Epic Saturday: Beethoven's 7th Symphony from Carlos Kleiber and the Bavarian State Orchestra
Listen to Kleiber's breathtaking live performance of the last movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony on Scala Radio
Last updated 4th Apr 2020
Beethoven’s seventh symphony and a live recording of it conducted by Carlos Kleiber featured in this week’s Epic Saturday.
And the four movement epic journey that Beethoven penned back in 1811 befits the slot on Simon Mayo’s Saturday morning Scala Radio show too.
“The seventh symphony is all about rhythm and pulse and dancing,” said conductor Carlo Rizzi who spoke to Simon this morning on Scala Radio. “This is clear from the first movement. And even in the second movement there is this insistence - like a dance. And the last movement - fifteen minutes of pirouettes.”
The work’s premiere in 1812 may well have been received well, but that was in spite the inevitable consequences of Beethoven's increasing deafness.
According to one first-hand account of the rehearsal conducted by Beethoven, given by one of the violinists in the orchestra – composer Louis Spohr, Beethoven’s condition meant he was unable to determine when the orchestra was playing the quiet passages in the first movement. That meant keeping the orchestra in time was phenomenally challenging for conductor and musician alike.
Rizzi, who would himself have been conducting the Metropolitan Opera had the Coronavirus outbreak not prompted the current lockdown, explained why he’d chosen Carlos Kleiber’s live performance with the Bavarian State Orchestra from 1982.
“Firstly, like every conductor in the world we think that Carlos Kleiber was an absolute genius. And secondly, because it’s a live performance. I've done many recordings in the studio, but there is something about live performance that is particularly exciting.
"Thirdly, I picked this movement because it is like a drug. The theme sounds quite jolly. But when you start to listen to the basses and the woodwinds - basically there are four different impulses in each bar. Just the tempo of this movement - particularly in the Kleiber recording – well, I guarantee you're out of breath.”
And that live performance (recorded at Munich National Theatre, Germany in 1982) adds to the electricity of the recording, one that shines a light on the extraordinary detail and complexity of Beethoven’s writing.
Listen to Simon Mayo's Saturday Show on Scala Radio