BEETHOVEN CORIOLAN OVERTURESYMPHONY NO. 5

KLAUS TENNSTEDT conductorLONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Until the late eighteenth century, overtures were usually little more than musical announcements that an opera or a play was about to begin, a way of silencing the audience. Rarely was their content affected much by the events of the ensuing drama, and it was only with Gluck’s ‘reform operas’ of the 1770s that overtures began to attempt on a more regular basis to encapsulate what was to follow. So influential was the change, however, that by the early 1800s Beethoven’s most dynamic overtures – those to the plays Coriolan, Egmont and The Ruins of Athens, to the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, and the several attempts at an overture to the opera Fidelio – soon acquired a concert life of their own. In effect, they had become the earliest examples of one of the nineteenth century’s favourite forms, the symphonic poem.

The overture that Beethoven provided for Coriolan, a five-year-old tragedy by his friend Heinrich von Collin, was actually performed a couple of times as a concert piece in the month that preceded its appearance at a revival of the play in April 1807. Collin’s drama had its origins in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and, though differing from it in several respects, presented the same dilemma of the Roman general who has rebelled and is now

leading an attack on Rome itself. On the point of victory he lays down his arms so that his mother, Volumnia, can be spared – a moment of military weakness that eventually drives him to suicide.

Beethoven’s Overture focuses on the conflict between the arrogant soldier – shown in the truculent opening chords and urgent string motif – and the pleadings of his mother as represented by the tender second theme, rising step by step as her beseeching intensifies. In Shakespeare, Coriolanus was killed by his own followers for his disloyalty, but that Beethoven’s concern, like Collin’s, was for the effect of the hero’s failings on his own mind, is shown at the end. Here, Volumnia’s theme makes its third and last appearance, not rising this time but switching with greater urgency to the minor, with the result that Coriolanus capitulates in a broken version of the opening. As the once-proud chords lose their way and the string motif shrivels to nothing, the general’s fall is quiet and ignominious.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN CORIOLAN OVERTURE

Whatever the Fifth Symphony was to its earliest audiences, it was not comfortable. Those who took their seats in Vienna’s Theater an der Wien on 22 December 1808 for the concert at which the work was first performed would doubtless have had some idea what to expect. Anyone who had already heard the ‘Eroica’, or indeed the ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, which was also premiered earlier in the same concert, would have known that Beethoven had greatly expanded the timescale of the symphonic form, raised its level of seriousness and expressive weight, and brought to it an increasingly theatrical, even narrative strain. But few can have been prepared for the brusque, almost visceral assault this unique work was to make on their senses.

Where did it come from? Well, Beethoven was a revolutionary of course, but he was one who worked within an established tradition, and who was subject to his fair share of influences. Several of these come together in the Fifth Symphony. One was Mozart, with whom he shared a special feeling for the expressive power of the key of C minor; another was the large-scale, open-heartedly bombastic music composed for the public celebrations of Revolutionary France; and a third was Haydn, his teacher, who time and time again had shown in his string quartets and symphonies

how to construct whole movements from small but highly pregnant thematic cells.

This last influence is undoubtedly at its most potent in the highly dramatic first movement, totally dominated as it is by its famous four-note opening motif. Not that it sounds in any way like Haydn. The music here is astonishingly terse, pared down to the melodic minimum, and the second theme, a relaxed horn-call expansion of the main motif answered by a reassuring embrace from the violins and woodwind, is quickly upon us. Yet it is this consolatory theme which, after a combative central development section, reappears in swirling, nightmarish transformation in the movement’s long and turbulent coda.

There is more than a hint of Haydn’s influence, too, in the slow second movement, which has the overall shape of one of his favourite forms, the ‘double variation set’ in which two themes are varied in alternation. The second of Beethoven’s themes provides occasional brief foretastes of the exultant mood of the finale, but at the end of this particular movement it is the more graceful first theme that wins the day.

As in the Fourth Symphony, Beethoven does not call the third movement a scherzo, though

SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN C MINOR

in form and function it is one. If there is humour here, however, it is of a grim cast and beset by uncertainty. When a sturdier theme emerges, it is brief and troubled, dominated by a balefully intoned horn-call transformation of the four-note motif from the first movement. The mood lightens in the scurryingly fugal major-key ‘trio’ section (heard twice), but at its second reappearance the first theme, played pizzicato and pianissimo, takes on a stealthy, nocturnal character, before leading us to the most celebrated passage in the whole Symphony. Here, over held string notes and sinister tappings from the timpani, wisps of the first theme are heard, leading us for the moment we know not where. Gradually the excitement rises, until with a last sudden rush we find ourselves propelled into the blazingly triumphant C major of the finale. It is one of the most upliftingly theatrical moments in all music, and the unequivocal joyfulness of the ensuing movement (almost unremittingly loud, by the way, and reinforced for the purpose by Beethoven with trombones, piccolo and double bassoon) is not even diverted by the brief, perhaps mocking reapparance about halfway through of the third movement’s main theme, this time gloriously overcome.

Whether one feels the Fifth Symphony as a journey from darkness to light, a depiction

of adversity overcome, or as an emergence from some sort of underworld, there is no doubt that it has an effect on the listener that goes beyond the appreciation of its musical and formal niceties. Beethoven himself has left little clue as to what the Symphony is ‘about’, save for a possibly apocryphal remark to a friend about the first movement: ‘thus Fate knocks at the door’. Yet we know that he thought of many of his instrumental works in programmatic terms; whether or not we as listeners can guess them correctly, the fact that in his greatest symphonies we can sense them so strongly is proof of his success.

© Lindsay Kemp

‘Nobody listens to Beethoven quite like Klaus Tennstedt. And, because he listens so acutely, his orchestra must, and we in the audience do as well. The dark glass of familiarity is swept aside and we meet the composer face to face.’ Hilary Finch, The Times, February 1992

KLAUS TENNSTEDT conductor

Born in East Germany, Klaus Tennstedt studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and conducted throughout his native land but it was not until he moved to the West in 1971 that he started to achieve world recognition. He made his American debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1974 and his London debut was with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1976, his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra following in 1977. He had an instant rapport with the London Philharmonic Orchestra that resulted in return invitations and his appointment as the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor and Music Director in 1983. This developed into a unique and remarkable relationship until illness finally brought it to a premature end some ten years later. Klaus Tennstedt died in 1998.

Tennstedt was particularly renowned for his performances of the German repertoire, which he conducted regularly with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall and in the recording studio to huge public acclaim. His energy, musicianship and emotional involvement combined with a rare humility endeared him to audiences and musicians alike.

© Richard Holt

LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

© Benjamin Ealovega / Drew Kelley

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the world’s finest orchestras, balancing a long and distinguished history with its present-day position as one of the most dynamic and forward-looking ensembles in the UK. This reputation has been secured by the Orchestra’s performances in the concert hall and opera house, its many award-winning recordings, trail-blazing international tours and wide-ranging educational work.

Founded by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1932, the Orchestra has since been headed by many of the world’s greatest conductors, including Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt and Kurt Masur. Vladimir Jurowski was appointed the Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor in March 2003, and became Principal Conductor in September 2007.

The Orchestra is based at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London, where it has been Resident Orchestra since 1992, giving around 30 concerts a season. Each summer it takes up its annual residency at Glyndebourne Festival Opera where it has been Resident Symphony Orchestra for over 50 years. The Orchestra performs at venues around the UK and has made numerous international tours, performing to sell-out audiences in America, Europe, Asia and Australasia.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra made its first recordings on 10 October 1932, just three days after its first public performance. It has recorded and broadcast regularly ever since, and in 2005 established its own record label. These recordings are taken mainly from live concerts given by conductors including LPO Principal Conductors from Beecham and Boult, through Haitink, Solti and Tennstedt, to Masur and Jurowski. lpo.org.uk

Klaus Tennstedt on the LPO Label

LPO

-006

8

LPO

-002

6

LPO

-008

5LP

O-0

032

LPO

-005

2

LPO

-000

8

Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3‘This is Brahms conducting of rare moment and pedigree.’ Gramophone

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9‘Tennstedt draws a fire from the strings that is both inexorable and euphoric.’ The Scotsman

Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 & Egmont Overture‘A visionary performance’ Gramophone

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8‘The whole thing sounds spontaneous and pulsatingly alive’ The Times

Haydn: The Creation‘Clearly an exceptional achievement.’ The Guardian

For more information or to purchase CDs telephone +44 (0)20 7840 4242 or visit lpo.org.uk

Mahler: Symphony No. 8‘To have this live version – so concentrated, living on its nerves – is a gift.’ Gramophone

LPO – 0087

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)

01 9:29 Coriolan Overture, Op. 62

32:53 Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

02 07:41 Allegro con brio

03 10:48 Andante con moto

04 05:14 Allegro

05 09:10 Allegro presto

KLAUS TENNSTEDT conductor LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA David Nolan leader

Recorded live at Southbank Centre’s ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL and the ROYAL ALBERT HALL, London