J-P Tremblay, OFC: Beethoven Nine Syms: Very Alert, Fresh, W
Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 07/11/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This Canadian set from Analekta is a win, no matter which angle a listener highlights. The price is affordable to say the least; though several other complete Beethoven symphony sets are available in this lower price range.
Analekta is taking this opportunity to cast a recording spotlight on one of their better musical treasures. The Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne is .... what? Again, take you pick for a place to start. It is a summer festival band. It is a youth orchestra. It is a regional Canadian band, rooted in Canada's musical life and education as a whole, and in French-speaking Canada, sinking what appears to be strong, good roots into rich, musical soil.
Let Analekta explain? " ... Every summer, the OFC recruit the 75 best musicians across Canada. The OFC musicians then spend two weeks in residency before undertaking a tour of several Canadian cities. In those weeks, advanced classes (including one featuring orchestral excerpts) are offered by some fifteen teachers, including David Stewart, head of the strings section, Douglas Sturdevant head of the winds section. Also included are some meetings with some great masters such as Pinchas Zukerman, Music Director of the NACO and Yuli Turovsky, Artistic Director of I Musici. ... "
All these easy tags seem like good handles, until one spins these Beethoven discs. Then the strong, clear, inexhaustible musical treasure that is all nine Beethoven symphonies is renewed, and shines with bright lights and contrasting deep shadows. No frets, no worries. Not a single department of the band is weak or wanting. Strings, brass, woodwinds, drums ... everybody is wide awake in these readings. One fairly early on stops listening for student or learner markers as such, no longer just hoping to get a decent ear full from musical-tonal surfaces; one is just immersed in a whole lot of very fetching, compelling Beethoven. The all-important Beethoven sforzandos are just where they should be (Hat tip to veteran European conductor, Eugen Jochum). Tempos are well-judged, and very mainstream. No eccentric point-making is needed to let Beethoven come alive, yet again. With sixty-some players, this band is not overly large, especially by Late Romantic-modern concert hall standards. But no section sounds over-balanced or under-balanced.
Wannabe detractors will criticize the band for exactly being too direct, too plain. But in this case, Beethoven does not suffer any lack of musical personhood, just because his music is being taken pretty straight, clean notes on the page, no chasers. The first two, early symphonies are played, true to their classical period models; but that extra Beethoven vitality is already coming across. The young composer ready to burst free of unduly venerated and constricting musical class systems through sheer genius, not just through restive youthful rebellion. Neither the first or second sounds overly introductory in these readings in this set.
The applause that gathers at the end of the first symphony is a sudden reminder that we are listening to live recordings from the Canadian summer festival concerts. So these youthful players are not only doing it very well, they are doing it all, live, on the musical high wires of a real concert, no safety nets.
The opening of the Eroica sets a nice balance going, between the dancing-lyrical sides of what the composer is getting up to, and the rhythmic-driven, punchy sides of this path-breaking third symphony. More than not, this Eroica seems a musical kin to Schubert's Great Ninth. But more concentrated, more succinct in its argument and structure, compared to Schubert's last symphony? In addition to the requisite punchiness, Tremblay gets his players to shape their square, four-square rhythms into something that can swing, ululate, and seem to take wing. The playing carries right through, so one is far beyond any temptations to sort this reading into ho-hum regular, and fav-yummy special moments.
The fifth is no match for the famous Carlos Kleiber/Vienna recording; no matter how well it stands by itself in this complete set. Tremblay and the OFC continue with forward motion, a singing-dancing inflection, and very alert ensemble. In this way, the reading of the fifth is closer kin to the reading of the seventh yet to come in this cycle. The sixth is poised, yet out-door-sy-enough to paint countryside pictures while staying true to the warm, classical roots so far established. The seventh positively combines these warm plus singing-dancing qualities with the classical punch and poise that seem to make this composer go for conductor and band. The eighth is a tad more imposing and punchy than not, its liveliness catching just the sort of fires that transform its traditional lyricism and winsome visage.
The ninth? Well, one may fear even a youth orchestra is going to fail to climb the heights on this one. Again, classicism wins out. Drive and vitality keep things moving along, and those detractors so inclined will no doubt complain of too much alert attention to poise and tonal surfaces, rather than a stronger Romanticized digging into the near-mystical deeps, following on (say) Furtwaengler? Complaints can include saying the scherzo is lively enough but not shattering enough; saying the slow movement is altogether too fast to speak marvelously for God or humanity. But the first three movements are still played, all of a piece. And the final choral movement with four soloists provides a forceful culmination, none of the soloists weak or wobbly, and the chorus sounding strong, clear, and alert. In the end I'm not let down at all. The ninth has been taken seriously within the effective musical grip on Beethoven which this conductor and players have held, letting the music be itself, involved. Indeed, all nine Beethoven symphonies have been taken seriously with persistently involving impact on a listener.
A touch of good old George Szell lights up this set's manners, and if I had to put it in some sort of context, I would think of the Harnoncourt outing with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. That Harnoncourt cycle pushed harder, further, no doubt ... serving up lasting impressions of a very two-fisted Beethoven, ever bursting his received core classical models. But Tremblay and OFC show us a warmer, more social, more light-hearted side of the composer's musical personality. Beethoven in retrospect by the end of the set seems so highly intelligent that he hardly needs to always be storming the heavens, Beethoven's music in all of these nine symphonies having little need to rise higher than all the more balanced classical ideals of the orchestra and of western classical music necessitate.
Bravo, young musicians of Canada. I'm checking off five stars just because; each listener can make up his or her own mind about those stars."
