Hermann Scherchen - Beethoven: Symphony No.4 / Six Overtures (1954) [2009]

Hermann Scherchen at his best in Beethoven

Excellent sound quality backs excellent performances from 1954


"The gramophone's most unpredictable conductor gives a superlative performance of the Beethoven Fourth. It is powerful and tense in a degree not normally associated with the work, but made entirely convincing by the dash and skill of its presentation. The traditional view of the Fourth as a predominantly lyrical symphony has indeed much to recommend it; but the performance here of its first, third and fourth movements welds the lyrical elements briskly, and not at all unacceptably, into a vigorous whole. The slow movement, too, has its felicities: the slightest of accelerandos, just before the end, lends a new point to that familiar demisemiquaver passage. And this movement, along with the others, exhibits to the full the most beautiful orchestral playing: there are woodwind passages here to catch the heart (and, thinking of Scherchen's whirlwind tempo for the bassoon in the finale, the breath!)

As the recording is very good, having all the brilliance but not quite all the richness of the best, this must inevitably become the primary recommendation for a one-sided version of the Fourth; it outclasses Toscanini's H.M.V. on one or two counts. Less tension, if that is sought, may be found in Karajan's reading on the very well-recorded Columbia; here the symphony's finale goes over on to the second side, which is completed by the extended aria Ah, Perfido! An even less tense performance is secured by Krips on his Decca disc; but, though recorded most beautifully smoothly, that record, given wholly to the symphony, is now beginning to look expensive..." - from the Gramophone review of 4th Symphony, April 1956


Tracks:

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 4
BEETHOVEN Six Overtures

Personnel:

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Vienna State Opera Orchestra
conducted by Hermann Scherchen