Comparing 5 conductors VERY different openings of Beethoven 5th Symphony (& why they chose that)

let's talk about beethoven's fifth symphony so i think you will all agree with me that  beethoven's fifth symphony is one of the most   popular pieces of classical music but I would even  go as far as saying that just the four opening   bars are the most popular four bars in classical  music ever but even though it's been played it's   been performed and conducted a million times  there's still so many different interpretations   so many different performances so today i thought  i will focus on just those four opening bars i   will show you all the different things that are  open to interpretation all the different things   that are not and i will exemplify everything  with different conductors that took sometimes   very very opposite decisions if you're new here  my name is Anna and i'm an orchestra conductor   and that is why i'm devoting a whole video to just  four bars of music but you will see that there's   a reason okay so i'm going to break this down in  sort of three parts and the first part is going   to be about tempo what did beethoven write what  did he want here it says allegro con brio which   is you know allegro with a lot of this just very  enthusiastic allegro and the metronome marking   is 108 for the whole bar so let me get my  trusty metronome to show you guys what 108 is so that is 108 that is for the whole bar what i  mean by this is that the piece is written in two   four so two beats per bar but because this  is so fast-paced it's usually conducted in   one meaning instead of showing both of the beats  in the bar you just show sort of the first one   and you keep going because otherwise it would be  very busy and this is supported by how beethoven   writes this metronome because he says 108 for  the whole bar not for each pulse which makes   us conductors think oh he is really thinking  in bar units so first i'm gonna play you two   very radically different decisions on the tempo  and then we're gonna talk about why that happens   the first one is by Gardiner and he pretty much  follows the metronome indication that is written and the second one is by  Pierre Boulez and you will see yep that's that's pretty different the thing is  that for the longest time beethoven's metronomes   were believed to be inaccurate people thought  that his metronome was defected there are a   lot a lot of theories a lot of research i  really a: don't know enough about it and b:   wouldn't even have the time if i wanted to, to  break all that down but all you need to know is   that for a long time it was debated whether those  metronomes should be followed or not nowadays   we're collectively moving towards sort of giving  those metronomes a chance and seeing where that   takes us and for Beethoven fifth that is pretty  much the speed that you heard Gardiner perform   at now the second big issue or big thing to note  in this beginning is the fermata the pause that   is written so if we take a look at the score after  the eighth note we have the long note and the low   note has what is called fermata on top which just  means hold this note until you don't want to hold   it anymore that is pretty straightforward it's  just gonna be a matter of the conductor or the   ensemble deciding on the length of that note the  end, but, if you look at the second you will see   that it's not written the same way instead of just  landing after the eighth notes in another half   note that just has a fermata on it, it lands into  a normal half note that is slurred that is linked   in sound that continues into a half note with a  fermata so what's the most common interpretation,   what did beethoven meant by this is, well  possibly he just wanted the second long note   to be held longer than the first one and instead  of writing you know hold for longer with words   or something like that which wasn't really done at  the time he just made sure that that held note was   slurred to another figure to indicate well this  one's longer so to illustrate all that i've been   saying i'm gonna show you two different recordings  now because this is kind of subtle i am going to   add a timer or something like that to time both  of the long notes within themselves so what we're   trying to see is whether the conductor decided  that both long notes should be one longer than   the other or doesn't matter so for Karajan if we  see it timed both long notes last about the same   but on the contrary if i showed you Abbado's  decision even though it is subtle and it should   be subtle because it's not like there's  a million half notes slurred to a fermata   it's just one but you will see with the timer that  the second one does last longer than the first one   now before i get to my third point which  is about conducting this i do want to add   one more thing about the fermatas and show  you a pretty crazy example which is that   sometimes some conductors might consider that  the length of that fermata, of that long note,   instead of being completely random should sort  of enter in the big scheme of how the whole   movement is structured the movement is  roughly structured every four bar the   musical phrases last four bars i'm gonna play  you a little bit of it and show you with a score   so for some conductors that initial fermata  kind of enters in a you know let's make it last   four bars give or take of  course it should not be anything   mathematical or metronomic because it's  supposed to be you know hold it as much   as you want but i'm going to show you this  recording by Bruno Walter and you will see   that really we're all sort of holding it to  something that makes sense within the scheme   because Bruno Walter did not do that and  to me it sounded very shocking here you go   but i mean hey Bruno  Walter...was Mahler's student so   he's fine now and lastly i want to talk about  conducting this opening what are the challenges   or is there anything there that conductors can  interpret differently i would say there are sort   of two things to consider and to illustrate this  i'm gonna first play you a version by Kleiber so the first thing that i want to discuss about  that clip is that if you notice Kleiber with his   left hand does a count in he does a counting  which is actually on a on a big scheme of   thinking about this four bar phrases because he  counts one two three and papa pam watch it again and this is a personal choice by Kleiber it's not  something that's written it's not even something   that is studied in like conducting school barely  any conductor does it but i wanted to show that   to illustrate there's a reason why he does that  and it's because this is a very hard movement to   begin to set the tempo for many many reasons one  of them being that it's a very start and stop   movement usually you give an impulse and then  you you know you give a couple of more and then   the orchestra you sort of enter in a tempo but  here you give one impulse and then you're you're   done you're holding the note it also has to  do with starting with an eighth note silence   which makes those short notes sound like a pickup  and all those things are kind of hard to show   that is why Kleiber decides to show three beats  ahead to go like okay this is the pulse guys   and then the orchestra is already sort of in  the loop of what the tempo is but like i said   that's actually very rare and it's even rarer for  Kleiber because he's usually not that technical in   how he shows things and the second thing that he  shows which is an extremely sort of technical you   know conducting school thing that i haven't seen  many professional conductors with professional   orchestra show is that extra bar which is slurred  to the second format what do i mean by all of this   if you have a fermata if you have a long note as  a conductor you land there and you show hold hold   hold hold hold until you decide to leave that  note and ultimately because it's your judgment   as a conductor of how long those notes should  be it doesn't really matter that the second one   has that extra note and that extra slur you could  and most do just show okay hold and the second one   papa papa and you just hold a bit longer because  you know about the stuff we've mentioned but   what Kleiber does if you pay attention is once he  land in the second fermata, a very sort of small   dead what we call neutral gesture to show hey guys  here is that half note slurred into the long one   he technically shows us that there is that extra  bar between the second long note and the first one now to be honest this is not shown at all  i'm very surprised that he did that again   because ultimately like i said there is no  difference in sound or in what the musicians   are going to do regardless you're showing them  that extra bar or not they're still gonna wait for   you to leave that fermata there's no difference in  that sense that gesture is what we conductors like   i said called neutral bars and that's usually used  in opera when there are like let's say orchestras   have four bars of silence while a singer sings and  then they come back and instead of as a conductor   showing nothing and then going okay here we are  again you just kind of show okay one bar two bars   three bars even though there's no music happening  that's why they're called neutral because you're   not like enthusiastically conducting silence  you're just showing it so that musicians that   are sitting there can keep count and come back in  without being you know so tense as to where are we   so it's rare that he shows that but it's good for  me because i can exemplify this to you and also i   again love how random that is you know there's  like actual really complicated technical things   that he doesn't show in other places and that  he just lets him play and then here there's   something like no one really needs and he shows  it so it's like i don't know you do you Kleiber   so i hope this was interesting let me know if  you have any other questions or if you have a   favorite beethoven fifth recording or if it  appear at a bugs bunny i don't know anything   between fifth related you can write it in  the comments and i will see you next time

Channel: How I Met The Opera

Views: 13,680

Keywords: Beethoven 5th, Beethoven Symphony 5, Beethoven 5, conductors beethoven, Beethoven analysis, why is beethoven 5 so famous, orchestra, most famous Beethoven

Id: 60a5khDnsBA

Length: 11min 54sec (714 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021