Open Web Player
Despite their ecstatic reviews when they go to New York, I am baffled by the reception accorded Osmo Vanska and the Minnesota Orch. in Beethoven. This CD of the Sym. #2 and #7 caps their complete cycle, which a critic in Fanfare magazine praised as the greatest made in merica since Toscanini and the NBC Symphony (skipping over Bernstein, Ormandy, Bruno Waltr, Szell, and Dohnanyi, just to mention those I know well).
To my ears, this isn't a new, adventurous, groundbreaking performance style. It harks back to the days in the Eighties when Roger Norrington was making waves with HIP (historically informed performance) Beethoven. Tempos are fast, expression flat (no personality, please, we're being authentic), ensemble crisp, and no hint that Beethoven was a revolutionary -- everything is done to squash him back into the mold of Haydn. Vanska has one advantage in using modern instruments, as Harnoncourt did, sparing us the abrasive sound of wheezy antique winds and zingy strings.
Vanska's Beethoven is fast and zesty, with a nice sense of musicality. Sym. #2, being more Haydnesque, survives the bloodletting better than Sym. #7. The Minnesota Orchestra plays with precision but no passion -- I suppose that's deliberate. The recorded sound, as heard in two-channel stereo, is quite good.
The Seventh is sped up but isn't as fast as Beethoven's controversial metronome markings (which few conductors dare to attempt). After three decades of HIP proponents, it's not as disturbing to hear the opening Poco sostenuto(fairly sustained) played as an allegro that isn't sustained at all, but it remains distrubing to hearing the hroic parts of this great symphony skipped through like a church picnic in the madow. My note of bafflement is quite sincere. When Rattle and Abbado were widely criticized for diminishing Beethoven, why is Vanska's cycle, which is twice as anemic, producing such rapture?
If you already own -- or have had enough -- period-style Beethoven from Norrington or Gardiner, if you've already experienced the "updated" traditionalists (Abbado, Rattle, Haitink) who have absorbed some period mannerisms like vibratoless violins, there's nothing exceptional here.
