EIF: Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

Usher Hall - 25/08/22

Philadelphia Orchestra Plays Beethoven’s Fifth

In the first symphony concert of their residency at the Festival on the night of 25th August, the Philadelphia Orchestra presented an advertised programme of just two works, Rachmaninov’s ‘Isle of the Dead’ and Beethoven’s Symphony No.5.  Having heard some of the section principals in an excellent chamber programme earlier that day at the Queen’s Hall (not to mention my youthful familiarity with this orchestra’s vinyl recordings under Eugene Ormandy), my expectations were high.  Even tuning, they made a great sound.

Their Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, came to the podium with a microphone and spoke about the Festival and the orchestra’s pride at their residency.  He then said that “instead of an encore”, he would start the concert with “a present”.  He turned and launched straight into Dvořák’s Carnival Overture.  Only five nights previously, the same work had opened the first concert of the Czech Philharmonic, by any reckoning the “experts” in the performance of Czech orchestral music.  To my ears the Philadelphians were more glittering, crisper and snappier.  The string sound, agile and exact in the runs, warm and generous in the more expansive passages, was truly impressive.  The wind, and in particular the clarinet solo in the shimmering nocturnal central section from the same player who had performed Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet earlier that day, were equally in sympathy with this life-affirming music; the brass balancing warm expression with blistering excitement, especially in the fireworks of the coda.  Breathtakingly good.

Rachmaninov’s 1907 ‘Isle of the Dead’ was inspired by seeing a monochrome reproduction of a macabre painting of a shrouded figure propelling a boat bearing a coffin to a rocky island necropolis.  Needless to say, the strains of the plainchant Dies Irae feature in the dark, sombre, melancholy texture.  There are a number of climaxes before the music subsides to silence, almost all in an eerie 5/8 metre.  It is music that paints a picture that holds a grim fascination.  It is never destined to be a favourite work of Rachmaninov’s, but it is a potent essay in the exploration of orchestral tonal colour (even if that colour is mostly black) and it was delivered with consummate artistry.

If a man in the street knows the start of only one symphony, that symphony will be Beethoven’s Fifth.  If he is asked to hum it, he will hum three short notes and one long with a pause, then again, a tone lower, again with a pause elongating the long note. Why?  Because that is how it is always performed. Why so?  Because that is what Beethoven wrote. The minim that occupies Bar 2 has a fermata. The tied minims of Bars 4 and 5 carry the same mark. Yannick Nézet-Séguin neglected these marks and drove the music on. I can see that this might seem more exciting and lend the music an added compelling demonic drive, but that is not a feature lacking from this music and it’s not what Beethoven wrote. I find it bizarre.

In all other respects, both technical and artistic, the performance of this iconic symphony was truly excellent: the tenderness of the slow movement, the demonic scherzo and the journey from darkness into the light of the triumphant finale. But let’s not edit Beethoven’s score. Just gonnae no.

A beautiful and moving encore was played: Valentin Sylvestrov’s ‘Prayer for Ukraine’.  As Yannick said, introducing it, “Hope is what the world needs right now”.

Cover photo: Jassy Earl