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| Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) |
With 2020 commemorating the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s
birth, concerts worldwide will be saluting the great composer born in Bonn, who
lived and died in Vienna. To celebrate the legacy of the world’s most performed
composer, the Eden-Tamir Music Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, is also running
a Beethoven series. The first concert - “Beethoven in Disguise” - took
place on October 26th 2019. Artists taking part in the event were Matan Dagan
(violin), Lotem Beider (viola), Yoni Gotlibovich (‘cello) and Dror Semmel
(piano).
The concert comprised chamber music arrangements of two Beethoven
symphonies - Nos. 2 and 3. Possibly a new listening experience for most of the
audience gathered at the Eden-Tamir Center, this phenomenon was by no means
rare in the composer’s time. In fact, from the late Classical period and into
the early 20th century, it was quite common for composers to arrange their own symphonic
works for smaller ensembles. These arrangements, many for piano 4-hands, were
primarily for domestic consumption; they resounded from the music rooms of
private homes in the days before radio and recordings and where concerts were
not accessible to all. Not all the Beethoven arrangements were necessarily
transcribed by him and, in fact, not even necessarily by two of his most famous
assistants and copyists - Czerny and Ries, although the latter two certainly
did make arrangements of their teacher’s music. With house music all the rage,
publishers often unscrupulously commissioned other musicians to arrange
Beethoven symphonic works. Arrangements were sometimes made illegally in
other countries, and most of the time, without Beethoven's knowledge. However,
not to be underestimated, this repertoire opens new perspectives not only on
the arrangements themselves, but also as to contemporary attitudes towards
these works.
Introducing the works, Dr. Dror Semmel spoke of Beethoven’s Symphony No.2
in D major Op.36 as having been composed at a time when the composer was in a
bad state, both physically and emotionally. Depressed, almost deaf and unable
to hide his increasing infirmity, Beethoven wrote from Heiligenstadt in
1802…“yes that beloved hope - which I brought with me when I came here to be
cured...I must wholly abandon; as the leaves of autumn fall and are withered,
so hope has been blighted, almost as I came - I go away…” It was while working
through this period of crisis that Beethoven completed Symphony No.2. Semmel
notes that the D major Symphony, enigmatically, does not reflect the composer’s
despondency; cheerful and outgoing, it even includes some humorous moments. The
composer wrote his own trio arrangement of Symphony No.2 three years following
the original symphonic setting. With much musical responsibility taken on by
each of the players, Dagan, Gotlibovich and Semmel gave a dedicated performance
of the work, drawing the listener into it via its slow, powerful, pensive
introduction, moving into a full soundscape, their probing and play of motifs of
the first movement’s development section arousing the listener’s curiosity. The
Larghetto movement emerged lyrical but not insubstantial (for the piano trio
setting, the composer had added the marking of “quasi andante” to keep it lively),
the division of labour making for effective dialogue, its middle section
minor-tinted and wistful. Also conversational was the compact, playful and
sunny Beethoven-style Scherzo, its Trio a miniature performance with several
“characters” on stage, this to be followed by the feisty, uninhibited, full
canvas of the Allegro molto, its rhythmic play, small stops and surprises all
presented with fine contrasting by the players. Beethoven's symphonies are
painted on a huge canvas, and their scale is heroic. His contemporaries
applauded his Second as a noteworthy piece full of power and depth, but they
commonly referred to his music of that time as bizarre. In the piano trio
setting, many of the tutti effects are created on the piano by fast
"tremolo" of chords or arpeggios. Beethoven probably composed this
symphony at the piano; he certainly played it on the piano when working out
metronome markings.
As of Symphony No.3 in E flat major Op.55 “Eroica” Beethoven enters a new
compositional phase, with the Eroica rightfully claiming its status as one of
the great turning points in western music. One might be tempted to ask how
reasonable it was to provide small-ensemble arrangements for something as large-scale
and glorious as Beethoven's Eroica Symphony; for some listeners, the lesser
orchestration and variety of orchestral colour could make for quite
disconcerting listening. Ferdinand
Ries was, of course, well regarded in his time as a pianist (his public debut
was in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.3) and also the distinguished composer of
a large body of chamber music with and without piano. As it turns out, he did a
superb job in keeping the spirit of the Eroica alive, rich and full in this
highly reduced arrangement, his paring down of proportions carried out with
impeccable compositional craftsmanship, skilfully dividing the roles among each
of the four performers and actually clarifying some of the inner workings of
the symphony, in particular, its contrapuntal writing. Here, his writing for
piano is challenging and virtuosic, assigning it to take on the body of the
original score, yet without relegating the strings into submissiveness. At the
Ein Kerem concert, the artists created a convincingly full and well-defined timbral
scene, the opening Allegro con brio’s melodious utterances emerging from
intense sections, in playing that was both gripping and tender. The Marcia
funebre, with Semmel establishing its natural and ceremonious pacing, was
deeply felt as it moved from theme to beautifully-formed variations. Any notion
of heroic- or tragic feeling was then swiftly whisked away by the Scherzo, the
artists’ perky - at times lightweight, at others, demonic - reading of it, with
its off-beat jokes and the Trio’s hunting-horn associations, all so convincing
in the quartet scoring! The artists' playing of
the Finale gave expression to the breadth of Beethoven's original thoughts in
its melange of intensity and lyricism, sealing the performance in a
richly-coloured tour-de-force.
So, was the audience at the Eden-Tamir Music Center hearing Beethoven “in
disguise” or not? Do these arrangements ask too much of the players or do they,
in fact, give them freedom to read their own interpretations into the score
more so than possible when playing under a conductor? Were we listening to
orchestral music, to chamber music or, perhaps, to a third medium? The listener was left
to grapple with these questions as the concert ended.
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