For all those who love Beethoven, for all who wish to honor conductor Bernard Haitink’s 90th birthday earlier this month (March 4), and for all who’ve been posting variations of, “Jason, for the love of God, free us from the horrors of contemporary music,” this one’s for you. Live from the London Symphony Orchestra, we present Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.2, Triple Concerto in C for piano, violin, and cello, and Leonore Overture No.2, Op.72a from LSO Live (LSO0745D). Although identified as a “CD” by arkivmusic.com and Amazon, this is a hi-resolution SACD, recorded in DSD64.
Reflecting period instrument scholarship, Haitink’s Triple Concerto sounds light years apart from Karajan’s famed 1969 recording with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the all-Russian team of violinist David Oistrakh, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and pianist Sviatoslav Richter. Theirs is a big-boned. mid 20th century affair with a mighty German orchestra and three stellar soloists who play with strength, authority, and romantic sweep. The highly-detailed, close-miked performance may not sound anything like what Beethoven expected, but it’s one you won’t forget.
Haitink, conducting in the acoustically compromised Barbican in 2005 (around when this performance was originally released), scales down the sound of his modern orchestra to something approaching what we believe Beethoven expected. The sound is different than in Beethoven’s time, of course, because we’re hearing a recording of modern instruments, captured in a 1943-seat hall with mediocre acoustics, from a Dutch conductor who eschews Karajan’s German romantic tendencies in favor of a more classical approach. But when you hear the sweet, light, and captivating playing of Gordan Nikolitch, former leader of the LSO, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and Chamber Orchestra of the Auvergne, you may very well warm to this performance as a viable alternative to an army of German musicians marching through Beethoven’s homeland.
Nikolitch is at his peak in the second movement Largo, where he radiates tenderness and deep feeling. His sound, as befits someone who usually performs in an ensemble situation, is noticeably more slender than Oistrakh’s, but that doesn’t make it any less moving. If anything, Nikolitch’s more vulnerable sound is an advantage in this music. His is playing to fall in love with.
Cellist Tim Hugh, a Tchaikovsky Competition winner who moves between solo gigs and work with several piano trios, lightens his tone accordingly. He often sounds much lighter and less earthy that many cellists. Pianist Lars Vogt also plays lightly. It’s fair to say that, in contrast to the mighty Karajan trio, these three men care more about serving the music and Haitink’s conception than broadcasting their individual personalities. Which is not to suggest that Oistrakh, Rostropovich, and Richter are anything but in synch with each other and their conductor’s vision.
The absolute winner on this recording is Haitink and pianist Maria João Pires’s account of Beethoven’s first published piano concerto, the Piano Concerto No.2 in B-flat, Op.19. Pires, whose recordings are too few, may have turned 69 in the year of the recording (2013), but she plays like a young pup. She smiles as she trips over and through multiple scales and runs, her joy spreading from keyboard to hall and into your listening space. Pires delights in Beethoven’s occasional forays into Mozart-like symmetry, and joins with Haitink to give us a sweet and tender middle movement Adagio that rivals the Triple Concerto’s Largo for depth of feeling. I can’t find any clips of Pires with Haitink, so you’ll have to enjoy her contemporaneous performance with Chailly below.
The Leonore Overture No.2 of 1805, the second of four versions of the overture that Beethoven penned for the opera eventually known as Fidelio, is a bit of a disappointment. Compared to John Eliot Gardiner’s performance, which you can stream in Red Book quality on Tidal, Haitink gives us a very slow opening that wants for more tension. It takes him 44 seconds longer than Gardiner to reach the first big melodic expanse, and he kind of dies halfway through the piece. Maybe if I had turned the volume higher, or gotten more sleep, or not eaten that peach, I would have felt different. But such is life. There’s still plenty on this recording to love. Note that this Haitink recording has also been released previously by the LSO, although perhaps not in hi-rez.
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