Gardiner’s Beethoven cycle peaks with Nos. 6 & 7

Mon Feb 24, 2020 at 11:27 am
Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducted the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in Beethoven’s Sixth and Seven Symphonies Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall. Photo: Chris Lee

Of all the Beethoven symphonies, the Sixth and Seventh gain the most from period performance practice. The Sixth turns kaleidoscopic with the colors and timbres of early 19th century instruments and their replicas, while the agility and rhythmic acuity of gut-strung stringed instruments bring out the explosive energy in the Seventh.

The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique showed these qualities to the fullest Sunday afternoon in Carnegie Hall. In the penultimate concert of their Beethoven symphony cycle with conductor John Eliot Gardiner, the musicians played an extraordinarily colorful and beautiful “Pastoral” and nearly blew the roof off the house with a wild Symphony No. 7.

The ORR brought what we must assume is a 19th century sound and style to Symphony No. 6—it debuted in 1808—and that meant bucolic winds and wood-grained strings—more than anywhere else we get the clear, inner rhythms of the carriage wheels carrying the happy city-dwellers to their day in the countryside. These woody, sunny timbres—not to mention flutist Marten Root overblowing and bending notes to get a vivid bird-call flavor in the second movement—were, on immediate impression, the ideal sounds for this music.

But there was so much more to this performance than just vivid pictorialism (which can often be sufficient). There were delicious details that made this a wonderful experience for the Beethoven lover. More than the instruments, the musical manner was poised on the cusp of the classical and romantic eras in a way one had not heard.

One of the concepts of the classical era was putting music in a frame, separate from the listener in the way a stage marks the boundary between audience and performer. The romantic era, on the other hand, opened up music to personal narratives, internal and external, meant to speak to the listener in a personal and intimate way.

The ORR let the Pastoral’s surface narrative speak for itself while wrapping the music in the objective classical frame. That meant things like a subtle verticality in the way the violins played their first theme in the opening movement, or the gentle, rocking lullabye (with muted strings) in the Scene by the Brook, which was utterly beautiful.

“Characterful” is a word to describe music that is full of personality. The Merry Gathering of Country Folk went beyond that: It was full of characters, from a tipsy bassoon, to the horn quietly enjoying itself amidst the company, even putting up with the boisterous and boastful trumpet. From there, the transition to the Thunderstorm was masterful, building an exceptional level of suspense. With the frame around the music, the ORR playing Beethoven’s representation of nature was just that, a representation, and not a sensual impression—the storm had a Punch-and-Judy quality to it, a mix of entertaining and unnerving. With this, the Shepherd’s Song had a cloud-clearing feeling that was magical.

For the second half, the orchestra stood for Symphony No. 7. The expected energy came with the first chord, the strings down-bowing on their attack with such force that rang like lightning striking a bell. After that, the hallmarks of the performance were energy and momentum.

Look under the surface of this accepted classic and one sees how avant-garde this symphony is—an extended exploration of what can be done with chord progressions and dotted rhythms. Even the ravishing melody of the Allegretto is little more than Beethoven spelling out the harmony in single notes.

The ORR played this with a committed glee that matched the music’s monomania.There were key details, like the slight, unsentimental agitation of the Allegretto that drove it home deeper, and the offhand way Gardiner closed out the trios in the third movement, where Beethoven himself simply drops the music and moves back to the main idea.

The orchestra ripped through the final movement. It wasn’t the fastest tempo one has heard, but it was the most propulsive. One followed the original downbeat and heard how fine the musicians were at moving Beethoven’s pulse around while keeping everything just at the edge of control. 

Because that is what’s there in the music, a basic and human desire to lose oneself in a frenzy of sensations— much closer to a mosh pit than one will find in all of classical music. This was the thrill and exhilaration of Beethoven that makes him a singular figure across every genre of music, and the ORR brought it winningly to life.

The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique conclude their Beethoven cycle with Symphonies 8 and 9, with soloists Lucy Crowe, Jess Dandy, Ed Lyon, and Matthew Rose, and the Monteverdi Choir, 8 p.m. Monday.

Leave a Comment


 Subscribe via RSS