Superlatives: Bach & Beethoven - new sound recordings

National Review, April 16, 1990 by Ralph De Toledano

THE PUN WAS Beethoven's. "Bach [meaning "brook" in German] should be called Meer ["ocean"]," he said. For Johann Sebastian was a culmination of the baroque-a sea into which flowed the rivers and currents of Lully in France and Monteverdi in Italy. The term "baroque" itself takes us back to the sea, for it was a Portuguese fisherman's word, barocco, a rough, irregular pearl. But if Bach was a gem, it was not until a hundred years after his death that Mendelssohn and Schumann discovered him and began a revival which has continued to this day. Because of this hundred-year hiatus, we may wonder exactly how Bach's music was played, since we have no tradition of performance. He left us very little in his scores to determine tempo and dynamics, or even bowing-this we must approximate. As a result, musical scholars and researchers have set up standards and criteria: the objective," which searches for the tiniest index of Bach's method and intent, and the "subjective," which holds that neither time nor river stand still. In what I suppose would be called an example of the former, Jaap Schroder's fine recording of the Six Sonatas and Partitas (the Smithsonian Collection ND0382) is quiet and reflective, the double-stops well articulated. I think these sonatas and partitas are better approached in Schroder's fashion, given their compression and development, than in Itzhak Perlman's admittedly more full-bodied, more subjective version (Angel EMI CDS 749483-2). How, a critic once asked, could Bach extract so much, including polyphony, from a small wooden box and a bow of wood and horsehair? The baroque rivers have all flowed into this Meer.

The sonatas are part of a Smithsonian package which-with three harpsichord concertos played by James Weaver-includes the St. John Passion. This oratorio should be staged as opera, for it packs together more drama, action, and excitement than any work by Verdi or Rossini. This could have been an outlet for Bach, who professed himself to be above Italian opera. For here, the turbae of the mobs, the cries of anguish and indignation, and the high tragedy implicit and explicit in John's nonsynoptic Gospel make for great theater-contrasting with the calm, almost disembodied voice of Jesus. Bach's melodic invention was not as great here as in the St. Matthew Passion, though both give full voice to the Protestant Reformation. (The Smithsonian Chamber Players and Chorus, conducted by Kenneth SlowikSmithsonian ND 0381.)

In contrast to the St. John Passion is Bach's Mass in B Minor, considered by some to be his greatest work. But perhaps it might be better to think of it as his musical CounterReformation, his effort as a devout Lutheran to participate in the universality of the Roman Catholic Church. Certainly, in this long work, he incorporated revamped versions of what he had written for Protestant worship. But this does not detract from its essential Catholic nature. It is a work whose Ite, missa est should be heard in St. Peter's or in a cathedral of equal dimension. Years ago, Robert Shaw made it more palatable to New York's flightier taste by perking it up with tempos approaching those of the dance, without in any way cheapening it. But now we have an excellent traversal by Otto Klemperer (always on the side of the angels when he conducts Bach), the BBC Chorus, the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and soloists of the caliber of soprano Agnes Giebel and tenor Nicolai Gedda Angel/EMI CMS 7633642.)

I can offer no suggestion of what Bach might have said about Beethoven had they been contemporaries. Bach's achievement was one of consolidation, Beethoven's of exploration. Both had the completeness and depth of character, of scope and understanding, which few composers who came after Beethoven had. From time to time, Bach nodded Homerically; Beethoven was too busy storming Hell and Heaven and Olympus to doze. So we can be happy that since the advent of compact discs, there has been a spate of Beethoven recordings. And we can be doubly happy that some of these have been entrusted to the new school of the instrumentally and conceptually authentic-the Norringtons, the Hogwoods, the Marriners.

A cynic once remarked, and do not ask me who it was because like Ronald Reagan I have my lapses, that the evolution of music consisted of the survival of the loudest. Orchestras in the classical period consisted of 35 to forty musicians, but Berlioz dreamed of a thousand and Mahler got them. The fortepiano became louder and more brilliant as it developed into the pianoforte, and conductors steadily raised the pitch until sopranos tore out their throat linings. Now I will admit that there is a certain excitement in hearing the Boston or the Philadelphia in Beethoven symphony. But in all the soaring of strings and the adventure of brasses, the inner voices go by the boards and the intent of the composer is lost to the will of the conductor.

For corroboration, play the new CD recordings of Beethoven's Sixth (Pastoral), Seventh, and Eighth (Polygram/Oiseau Lyre 421 416-2 and 425 695-2) by Christopher Hogwood and the orchestra of the Academy of Ancient Music, and of Beethoven's Fifth and Eighth (Philips 422 071-2) by Neville Marriner and the orchestra of the Academy of St. Martin-in-theFields. Perhaps I am reactionary but I like to hear what Beethoven wrote rather than an exposition of orchestral virtuosity. Hogwood in the Pastoral has taken to heart Beethoven's warning to "let the listeners work out the situations themselves" and abjure painting"-so we hear no twittering of birds. The Seventh is not an exercise in Dionysian exegesis or in climbing the proscenium arch, and the allegretto, one of Beethoven's most affecting writings, calls out faithfully. Marriner's Fifth, that beautiful and tautly constructed work, takes on its stirring and dramatic contrasts without being a call to arms. These recordings are dedicated to what Beethoven set down and not to the greater glory of the man with the baton.