Record Box 1- Beethoven’s Symphonies

I have two boxes of vinyl LP records (Albums) which I have decided to sell or pass on, but I would like to remind myself of what is in them first. They bring back forgotten stories. Two boxes is not a huge number, some friends had shelves floor to ceiling, but I had a reel-to-reel tape deck instead. I do still have my Sansui record turntable, but it has been in the loft for 30 years, and no one here is likely to use it. The tapes are long gone, but the LPs remain. 

I spent my first five years after school as an Articled Clerk with the same employer. When I left they held a collection for a leaving present. What would I like? I asked for the Deutsche Grammophon boxed set of Beethoven Symphonies conducted by Herbert von Karajan, the definitive version of the day. It seemed an appropriate leaving present from a professional firm. 

But, you observe, that is not the von Karajan set pictured, it is Karl Böhm. When I took the von Karajan set home, I put on the Ninth Symphony which begins with a very quiet section, and was dismayed to be able to hear an intermittent high-pitched whistle in the background. The manager of the record shop could not hear it, but it was still clearly audible to me on his equipment. Now I am older, it is unlikely it would be, like the high-pitched cat scarers our neighbours have in their front gardens, which my daughter can hear but I can’t. 

The manager offered to exchange the records, but fearing that the van Karajan sets would all be the same, I asked for the Karl Böhm set instead. It was disappointing. You might think that Beethoven’s Symphonies are Beethoven’s Symphonies, and always the same, but that is not the case at all. Somehow, the Böhm recordings did not have the same sense of excitement, at least for me, and I have rarely played them. He performs them marginally slower and more stately. 

It taught me that conductors, performances, and recordings can be quite different. There used to be a programme on Radio 3 on Saturday mornings called ‘Building a Library’, which compared different recordings of the same classical pieces. I think it is now in the afternoon. The variation is astonishing. Some recordings are pretty poor alongside others. 

So it is with Beethover’s symphonies. My wife has a set of CDs on period instruments conducted by Roger Norrington. They are much too quick and bright for me. My current preference, from online sources, is Daniel Barenboim with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which is made up of musicians from the Spanish world and the Middle East, including Israel and Palestine.

Here is a link to my favourite, the Sixth (Pastoral) Symphony, recorded in 2012. At 42 minutes long few may want to watch it through, and this YouTube version is broken by a couple of irritating adverts, but the balance and the way the different instruments and their solos are brought forward is, I think, absolutely superb. The video, of course, adds a dimension absent from stuffy 1970s recordings. The musicians look as if they are enjoying themselves, although the woodwind tend to show off a bit. Barenboim looks as impressively in command as ever. 

https://youtu.be/aW-7CqxhnAQ