Between the 2009 recession and the growth of music streaming, the early 21st-century flood of classical music compact discs has dwindled to a trickle. That makes new CDs from musicians with Dallas-Fort Worth connections all the more remarkable.
From Robert Trevino, a conductor who grew up in North Richland Hills, comes a complete set of Beethoven symphonies, with Sweden’s Malmö Symphony Orchestra. Gregory Raden, principal clarinetist of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, collaborates on a recording of trios by Mozart, Schumann and Carl Reinecke, plus some filler arrangements of Schubert and Massenet.
With legions of Beethoven symphony recordings already available, led by conductors from the often ponderous Wilhelm Furtwängler and Christoph Eschenbach to the edgy Arturo Toscanini and Roger Norrington, one’s surprised to see a new set by a 36-year-old conductor still far from a household name. And the orchestra of which he’s music director hails from a city smaller than Fort Worth, although it has had an estimable succession of principal conductors over the years. (Trevino also helms the Basque National Orchestra in Spain.)
But Trevino is guest conducting major orchestras and opera companies on both sides of the Atlantic, and the Beethoven CDs are products of a major commitment from the Finnish label Ondine. In a concert last February with the Fort Worth Symphony, Trevino impressed as a capable musician with real personality. Although the FWSO isn’t identifying candidates to succeed Miguel Harth-Bedoya as music director, I wonder if Trevino is in consideration.
The first issue with Beethoven symphony performances is tempo: How fast should each movement go? (A composer friend says that if the tempo isn’t right, nothing else matters.) Beethoven was the first composer systematically to note beat-per-minute speeds for his symphonies’ movements, using a “metronome” newly adapted by the German inventor Johann Nepomuk Maelzel. Happy to have a method of specifying tempos more precise than the venerable Italian markings “allegro,” “largo” and such, Beethoven also left metronome markings for his first 11 string quartets and two of his piano sonatas.
The markings have been controversial every since. Antagonists have argued that Beethoven’s metronome was defective, that in his deafness he couldn’t imagine his music in performance and that the fast tempos are impossibly fast. These allegations are shaky at best, and conductors including David Zinman (one of Trevino’s teachers), Norrington and John Eliot Gardiner have proved that even the fastest tempos are possible — indeed, can be quite exciting — even if they require rethinking our preconceptions.
Still, there are “traditional” tempos, generally (but not always) slower than Beethoven’s, that have become received “wisdom.” Passed down from one generation of conductors to another, this approach portrays Beethoven as something of an Old Testament prophet handing down the law, as opposed to a temperamental musical revolutionary — the latter far truer.
Trevino’s approach falls somewhere between the two extremes. Indeed, there are valid arguments for slowing Beethoven’s fastest tempos for today’s orchestras, which are larger and much louder than Beethoven’s, and playing in much larger halls than in the early 19th century. Surely even the most doctrinaire musicologist would say just to aim in the general vicinity of the metronome markings. Rare’s the composer who hasn’t adjusted some metronome markings after first performances.
For the most part, Trevino certainly captures the spirit of the music. These are generally fresh, urgent, buoyant and caringly shaped performances, said to be captured in concerts. The orchestra lacks the sheen of the best, although it responds eagerly and expressively to Trevino’s direction. Soloists in the Ninth Symphony are capable, although fluttery vibrato from soprano Kate Royal and tenor Tuomas Katajala distracts a bit. At least in basic stereo format, otherwise serviceable sound on the SACD — Super Audio CD, offering surround-sound options — clots a bit in louder chorus-and-orchestra sections of the Ninth Symphony.
For reasons cited above, Trevino’s downward adjustments of Beethoven’s fastest markings make sense, without losing urgency. But slower tempos in some of the slower music miss the point. (Nowhere in the nine symphonies does Beethoven supply what the later 19th century would consider a true “slow movement.”)
Yes, the second movement of the Eroica is labeled “Funeral March,” but Beethoven marks it at a mobile 80 beats per minute; Trevino takes it at 58, which is a lot slower. In the third movement of the Ninth, the alternating themes are marked at 60 and a slightly faster 63 beats per minute, giving the secondary theme a delicate arabesque quality. At those tempos, the movement takes about 12 minutes. Trevino, alternating between the much slower 50 and 54, sentimentalizes it as a Mahlerian farewell, 14 and a half minutes long. I prefer it Beethoven’s way.
Still, this five-CD set of Beethoven symphonies is an impressive accomplishment. And at the $26.30 price currently listed on Amazon, a bargain!
Elegant clarinet chamber music
Regulars at Dallas Symphony concerts know principal clarinetist Gregory Raden as a musician of quite special eloquence. As expected, he brings his warm, creamy tone and generous expressivity to this new recording of clarinet trios by Mozart (Kegelstadt, K. 498), Schumann (Fairy Tales, Op. 132) and Carl Reinecke (in A major, Op. 264).
Also a regular at the annual Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming, Raden is joined by sympathetic festival colleagues Brant Bayless (viola) and Jason Hardink (piano) in what’s billed as the Teton Trio. Filling out the natural sounding CD are solo arrangements of two Schubert songs and a movement from Jules Massenet’s Scenes alsaciennes.
The Reinecke is a real find, from a German pianist, conductor, teacher, administrator and prodigious composer who lived from 1824 to 1910. Although composed as late as 1903, this trio represents late romanticism in fullest flower.
Details
Beethoven: The 9 Symphonies. Robert Trevino, Kate Royal (soprano), Christine Rice (mezzo), Tuomas Katajala (tenor), Derek Welton (bass), Malmö Symphony Orchestra, MSO Festival Chorus (Ondine ODE 1348-SQ, five SACDs)
Trios for Clarinet, Viola and Piano. The Teton Trio: Gregory Raden (clarinet), Brant Bayless (viola), Jason Hardink (piano) (Centaur CRC 3786)
