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Beethoven Complete Symphonies (Ren Leibowitz Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)

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Beethoven: Complete Symphonies (René Leibowitz / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)

Short summary: This is a revolutionary, legendary, now hard to find complete recording of Beethoven's symphonies and the Leonore overture No. 3, essential masterpieces of classical music. It follows Beethoven's original tempo markings, sports remarkably fleshed-out secondary voices and orchestral color, in many ways it combines the drive of Toscanini with the imaginative phrasing of Furtwängler or Kleiber. Every fan of classical music should have listened to this underrated Beethoven cycle at least once.

René Leibowitz (17 February 1913 - 29 August 1972) was a French composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher born into a Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland.

He started studying violin at age 5 and studied composition with Webern and Ravel in the early 1930s, in '37 he gave his conducting debut Chamber Orchestra of the French Radio in Europe and the United States. During the war he was active in the Résistance, all while teaching composition and conducting a number of pupils, among them Pierre Boulez. His repertoire as a conductor included nearly everything from all periods, from Bach to Offenbach over Wagner all the way to the Schönberg school. He composed a vast repertoire of atonal/12-tone music and made numerous (re-)orchestrations, most notably of Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor and Mussorgsky "Night on Bare Mountain".

This is his legendary and revolutionary (and ridiculously hard to find) recording of Beethoven's symphonies made with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1961. The legendary Decca team Gerhardt and Wilkinson handled the recording, in terms of clarity, color and use of stereo this excellent remaster (courtesy of Chesky records) trumps many digital recordings - and the famous '62 Karajan cycle, the much more popular and well-known (then and now) competitor of this recording - wrongly, in my eyes (and that of many other music enthusiasts).

This reading of Beethoven's symphonies was revolutionary when it came out in '62 as it was the first cycle to follow Beethoven's original tempo markings all while sporting cleanly separated and well-fleshed out secondary voices that were almost always lost in the Romantic mixed sound common at the time. In his treatment of rhythm and phrasing Leibowitz is much closer to Furtwängler and Fricsay than he is to the relatively stiff Toscanini, Böhm or Karajan. Indeed, faithfulness to the music and expression mattered more than dogmatic faithfulness to the score here. This is fiery, brassy, often bold, often lyrical and sensitive Beethoven, always played with great joy and attention to rhythm and color, transparent, but never lightweight - and though the playing is not as super-precise as that of the Berlin Philharmonic or the Philharmonia Orchestra, it captures the excitement of a live performance. When it wants to be it can be rugged, raw, almost abrasive - something Beethoven needs, his music is not about perfection, it's about longing, struggle and hope.

Let me compare this cycle to Karajan's '62 cycle (which is by all accounts still his best and least 'Schönklang'-tainted one): Generally, Leibowitz cycle highlights the individual color of the instruments much better, both through better, intelligent separation in the stereo mix as well as through a smaller string section. The more modestly sized string section results in a greater dynamic variety, all-too-often Karajan's Beethoven is constrained between mezzopiano and mezzoforte, additionally, rhythm is much sharper outlined in Leibowitz' version, his sustain isn't as well-rounded and soft as that of Karajan, but that matters little for Beethoven. Indeed, Karajan's stiff, but soft-edged orchestral sound and phrasing hurts Beethoven significantly - be it the Fifth's first movement, were all the secondary voices blur into each other and result in plenty of indignant um-pah where there is sharp, piercing, internally conflicted phrasing in Leibowitz' version. Or the Seventh: The second movement, Karajan takes it at a much faster speed than Leibowitz, but also evens out and softens the restless rhythm of its main theme (dah-da-da-dah-dah), the whole march triste/funebre character of it is lost that way. Furtwängler, Kleiber and Leibowitz are much more vehement, dramatic and forward-striding here. The final movement is a great example of this, too - Karajan's version sounds like a linear (but nonetheless fiery) concerto for timbal and strings, whereas Leibowitz perfectly captures the conflicted, dizzying frenzy of the movement (even though he takes it at a slower pace) through his attention to the rhythmic counterpoint of the secondary voices. He has the ultimately life-affirming catharsis that Karajan lacks. It's similar in the first movement of the 4th, the funeral march of the 3rd and many more - actually, this cycle replaced many of my previous favorite versions - namely the famous Carlos Kleiber 5th with the VPO and the Böhm "Pastorale" with the same orchestra.

But look at me, I'm rambling. Here's the only additional bit of advice you're gonna get from me: Download this cycle, listen to it with an open mind and ear, form your own opinion. Oh yeah, and enjoy.

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