This CD was released Nov. 9th, 2010
Beethoven:
- Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 60
- Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ‘Pastoral’
Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer, conductor
Iván Fischer leads the Budapest Festival Orchestra in the first release of a new Beethoven symphony cycle. The Fourth and Sixth symphonies explore feelings from an entirely different point of view. The fourth is about human feelings and moods – obsession, love, happiness, fun and wit. The sixth is about feelings that nature awakens in us – calmness, meditation and thankfulness.
Fischer used natural horns and trumpets in the 4th symphony, and for the Pastorale, he used a unique seating arrangement with the winds scattered among the strings. The intent was to have each player surrounded by other instruments playing the flow of Beethoven’s painting of nature. Then… “After the storm”, when we hear the first tentative call of the clarinet, answered by the horn from a different mountain, as it were, Fischer found it appropriate to use one solo violin, which is gradually joined by the whole orchestra. For me, this was an interesting, creative experiment. However, there is, of course, a level of “Sanctity” to Beethoven’s orchestration and the composer’s instructions that are violated when you do so.
Here is a brief video about this new recording. Note the use of the solo violin at the opening of the last movement of the Symphony #6, as I described above. You be the judge of the effectiveness, compared to the more “traditional” interpretation.
Tags: Ivan Fischer, Beethoven symphonies