Eroica and the 7th), and Walter’s late 5th has the reputation of being somewhat soft-grained and not really representative of Beethoven or Walter at his best (of course, I haven’t heard it, so this is reputation only). I also excluded Kegel and Immerseel (neither readily available in the US), and Van Zweden (wanted to keep the instrumentation on an apples to apples comparison, so excluded HIP).

I think a good argument can be made for inclusion of Karajan, Kleiber, and Masur. Other conductors who ideally would be represented in such a comparison would include Toscanini, Furtwangler, Erich Kleiber (many consider his early 50’s mono 5th with the Concertgebouw to be near-definitive), Klemperer, and Szell. Of course, Furtwangler and Szell are available on SACD, from Japan, at a whopping price. I am familiar with both of these interpretations (although not the specific Furtwangler recording). While it is unlikely that a Furtwangler performance of the 5th would ever be among my preferred recommendations, it is possible that one of the Szell recordings might be first choice (there, I have stated my biases) in an SACD bakeoff. So, if I have the stamina to continue this and the financial resources, I’ll go ahead and include Furtwangler and Szell. I don’t hold a lot of hope to see the others on SACD.

All of these recordings are at a high standard, and I can imagine anyone wanting preferring one for various reasons. The differences are mostly on the margins, while the music is the same, each conductor and each orchestra shine their lights on different facets of this music.

I will post individual reviews on the review board for the individual discs over the next few weeks (I have to listen to the couplings in more detail as well), but to get to the main point:

Starting with the Karajan, it is a fine performance and one that Richard Osborne, writing in Gramophone (in his review of the Vanska) called “full of grace and fire”. It is not that it is a bad performance –it is really quite good - and if I had only one to live with and couldn’t hear the others it would be fine, but for me, the sound is a problem – this was recorded in Berlin’s Jesus-Christhus-Kirche, known for its reverberant sound, which tends to obscure detail. (I note that another reviewer likes what he refers to as spaciousness of the recording, so to each his own.) Additionally, Karajan was known for smoothing out the rough edges, and some of that is apparent in the string playing, which is relatively under-articulated compared to the others. Also, Karajan had a reputation for dynamic help from his engineers, and I would say there are times when the pianissimos have less body than you might expect-is this due to an engineer fiddling with a knob? Tempos are relatively swift, the traditional repeats observed (e.g., no repeat in the 4th movement-true for all of these readings). This is a stereo recording.

Kleiber’s reading is swift and muscular. The VPO sounds like the finest orchestra of these four, and Kleiber’s reading is powerful, although there are times when I feel he is directing the orchestra to play too loudly. He does have a tendency to focus on secondary voices, sometimes to the detriment of the primary line (listen to the Andante) as well as a tendency to hold fermatas for longish times, and somehow this reading seems less than the sum of its parts. Yes, famous, but perhaps overrated. The recording is OK without being special, both in stereo and in multichannel. No excess reverberation, but a little dry. The SACD is a small but audible improvement over the RBCD when heard back to back, which sounds detached in comparison.

Masur leads a very interesting 5th, with lots of interesting touches and details brought out, and some slight variations in tempos (tempi if you are dogmatic) but nothing that detracts from the overall line. Lots of interesting detail in the winds, and the recording allows this to be heard-the winds can play softly but there is still body to the sound. However, Masur is let down by his orchestra-the strings have some intonation problems (not terribly bothersome, but there-listen to the 4th movement) but the real issue is the principal trumpet, who plays with a terribly blaring tone that almost sound like it has a vibrato, in fortissimo passages-quite unpleasant to hear. I listened to this on two systems to ensure I heard what I did correctly. Without this flaw, Masur would be my clear second choice. The sound, heard in both stereo and multichannel, is typical early 70’s Phillips engineering-a slightly distant perspective and what seems like a bump in the lower mid-range, which can be called either “warm” or “tubby”.

Vanska’s recording is head and shoulders above his more famous colleagues. First, some basics. It sounds as though the orchestra is playing with a reduced complement of personnel (the other recordings are full modern orchestra)-this prompted Osborne (the Gramophone reviewer) to state that the Minnesota Orchestra doesn’t have the “reserves” of the VPO or the BPO, but what I hear is merely a smaller orchestra. Also, Vanska divides his violins with firsts on the left, seconds on the right, a practice I find increasingly appealing, especially in a live performance. (Ironically, this was the common practice until the advent of stereo, when conductors began to group firsts and seconds on the left.) This means that you will hear the cellos not on the right, but from left center. The other recordings have the strings laid out in the common manner-first and seconds on the left, cellos on the right. The cumulative power of Vanska’s reading is infectious and the orchestra plays its heart out. Vanksa approaches Beethoven as a revolutionary classicist, not a Romantic. Tempos are fairly swift but where the VPO is muscular, the Minnesota orchestra sounds pliable. The recording is also the clearest of the 4, and to my ears, the most tonally accurate. The stereo is good, but heard in multichannel there is an additional dimension of “being there” that you don’t hear in stereo only.

Brief description of the couplings:

Karajan’s recording of the “Pastorale” is controversial for the swift tempo and lack of exposition repeat of the first movement, but from my point of view it is still a fine performance. The Berlin strings play beautifully, even at the swift tempos, and there is one heck of a storm.

Kleiber leads a good performance of the 7th, which, although it has some of the same arbitrary touches that we hear in the 5th, hangs together extremely well.

Masur leads a good, middle European performance of the 2nd. I acquired this as part of the complete set, which is a great value, except for the really cheesy packaging (the CD’s are packed in what seems to be the lowest possible cost CD-ROM paper sleeve). I appreciate the compactness of the set, but would have paid a couple of bucks more for slightly better packaging.

Vanksa leads a tremendous performance of the 4th-I’ve never heard better. Again, relatively swift tempos, but lots of drama-a worthy disc mate for the 5th.

tream said:I decided to listen to ALL of the versions of the 5th available on SACD, and write a comparative review. Then, reason prevailed.

brenda said:

dear tream, excellent comparative review, thank you. No disagreements with your observations and I will try and hear the Vanska.

My only niggle is with your exclusion of the Colin Davis 5th. This disc was a real surprise for me on SACD, not for the reading, which I had remembered with affection, but for the glorious sound I never knew was there. I would place it in SACD-top-spot even ahead of Masur, Karajan and Kleiber for the perfect combination of reading and recording (though my preference would not also apply to the Mendlessohn coupling, which is just ordinary).

Re. the van Zweden, were you referring to Historically Informed Performance, - that set is played on modern instruments but in "period" style.

tream said:

Since I didn't recognize the orchestra in the van Zweden, and saw the term HIP associated with the set somewhere, I made an incorrect assumption. My bad.

tream said: My experience with his performances of other Beethoven symphonies was that he pursues a middle of the road, nothing surprising but also nothing very exciting way. Have you heard his Eroica, from roughly the same timeframe as the 5th?

tream said:

I recently acquired the new recording of Beethoven’s 4th and 5th symphonies with the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vanska, a laudable project for a large number of reasons: Based on other recorded evidence (I haven’t seen him in the flesh), Vanska is an excellent conductor, this is the first (I believe) Beethoven cycle by the Minnesota Orchestra (one of the US’s really fine regional orchestras-they have done some of the symphonies under other conductors), the cycle is being recorded by one of our best labels, BIS in a rare foray into the US, it is being recorded in multichannel, and so on.

While I had heard fine things about the disc, (here on SA-CD.net and in Gramophone) I was not prepared for the quality of the readings, which for both symphonies are extremely high. What came across more than anything else was the freshness – I was excited to hear what that fellow Beethoven was going to do next. However, listening sessions are subjective, and I could not be sure that at least part of what I was hearing was due to the fact that these days, when I listen to Beethoven, I am more likely to put on recordings of the piano sonatas or the string quartets than I am of the symphonies or the concertos, and perhaps I was simply hearing what amounted to a rediscovery (yes, Beethoven’s 5th really IS a great work of art) rather than something intrinsic in the recordings. And, I did not want to post a review here on SA-CD.net of a recording of what is, after all, core repertory without having heard a few other SACD’s of the 5th (I have lots of RBCD’s and LP’s of the symphonies, but the BIS was my first SACD of the 5th).

So I decided to listen to ALL of the versions of the 5th available on SACD, and write a comparative review. Then, reason prevailed and I decided to be more selective, and include the Karajan 62, the Carlos Kleiber, and the Masur for comparison. I simply didn’t have the time to do more, and in fact found this to be a time consuming (but enjoyable) process. Besides the sheer time involved in multiple listening sessions, in stereo and multichannel, with and without score, I also kept hearing details in a performance that I then needed to listen for in other performances.

I picked these particular recordings for the following, subjective, reasons: the Karajan is a standard edition of the Beethoven symphonies, and I suspect that it is the best selling set of recordings of the symphonies of all time. It is interesting that DG released this set as part of the Beethoven edition a few years back, and also chose it for SA-CD over the 76 and 83 Karajan sets (Karajan did the complete cycle 5 times-once with the Philharmonia for EMI, 3 times with the Berlin Philharmonic for DGG, and once on video for Sony with the BPO, not to mention a few other sundry recordings of individual symphonies along the way). Kleiber’s recording is also famous, and a common first choice, and it also gave me the opportunity to compare a RBCD to an SACD of the same recording. Last, Kurt Masur is one of the grand old men of music, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus a storied orchestra. Masur has made some classic recordings of Schumann, Mendelssohn, etc., and in fact he was the conductor of my first ever live Beethoven cycle in the late 70’s. I excluded the Davis, Walter and Ozawa recordings –Davis and Ozawa, as much as they have made other admirable recordings, aren’t particulary known for their Beethoven (I have owned recordings on LP of Ozawa in the 5th, and Davis in the Eroica and the 7th), and Walter’s late 5th has the reputation of being somewhat soft-grained and not really representative of Beethoven or Walter at his best (of course, I haven’t heard it, so this is reputation only). I also excluded Kegel and Immerseel (neither readily available in the US), and Van Zweden (wanted to keep the instrumentation on an apples to apples comparison, so excluded HIP).

I think a good argument can be made for inclusion of Karajan, Kleiber, and Masur. Other conductors who ideally would be represented in such a comparison would include Toscanini, Furtwangler, Erich Kleiber (many consider his early 50’s mono 5th with the Concertgebouw to be near-definitive), Klemperer, and Szell. Of course, Furtwangler and Szell are available on SACD, from Japan, at a whopping price. I am familiar with both of these interpretations (although not the specific Furtwangler recording). While it is unlikely that a Furtwangler performance of the 5th would ever be among my preferred recommendations, it is possible that one of the Szell recordings might be first choice (there, I have stated my biases) in an SACD bakeoff. So, if I have the stamina to continue this and the financial resources, I’ll go ahead and include Furtwangler and Szell. I don’t hold a lot of hope to see the others on SACD.

All of these recordings are at a high standard, and I can imagine anyone wanting preferring one for various reasons. The differences are mostly on the margins, while the music is the same, each conductor and each orchestra shine their lights on different facets of this music.

I will post individual reviews on the review board for the individual discs over the next few weeks (I have to listen to the couplings in more detail as well), but to get to the main point:

Starting with the Karajan, it is a fine performance and one that Richard Osborne, writing in Gramophone (in his review of the Vanska) called “full of grace and fire”. It is not that it is a bad performance –it is really quite good - and if I had only one to live with and couldn’t hear the others it would be fine, but for me, the sound is a problem – this was recorded in Berlin’s Jesus-Christhus-Kirche, known for its reverberant sound, which tends to obscure detail. (I note that another reviewer likes what he refers to as spaciousness of the recording, so to each his own.) Additionally, Karajan was known for smoothing out the rough edges, and some of that is apparent in the string playing, which is relatively under-articulated compared to the others. Also, Karajan had a reputation for dynamic help from his engineers, and I would say there are times when the pianissimos have less body than you might expect-is this due to an engineer fiddling with a knob? Tempos are relatively swift, the traditional repeats observed (e.g., no repeat in the 4th movement-true for all of these readings). This is a stereo recording.

Kleiber’s reading is swift and muscular. The VPO sounds like the finest orchestra of these four, and Kleiber’s reading is powerful, although there are times when I feel he is directing the orchestra to play too loudly. He does have a tendency to focus on secondary voices, sometimes to the detriment of the primary line (listen to the Andante) as well as a tendency to hold fermatas for longish times, and somehow this reading seems less than the sum of its parts. Yes, famous, but perhaps overrated. The recording is OK without being special, both in stereo and in multichannel. No excess reverberation, but a little dry. The SACD is a small but audible improvement over the RBCD when heard back to back, which sounds detached in comparison.

Masur leads a very interesting 5th, with lots of interesting touches and details brought out, and some slight variations in tempos (tempi if you are dogmatic) but nothing that detracts from the overall line. Lots of interesting detail in the winds, and the recording allows this to be heard-the winds can play softly but there is still body to the sound. However, Masur is let down by his orchestra-the strings have some intonation problems (not terribly bothersome, but there-listen to the 4th movement) but the real issue is the principal trumpet, who plays with a terribly blaring tone that almost sound like it has a vibrato, in fortissimo passages-quite unpleasant to hear. I listened to this on two systems to ensure I heard what I did correctly. Without this flaw, Masur would be my clear second choice. The sound, heard in both stereo and multichannel, is typical early 70’s Phillips engineering-a slightly distant perspective and what seems like a bump in the lower mid-range, which can be called either “warm” or “tubby”.

Vanska’s recording is head and shoulders above his more famous colleagues. First, some basics. It sounds as though the orchestra is playing with a reduced complement of personnel (the other recordings are full modern orchestra)-this prompted Osborne (the Gramophone reviewer) to state that the Minnesota Orchestra doesn’t have the “reserves” of the VPO or the BPO, but what I hear is merely a smaller orchestra. Also, Vanska divides his violins with firsts on the left, seconds on the right, a practice I find increasingly appealing, especially in a live performance. (Ironically, this was the common practice until the advent of stereo, when conductors began to group firsts and seconds on the left.) This means that you will hear the cellos not on the right, but from left center. The other recordings have the strings laid out in the common manner-first and seconds on the left, cellos on the right. The cumulative power of Vanska’s reading is infectious and the orchestra plays its heart out. Vanksa approaches Beethoven as a revolutionary classicist, not a Romantic. Tempos are fairly swift but where the VPO is muscular, the Minnesota orchestra sounds pliable. The recording is also the clearest of the 4, and to my ears, the most tonally accurate. The stereo is good, but heard in multichannel there is an additional dimension of “being there” that you don’t hear in stereo only.

Brief description of the couplings:

Karajan’s recording of the “Pastorale” is controversial for the swift tempo and lack of exposition repeat of the first movement, but from my point of view it is still a fine performance. The Berlin strings play beautifully, even at the swift tempos, and there is one heck of a storm.

Kleiber leads a good performance of the 7th, which, although it has some of the same arbitrary touches that we hear in the 5th, hangs together extremely well.

Masur leads a good, middle European performance of the 2nd. I acquired this as part of the complete set, which is a great value, except for the really cheesy packaging (the CD’s are packed in what seems to be the lowest possible cost CD-ROM paper sleeve). I appreciate the compactness of the set, but would have paid a couple of bucks more for slightly better packaging.

Vanksa leads a tremendous performance of the 4th-I’ve never heard better. Again, relatively swift tempos, but lots of drama-a worthy disc mate for the 5th.

brenda said:

dear tream, excellent comparative review, thank you. No disagreements with your observations and I will try and hear the Vanska.

My only niggle is with your exclusion of the Colin Davis 5th. This disc was a real surprise for me on SACD, not for the reading, which I had remembered with affection, but for the glorious sound I never knew was there. I would place it in SACD-top-spot even ahead of Masur, Karajan and Kleiber for the perfect combination of reading and recording (though my preference would not also apply to the Mendlessohn coupling, which is just ordinary).

Re. the van Zweden, were you referring to Historically Informed Performance, - that set is played on modern instruments but in "period" style.

pentaman said: dear brenda,If you like Colin's Beethoven from the seventies, you may be interested to hear that PentaTone found a quad recording of the 1st symphony of Colin Davis also conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra.