Back in 1987 Frans Brüggen, the erstwhile baroque flautist, conducted the 77 members of his Orchestra of the 18th Century in a studio recording of Beethoven's EROICA SYMPHONY. Over the course of his lifetime, they have performed that piece more than a hundred times, but on that particular occasion a video was made, a marvelous demonstration of the various original instruments and the kinds of sound that they make. Philips released the video on laserdisc, and it has been one of my favorites ever since.
A few years later I bought a CD release of the same piece with the same conductor and orchestra, and found it shockingly inferior to the audio quality of the laserdisc. The sound was pinched, strident and erratic. I learned from this that the CD format was doing the original instrument movement no favors. I dutifully purchased Brüggen's 1992 recording of Beethoven's NINTH, but I knew that what I was hearing was not the sound that they had actually produced with their instruments. Like Gardiner, who made his HIP recording only the month before, Brüggen took all four of the repeats in the Vivace (second) movement; the Gulbenkian Choir Lisbon, Lynne Dawson, Jard van Nes, Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Eike Wilm Schulti did Beethoven justice in the sung portions of the Finale. I did not invest in that full set of nine symphonies, because of my distaste for CDs.
The appearance of a new cycle recorded recently by Brüggen on SACD gives us a chance to hear these original instruments as they are meant to sound. If one were fussy, one might note that Beethoven did not begin composing his symphonic cycle until the 18th Century was already ended, and a quarter century passed before the cycle was completed. The use of original instruments stresses the roots of Beethoven's symphonic writing in the previous century, while use of modern instruments stresses the forward thrust of his writing to dominate the next two centuries.
No one recording can bring out all the dimensions of these seminal pieces, but for thirty years Brüggen has fine-tuned his own approach, and it deserves respect in its own right. Perhaps one should own three recordings of the Beethoven symphonies--Beethoven past (for which I nominate Brüggen), Beethoven present (perhaps Zweden) and Beethoven future (Thielemann). (I do not find any Beethoven cycle before 1999 to have the sonic dimensions required to convey the music.)
My copy will be coming to me on the first of October and if necessary I will add to these comments.
Meanwhile, those interested in Brüggen's earlier career as a baroque flautist may want to investigate the SACD releases of Handel works, and the "Pavane Lachrymae" coming out in Japan at this time.
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