SURROUNDED BY BEETHOVEN

posted by James Reel

Tonight, the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music will present a concert by the Borromeo Quartet, including the world premiere of a work we at AFCM commissioned from Robert Maggio. The program also includes one of my favorite string quartets, the first in Beethoven’s “Rasumovsky” series. Not long ago in Fanfare, I reviewed a four-channel reissue of a classic recording of that quartet. Here’s that review, and as a bonus my review of the latest installment in Osmo Vänskä’s SACD Beethoven symphony cycle.

BEETHOVEN String Quartets: in F, Op. 59 No. 1, “First Rasumovsky”; in B-flat, Op. 18 No. 6 * Quartetto Italiano * PENTATONE PTC 5186 175 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 68:00)

It should seem odd to say that PentaTone is rescuing Quartetto Italiano’s Beethoven from oblivion; the ensemble’s highly regarded Beethoven cycle has been a catalog mainstay since its LP release in the 1970s, and its various reissues and repackagings in the CD era. But “rescue” is correct in one sense: Philips has never issued the material in the quadraphonic format in which it was recorded, and now PentaTone begins to rectify that with a single, tantalizing four-channel SACD derived from the original tapes of two of Beethoven’s most attractive and immediately accessible quartets.

The first priority, though, should be the performances, and these are rightly classics. The readings are poised and flowing, sensitive to a variety of articulation, attacks and details of dynamics, but not as hyper-dramatic as many more recent efforts. Without underplaying the scores, Quartetto Italiano provides interpretations that should be very attractive to listeners who find even the finest contemporary efforts (Emerson, Prazak) to be excessively intense and nervous.

The recorded sound as presented here is better than ever: the musicians are close to the microphones but not claustrophobic, and their instruments come through with wonderful transparency and precise placement. We should be urging PentaTone to remaster the entire Quartetto Italiano Beethoven series, but given the current market, perhaps this is the most we can hope for. It may be only a single disc, but it’s very fine indeed. James Reel

BEETHOVEN Symphonies: No. 2; No. 7 * Osmo Vänskä, cond; Minnesota O * BIS SACD 1816 (hybrid multichannel SACD: 75:49)

Here concludes one of the finest available Beethoven symphony cycles. As Osmo Vänskä’s Minnesota series has progressed, the phrasing has gradually lost some of the intricate detail of the early volumes, but all the other virtues remain steady: bracing but not bludgeoning tempi, crisp attacks and releases, and tremendous clarity of texture from the all-important basses to the top. The orchestra performs with a precision and intensity evoking its Dorati days, but now with more refined execution in more flattering acoustics—plush but not overbearing reverberation, and a soundstage that’s wide, deep, and exactly charted. In both the symphonies at hand, this is big-band Beethoven in which the woodwinds make themselves heard assertively and elegantly across the strings, while the brass and timpani create an essential element of the texture without dominating it. The pristine engineering has much to do with this success, but it all begins with the musicians.

Perhaps most essential for these two symphonies, especially the Seventh, is rhythmic clarity, which Vänskä and his Minnesotans provide to the utmost. This is especially rewarding in the Seventh’s first and third movements, where rhythms as well as melodies are articulated exactly, but also with a vivacious litheness. Detailed articulation pays dividends in the slower music as well, particularly the Second Symphony’s first-movement introduction and the Seventh’s Allegretto.

In their heft and muscularity, Vänskä’s Beethoven performances call to mind Karajan’s early-1960s cycle, which is available as a two-channel SACD reissue. But whereas Karajan tends to conduct in big, boldface paragraphs, Vänskä remembers to highlight individual phrases along the way. Paavo Järvi has a very fine chamber-orchestra Beethoven cycle nearing completion, but among large-orchestra versions, Vänskä’s is the preferred SACD traversal, and one of the most desirable in any format. James Reel