Thomas Feys Beethoven

I have only listened to the CD containing symphonies 1 and 2 and have been hugely disappointed after having read the review on ClassicsToday. Thomas Fey uses a modern orchestra but period brass and timpani. As a result both the brass and timpani are overemphasized, while the strings are lost in the background. It might sound like an exaggeration but to my ears these performances sound like concerti for brass, timpani and orchestra rather than symphonies! What do others think?

Sorry for replying to my own post, but I forgot to mention that the booklet notes (by Mr. David Hurwitz) are first-rate in my opinion, shame about the performances though.

I like the performances (though it's pretty obvious why someone mightn't), but I'm responding merely to note that the presence of period brass and timpani in an otherwise modern orchestra is not the explanation for their relative prominence here (their modern equivalents are capable of making more noise). (They're nowhere near as prominent in Harnoncourt's set of the symphonies or in Mackerras's recent Mozart concerti with Brendel, for instance.)

RX-01 tikte:

That your ears need some time to get accustomed to the truth. The 1st Symphony was critisized already 200 years ago for having too much brass, but much brass was clearly what Beethoven wanted, so there you are. In oldfashioned recordings (Karajan, Klemperer, Muti, Rattle, etc.) the strings were unjustly favored to the brass. Period performances put an end to that and restored balance, and with that, most textual problems. But nowaday we have recordings like the one you mention (which I don't know): modern instruments, except brass and percussion. Nice examples: Harnoncourt and Zinman. I like them but still prefer recordings with only period instruments, because they blend so well together. Listening to such a recording (e.g. Gardiner) might solve your problem.

I don't like the dry sound of period orchestras, and frankly I find Gardiner's cycle original but with no depth.

Can the problem not be solved by using a modern orchestra but placing the mics closer to brass and timpani. I know that Mackerras placed his timpani in front of the orchestra for his recording of the Pastoral, for instance (just for the Storm movement).

That's what I thought, too, when I listened to Karajan's 1963 performance of the ninth. The strings sound like they're out of balance with respect to the rest of the orchestra, in that they sort of overpower everything at times.

What's 'the problem' you're trying to solve here? If you want louder brass and timpani with a modern orchestra, you just tell them to play louder and/or create a more piercing tone - you don't have to move the microphones closer (often the problem is the reverse: timpani and brass often seem uncommonly relatively quiet on recordings, the result of knob twiddling or poor microphone placement - the timpani on many Mercury recordings are inaudible; how often is that a problem live?). You certainly don't need period brass/timpani - they're quieter than their modern counterparts. One reason why Harnoncourt gives for using period trumpets in his set of the symphonies is that they can play full-out, thereby adding to the excitement/menace with that pushed-to-the-limit sensation of an instrument playing at full throttle, without drowning out everything else, which is the risk if you ask modern trumpets to do the same. To avoid that with modern brass you lose that full-throttle effect. That's one reason some of us like to hear, say, Mozart piano music on a fortepiano - you can push it to the limit and create exciting sonorities/effects and still not drown out everyone else - no-one (well, hardly anyone) dares to let rip on a modern piano in Mozart.

I know that Mackerras placed his

How do you know that? (I'm not saying you're wrong, just curious; Bernstein/DG and Reiner/RCA achieve similar balance, and I doubt either of them put the timpani out front (I know Bernstein didn't).)

One then wonders, why you bothered with Fey (or with Aimard/Harnoncourt's Beethoven PC cycle) at all. I mean, it was obvious that you wouldn't like them, so why wasting the money? Just curious

That's not true. Period instruments may make it easier to obtain certain sorts of balances without taming down the noisier instruments to the extent you have to with a modern orchestra, and they have the potential for making an excitingly raw sound (and for my part, I just prefer the tone of many period instruments), but there's nothing inherently brassy about the sound of a period instrument orchestra in Beethoven or Haydn or Mozart or.... The balance varies with whoever's in charge of the sonority the orchestra makes - and may vary with him/her. For instance, all of the Hogwood/Schroeder Mozart symphony recordings, whether a large (e.g. 31) or a tiny (e.g. 38) orchestra is used feature timid, pale brass and barely audible timpani, while Hogwood's much more recent Posthorn Serenade with nominally the same orchestra features much bolder brass/timpani playing. Or just listen to Hogwood's disc of Haydn 94/96; in the former, the brass and timpani make feeble little sounds, whereas in the latter they're excitingly prominent. Or compare the balances on the recordings of Haydn 82 on recordings by Goodman (thrillingly vulgar brass and timpani), Weil (decorously balanced brass and timpani), Kuijken, Brueggen (both somewhere in between, but closer to Weil), and the Collegium Aureum (hopelessly tame).

That you can achieve the 'right' balance with modern instruments is quite clear - it's never been better done, I think, than on Blum's Haydn 60 (certainly not by Blum in other Haydn symphonies, unfortunately), but listen to Harnoncourt's Mozart 39 (or indeed any of them) with the Concertgebouw, Leslie Jones' Haydn 96 with The Little Orchestra of London, Maag's LSO Mozart 32, Maazel's Fidelio, the Orpheus C.O. in Mozart 466. Even conductors who usually get it 'wrong' can give you some idea of what modern brass/timpani can do - listen to the horns at the end of Jochum's Haydn 100/i, the trumpets before the coda of his 101/iv, the timpani solo in his 94/iv. That there are relatively fewer examples speaks more, I would suggest, to notions of the appropriate sonority for the music in question (and hence to changing ideas about the music itself) than the hardware involved.

I know because I remember reading it somewhere in this newsgroup a few times. Perhaps a google search will find the right thread.

Because I know that I can like the HIP movement if I try. And I want to like it... I would like to listen to the Beethoven symphonies taken using the right tempo (his own metronome markings) but I want it done decently, using a proper orchestra. So far the following attempts cannot convince me:

Gardiner/ORET - sometimes picks tempi that are faster than Beethoven's metronome markings. Plus I find the performances superficial.

Norrington/LCP - amauter orchestra. Perhaps his new cycle will be what I'm looking for

Mackerras/RLPO - my favourite HIP-influences set (even though on modern instruments). However, the string sound is not rich enough.

Hogwood - I've only heard symphony 9 and was very impressed

Haven't heard the Harnoncourt but thinking of buying it now that it has been re-released at a cheaper price. Nor have I heard the new Abbado.