Stanislaw Skrowaczewski’s Beethoven cycle has demonstrated itself to be a major success. The release of Symphonies 7 and 8 closes a project that attracted increasing attention by the press as it was taking place, and which is now being celebrated with non-stop, enthusiastic reviews.
“These are recordings with polish and fire, with a beautiful sound and absolutely transparent. The orchestral standard is excellent as well.” Das Orchester
“This cycle remains grandiose. Contrasts and the most subtle dynamic shadings are Skrowaczewski’s credo. Don’t wait: go have a listen and put it on your wish list!” hifi & records
“If one went looking for the most persuasive composite of past treasures and the most stimulating new recordings of the last twenty years, this CD would effort-lessly head the list. An absolute must!” Diapason

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski on this Recording

Probably for every orchestra and conductor, recording Beethoven Symphonies represents a special challenge, both from a technical and stylistic point of view as well as in terms of pure sound. The great richness and complexity of a Beethoven score with its secondary and tertiary inner voices require a perfect balance – not only between the main orchestral groups, but within chords as well. This must be clearly presented in a recording.

There has been controversy regarding Beethoven’s metronome markings for many years. In the last 30 or more years, some conductors have almost blindly followed these markings, often, in my opinion, to the detriment of the music, its content, message, majesty or power. One could sometimes suspect that the sheer ambition to present a novelty – pour épater le bourgeois, which often has brought fame and financial gain – has played a certain role here.

We know that Beethoven added metronome markings to his first six symphonies many years after he wrote them. But the precision of his metronomes was questionable – he complained in a letter to his publishers Schott & Söhne: “My metronome is sick and needs a watchmaker to recover its equable, regular pulse.” In other letters, written within a time span of several years, he put different metronome markings on the same piece.

Finally, we composers and conductors well know how much our feeling for the “right” tempo can change with time, especially if the composer happens to be of a compulsive, passionate character, as Beethoven was. In the 1820s, C.M. von Weber wrote in the Berliner Musik-Zeitung: “Never mind about marks on paper, use your brain.” Debussy speaks poetically about metronome figures, that they are like a rose, closed in the morning, opening with the light. Thus, with full respect for Beethoven’s metronome markings, I still take them sometimes cum grano salis, letting the music itself, its character, content and message be in the tempo of prime importance, and a sort of guide for me.

Then comes the problem of performing Beethoven’s music on modern instruments. This has to be solved by the conductor, who must use his knowledge, taste, feeling and understanding of the music. I am fortunate to face these problems with the excellent Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra at my side. After the success of our recent recordings of all eleven Bruckner symphonies, I know that these fine, dedicated musicians will help me successfully meet these new challenges.





Ludwig van Beethoven
* 16 December 1770 in Bonn
† 26 March 1827 in Vienna

A free artist in Vienna

Pure coincidence in history, a matter of a lucky historical moment? In any case, Beethoven was just the person needed. And was as fortunate as should be. Of course, he placed himself in the right place at the right time. When the revolution of 1789 signalled the turn of an era from Paris, the 19-year-old could already look back on a short, colourful career as a child prodigy and especially on a solid basis as a piano talent and promising young composer. He furthermore had already completed several years’ serious work as a court organist in Bonn in the services of the prince-elector of Cologne. At the age of 22, however, he left the tracks which would have seemed thoroughly satisfactory to others for various reasons, also because of his family. Indeed, Beethoven fulfilled the considerable requirements for a musician’s career in one of the more than six hundred independent political units found on the area of the German Reich.

But he wanted more. He started to create works of a grand and magnificent style. Under the influence of rock-solid Christian Gottlob Neefe, he had not just increased his dexterity to an enormous degree, but also, and more importantly, had extended his tastes in music, had developed a more acute consciousness of compositional technique and an emphatic ideal of education. The latter was mainly fuelled by the rhetoric of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, the poetry by the members of the Göttingen Hainbund and by young Goethe as well as by Schiller’s dramas – all of which was just about to become “classical”. In January 1793, Professor Bartholomäus Fischenich from Bonn sent a lied composition to Charlotte von Schiller written one year before: I am including a composition of the “Feuerfarbe” and wish to hear your verdict on it. It was executed by a local young man whose musical talents are generally acclaimed and whom the Prince-Elector has now sent to Vienna. He is to work on Schiller’s “Joy,” too, on each single stanza. I expect something perfect, for as far as I know him, he is one for matters grand and magnificent. For the time being, the Schiller family were in vain waiting for mail including the Ode to Joy, although Mrs Schiller, handling some of her husband’s due correspondence, answered in a friendly letter asking for it to be sent. It is likely that Ludwig van Beethoven started work at that time – but the results have not been handed down to us. They were probably assimilated in later stages of the work and eventually disposed of. The end product was only brought to public light long after Friedrich Schiller’s death and started its triumphal journey around the world as the final movement of the 9th Symphony.

32 years before that academy at the Kärntnertor Theatre that was the crowning moment in Beethoven’s meteoric rise – the programme listed the Overture op. 124, some parts of the Missa Solmenis and the 9th Symphony with the final cantata Ode to Joy – the young musician from Bonn was granted a sabbatical to pursue his study. Determined, he went to Vienna and sought out Joseph Haydn as his teacher. He was on the threshold when the doors opened onto a new era in society and aesthetics. Admittedly, he had to knock on the doors strongly and move the door-handle himself. He soon discovered that he needed almost superhuman performance and great moral strength for his lofty mission and high-flown goals: He sent a note to Nikolaus von Zmeskall, his friend and “favourite Baron Mud-driver” including details on their next pub appointment as well as his life maxim: Energy is the moral standard of people who are distinguished from the rest, and it is mine, too.

Struggles of self-assertion

Ludwig, the student from Bonn, realised soon after he had arrived in the capital that the main point was to become original, as his teacher Haydn put it. I would have never arranged anything like that, he wrote soon after his arrival in Vienna – it was to become his station in life once and for all, something he surely could hardly imagine at that time. He asked Eleonore von Breuning, whom he admired and to whom he dedicated variations for violin and piano which he sent to Bonn, to show some leniency on given occasions for remarkable difficulties in instrument technique: … I had frequently noted that there were certain individuals in V. who usually, after I had improvised one evening, wrote down many of my unique stylistics and boasted about them. Since I then anticipated that such things would soon be published, I set out to forestall them.

Original and brilliant

Beethoven, soon known all over town with his wild hairstyle, was quickly swamped with business, as he proudly informed publisher Nikolaus Simrock from Bonn (also intending to liven up business and raise the fees in his favour). In our democratic times, a short Viennese spring, he set himself up as a free artist, still an exceptional procedure – and remained a freelancer even when the democrats’ arrest and the “Jacobine trials” in the Habsburg Reich’s metropolis put paid to all further Republican endeavours. He kept to his path as a composer headed towards new ideas, increasingly finding respect and being presented as a musical author: Beethoven’s performance was magnificent, powerful and stirring, wrote the Journal for Theatre, Music and Fashion in Vienna in a review of the first works. Novelty and wealth, a lightness in employing the means of harmony, a certain uniqueness of style and arrangement made one expect an original and brilliant composer in this young man, and his great instrumental compositions, some of his symphonies and concerts confirmed these hopes. Those references to the “divine sparks” run through the reviews of the instrumental works like a lighted path. A heroic fire is the main characteristic found in them. Admittedly, there were complaints about the rather too bizarre manner, the extreme length of some movements and works as well as the profusion of ideas – the tendency to wildly heap thoughts on top of each other. Nevertheless, he grew ever more successful and the prices increased.

Grand – solemn – sublime

The fact that the bourgeois concert received such remarkable impetus in Central Europe during the 19th century and that instrumental music was held in such great esteem and had such a high status, was to a crucial extent due to the symphonies – the genre that distinguished itself during the second half of the 19th century starting from the court in Mannheim-Schwetzingen and was treated with that particular mastery by Mozart and in Haydn’s later works in Vienna, and that allowed Beethoven to climb Mount Parnassus. Beethoven thought along the lines of those principles that J.A.P. Schulz had developed in Sulzer’s General Theory of the Fine Arts, remaining almost completely untouched by the beginning discussion about Classicism or Romanticism in music: The symphony is ideally suited to express the grand, the solemn, the sublime. To make the works of this genre turn out well, they should not just move deeply and elevate, but also distinguish themselves by a particularly high degree of composure.

The symphonies symbolise Beethoven’s “breakthrough” – together with the piano compositions and the chamber music. For those audiences of people not especially interested in it, and indeed in the history of reception in general, they soon occupied a key position – on the way to the idolisation of the “titan” as well as in vehement defensive reactions that were to come.



Without a “furor”

Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his Eighth Symphony in a surprisingly short period of time. After jotting down first sketches in 1811, parallel to his work on the Seventh Symphony, he then completed a major portion of it in summer 1812 in the Bohemian spas of Teplitz, Franzensbrunn, Karlsbad and Eger. He finished the symphony in October while visiting his brother Johann in Linz, before continuing on his way home. It wasn’t until February 27, 1814, however, that the premiere took place. The event: an “Academy” concert presented and conducted by Beethoven himself, at which the trio Tremate, tempi, tremate op. 116, the Symphony No. 7 in A Major op. 92 and Wellington’s Victory or the Battle at Vittoria op. 91 were on the program as well. All in all, the concert was an enormous success, although the new work did disappoint the audience somewhat. One reviewer wrote that the applause Beethoven received was not as enthusiastic as that normally received for a work which pleases all, in other words: it didn’t create a furor, as the Italians say.

The Eighth Symphony

Why didn’t the Eighth Symphony impress 19th century listeners as much as its predecessor (which is still the case today)? Because it’s much better – as Beethoven somewhat cynically explained to his student Carl Czerny. A possibly more precise explanation might be that the Eighth is less spectacular, more difficult to grasp and conceals complex musical processes behind a harmless façade. Beethoven’s Eighth is shorter than some of Mozart or Haydn’s late symphonies and its compositional style seems at first to be moderate, classicistic, and sometimes even reactionary. But its brevity does not mean that it is a light-weight. Its harmony and thematic development are simply compressed to the greatest degree possible – thus placing much higher demands on listeners: it is full of life and humor, but very difficult because of the irregularities of the movements, said the “Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung” in 1818. And Beethoven’s relationship to tradition appears thoroughly broken as well; he often violates established standards or reacts to them with parody and exaggeration.

Moderate, classicistic, unconventional

Other than the Seventh Symphony, which begins with an expansive slow introduction, Beethoven starts the Eighth right off with the main theme: a melodically ornamented, downwards- moving triad which clearly presents the work’s key of F Major. The regular, four-bar periods of this beginning imply buoyancy and simplicity. The second theme surprises, however, by entering in D Major instead of the expected dominant key of C Major; the “correct” key is reached only after a quick modulation. The development primarily handles the first part of the main theme and is followed by a recapitulation in which the themes are orchestrated differently than in the exposition. Before reaching its final conclusion, the coda briefly cites the opening theme once again.

Instead of the usual slow tempo, Beethoven chose an “Allegretto scherzando” for the Eighth’s second movement, a movement which has often been noted in the literature as connected with Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, the inventor of the metronome. According to Beethoven’s first biographer, Anton Schindler, the main melody is based on a canon that the composer improvised as a farewell to Maelzel during a social evening in 1812. Its text: Ta ta ta ... lieber Mälzel, leben Sie wohl, sehr wohl! Banner der Zeit, grosser Metronom [ta ta ta... dear Maelzel, fare well, very well! Banner of the times, great metronome]. We now know the so-called “Maelzel canon” (WoO 162) to be a forgery by Schindler. But the story isn’t a bad one: the repetitive sixteenth-notes in the winds are quite reminiscent of a metronome. The conflict between this regular accompaniment and the playful main theme leads to rhythmic displacement, splitting up of the theme and unexpected fortissimo bursts. These are what give a scherzando character to the movement, which ends with a humorous jab at the ends of Italian opera acts.

It would be impossible, of course, to follow a Scherzando with a Scherzo, and Beethoven thus replaces this more modern variant of the symphonic third movement with nothing less than an exaggerated, almost “portly” minuet. The stereotypical rocking motion of the accompaniment at the beginning and the simplicity of the main theme seem more parody than not, as does the later Landler character of the trio theme, presented later by the horns and clarinets.

In the Finale, Beethoven combines sonata- and rondo-forms. The movement has two developments and two recapitulations. This made it particularly difficult for listeners of the times to follow the composer’s stream of ideas and decipher the apparently chaotic confusion (according to the “Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung”). The movement is exceptionally full of contrasts and surprises as well as unexpected changes of key and colour. One example of Beethoven’s enigmatic humor is the fortissimo C-sharp – a tone completely foreign to the momentary key – before the repeat of the main theme. This note comes up in the exposition and first recapitulation – and seems to be completely unmotivated. Its purpose is not revealed until the second recapitulation: it now paves the way to F-sharp Minor, in which Beethoven skilfully reinterprets the main theme shortly before the end of the piece.

Success capturing

the public mood The classicism of the symphonies of Mr. van Beethoven, the most important instrumental composer of our times, is widely known. This newest work will earn its brilliant author no less admiration than his older ones; perhaps it will even have an important advantage over them in that all of its movements are so clear, all themes so pleasing and easy to understand - without any less compositional artistry - that every friend of music, even without being a connoisseur, will be powerfully attracted by their beauty and burn with enthusiasm. As this contemporary concert review shows, audiences and critics alike reacted positively to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, composed in 1811/1812. This may in part have to do with the clarity and understandability mentioned above, but political events of the day certainly contributed to the work’s success as well. Two months before its premiere on December 8, 1813, the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig had set off Napoleon’s decline, and the major “Academy” concert where the work was heard served as a benefit for the “Austrian and Bavarian soldiers who had become invalids” in the battle of Hanau.

The Seventh Symphony

The Seventh Symphony was performed several more times during the Congress of Vienna (September 1814 to June 1815), when diplomats from many countries negotiated new boundaries in Europe and indulged in a wealth of social and cultural events on the side. During these first repetitions of the symphony, it was included on programs together with Beethoven’s anti-Napoleon battle description Wellington’s Victory or the Battle at Vittoria and the cantata The glorious moment. This led many to conclude that the Seventh Symphony also expressed a joyful mood of victory and freedom. Well into the 20th century, literature on Beethoven proposed many further extra-musical suppositions about this work, suggesting that it might be anything from an “antique celebration of the vine” to wedding music, from knightly festivities to a military symphony, and finally, the idea that it was a musical setting of scenes from Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister”. Although none of this can be verified, the idea that there could be some sort of program behind the music is at least understandable, especially after the Eroica and Pastorale. But Beethoven always fended off all too concrete interpretations; he would only accept explanations that limited themselves to the characteristics of the composition in general. But in any event – one must be allowed to portray the work as optimistic and mirthful.

A programmatic symphony?

This is true for the opening movement, whose main Vivace section is governed by a dance in 6/8. Before this, however, we hear the longest slow introduction that Beethoven ever used to begin a symphony. With its two independent themes as well as the immense variety of their musical ideas, this introduction almost takes on the part of an independent symphonic movement. The beginning of the following Allegretto, which replaces the slow movement in the Seventh Symphony, is an effective contrast to the Vivace: a sad wind chord in A Minor casts doubt on the previous mood of victory. A song of mourning then unfolds with increasing power and menace above a two-bar ostinato rhythm – listeners of the times would without question have understood it as a funeral march for those who had fallen in battle. According to a period critic, the movement was a favourite of both musical specialists and laypersons, one which profoundly appeals to even those not familiar with the rules of composition, one which irresistibly sweeps all along with it through its naivety and a certain secret magic, and whose repetition has been compelled by the enthusiasm of listeners at every performance until now. Exhilarating rhythms also characterize the following Scherzo, which is interrupted twice by a more cantabile trio. Songs from Beethoven’s music for Goethe’s “Egmont”, a highly patriotic composition composed in 1810, are also heard in this movement. Later subtitles such as “orgy of rhythm” (Romain Rolland) or “apotheosis of the dance” (Richard Wagner) were given to the Seventh Symphony primarily thanks to its Finale. After two dramatic chords, a veritable storm of rhythmic energy and frenzied movement bursts forth. Although some of Beethoven’s contemporaries held the opinion that this symphony can only have been composed in unhappiness, or a drunken state (Friedrick Wieck) or demanded that the composer be sent to the madhouse for it (Carl Maria von Weber), many more listeners reacted with absolute enthusiasm to the ecstatic close of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.