Going to extremes with Iván Fischer
A savvy conductor makes Beethoven’s music fresh and fierce.
Time Out New York / Issue 756 : Mar 25–31, 2010
In the classical-music world, few figures approach the towering stature of Ludwig van Beethoven, whose nine symphonies, composed between 1799 and 1825, constitute one of art’s most imposing and durable achievements. Partly because of that regard, over the decades Beethoven came to be viewed as a granitic pillar of the establishment. Since the 1980s, however, historically minded conductors and period-instrument players have worked to restore the reputation Beethoven had during his own day: that of an upsetter whose radical notions were often met with incomprehension and disapproval. The period movement’s stylistic refinements eventually worked their way into modern orchestras, resulting in performances that combine the brisk tempos and lean textures of period-style playing with the greater power and precision made possible by today’s tools and techniques. Meanwhile, increasingly skillful period-instrument orchestras are deviating from strict historical dogma for greater expressivity.
A fruitful middle ground between period and modern styles, a trend now flourishing in Beethoven performance, will come into sharp focus during a four-concert series at Lincoln Center this week when the highly regarded conductor Iván Fischer leads two ensembles with which he is closely associated in a complete cycle of Beethoven’s nine symphonies. One group, the London-based Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, has long been among the elite forces of the period-instrument movement. The other, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, is widely reviewed as one of the finest ensembles in the world—period. Each group will present two concerts, splitting Beethoven’s cycle between them.
In Fischer’s view, both approaches to playing Beethoven’s music offer distinct benefits. “The advantages of a period orchestra are the clarity of articulation, the natural balance,” he says on the telephone from Budapest. “Just to give a practical example, Beethoven likes extremes, and if a trumpet player uses all of his power for a certain note, with the period instrument it will still be in balance with all the other instruments. Whereas in a modern orchestra, the trumpet player always has to be careful and moderate not to blast away the flute player or the viola player.” Any good modern trumpeter is capable of achieving that balance, but the intensity that Beethoven meant the music to have can be muted in the process.
As for the advantage of modern instrumentalists, Fischer asserts that involvement in the music can be deeper due to a direct lineage through which a player acquires knowledge, insights and skills from those who came before, rather than attempting to re-create centuries-old traditions from archival data and supposition. “The re-creation process is never as natural and organic as when something is passed on,” Fischer says. “Modern instrumentalists have an immediacy about what they like and dislike, so the emotional involvement is immediate, whereas the early-music specialists very often try to re-create something, even if it is not what they would naturally feel.” A larger pool of modern-instrument players also raises performance standards, Fischer says: “If there is an audition for a Baroque oboe, maybe ten people apply, and if there is an audition for a modern oboe, then 400 people apply. Because of the level of competition, there is a higher technical level.”
All of that said, assigning a particular symphony to one orchestra or the other for this series had less to do with historical considerations than stylistic affinities, Fischer explains. “There are certain works I performed frequently with both orchestras and I had a feeling it worked well for them—there is absolutely no other explanation,” he says. “The Fifth Symphony we performed many times with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Fourth, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies many times with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. And it became something extremely familiar to both orchestras, but this has nothing to do with period instruments or modern.”
It’s unfortunate, perhaps, that both orchestras couldn’t play together in at least one concert. But Fischer’s interest in bringing together the two approaches—heard on the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s fiery 2008 disc of the Symphony No. 7—will be evident in that orchestra’s concert on Saturday 27. “Our players will use natural trumpets and horns for the Fourth Symphony, and modern horns and trumpets for the Seventh,” Fischer says. The reason? “It sounds better,” he replies. “It has nothing to do with anything scientific or dogmatic, what is right or wrong.”
Iván Fischer conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment on Thu 25 and Fri 26, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra on Sat 27 and Sun 28 at Lincoln Center.
[Gratitude to Olivia Giovetti for unearthing this text on March 29, 2024.]
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