Beethoven's 5th

[Peter]

The excellent Eliot-Gradiner documentary on this is now available on Youtube:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5HKIfvyD3A[/YOUTUBE]

[Humoresque]

I dropped everything and watched this the minute it turned up! And I've now passed it on to friends and family with the caveat that no German speaking musicologists or other conductors were consulted. Lewis Lockwood and William Kinderman had predictably interesting observations but somebody like the late Harnoncourt, who spent his whole working life with this music, is a voice which is missing in this discussion. I was conscious of that the whole way through, and the fact that Gardiner has spent his life predominantly with Bach.

I was fortunate to have attended last May the final concert at the Musikverein in Vienna of Concentus Musicus with Harnoncourt on the platform. And it was this very work. At the time I was critical of the tremendously overwhelming brass in the last movement which literally drowned out all the other instruments. From this recent documentary, it appears that Gardiner is also of the view that these instruments are key to the work. But it's important to acknowledge that Gardiner is standing on the shoulders of giants like Harnoncourt when it comes to a HIP realization of the 5th Symphony and Beethoven more generally. Gardiner is the new kid on the block, despite his obvious insights and musicological passions. This film was obviously meant to market his recording with the 'revolutionary' orchestra.

Then there's the work of other great conductors with modern instruments who'd also have their own ideas about the Beethoven 5.

One has to be careful in the well-trodden path of Beethovenian lore not to become cliched. And you could be forgiven for believing that John Eliot Gardiner is the conductor who owns all the insights into Beethoven. That would be quite wrong.

[AeolianHarp]

I saw the 5th played live last month- it was MAGNIFICENT!!!!! They even had period timpani which sounded fantastic!!