My listening post today is my happy place – the second floor of the local library.
Here, I can survey the landscape and think thoughts as big as the vista before me.
It’s the perfect setting for listening to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 in B flat Major as rendered by Austrian conductor Karl Bohm (1894-1981) and the Wiener Philharmoniker.
I first encountered Maestro Bohm on…
Day 5. Rating: “Meh!”
Day 23. Rating: “Huzzah!”
Day 41. Rating: “Huzzah!”
So, according to my previous encounters with the renowned conductor, I’ve liked his performances more often than not. Two out of three ain’t bad.
What will today bring?
First, a quote from the liner notes written by Jurgen Ostmann:
The Fourth Symphony is unproblematic and unspectacular by comparison with the preceding and succeeding ones – almost a reversion to the composing style of the past, as critics later complained. Beethoven himself certainly did not see it that way, perhaps considering it rather as being complimentary to the Third; after all, the Fifth and Sixth and the Seventh and Eighth also form contrasting pairs.
“Unspectacular”?
Really?
Leonard Bernstein didn’t see it that way. Nor, do I.
I find Beethoven’s Fourth to be crackling with energy and fun, surprises galore.
But what do I know? I’m no musicologist. I’m just a guy who likes to listen to music.
Beethoven wrote his symphonies in four parts (except for the Sixth, which is in five). The time breakdown of this particular one (Symphony No. 4 in B flat Major), from this particular conductor (Bohm, at age 76) and this particular orchestra (Wiener Philharmoniker), at this particular time in history (April, 1970) on this particular record label (Deutsche Grammophon) is as follows:
I. Adagio – Allegro vivace…………………………………………………………………12:11
II. Adagio………………………………………………………………………………………….9:45
III. Allegro molto e vivace – Trio. Un poco meno allegro………………..5:55
IV. Allegro ma non troppo………………………………………………………………..9:19
Total running time: 36:30
My Rating:
Recording quality: 5 (hardly any noticeable tape hiss at times; crystal clear, totally up to high DG standards)
Overall musicianship: 4 (seemed listless)
CD liner notes: 3 (short essay about Beethoven, lyrics in French, German, English, but nothing about Bohm or the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra)
How does this make me feel: 3
Despite the nice pizzicato (which I always love hearing) and flutes (ditto) – especially in the slower Movement II (Adagio) – the entire symphony never really took off for me. It seemed to retain the ponderousness of the first movement throughout.
It didn’t, literally, sound that somber. But there was something reserved about the performance. Or maybe the word I’m looking for is reverent – to the point of static.
The first movement, the odd somber one that opens this fun symphony, never seemed to kick into high gear as the previous performances did. There was something paint by numbers about this performance. I’m not saying it was bad. It was solid. It only seemed to lack passion.
But passion is everything to me. Well, passion without precious is just recklessness. So, this one had reck (is that the opposite of reckless?) but it didn’t have passion.
I can’t say about about performances by Leonard Bernstein. He provides so much enthusiasm and passion that it seems like the orchestra is a racehorse charging from the gate.
I’m sorry. But this is a “Meh!” performance to my ears.
Your ears may vary