Critic’s Notebook: Jordi Savall’s Beethoven Cycle at the Konzerthaus, Part 1

Also published in Die Presse: Jordi Savall und die Tücken des Originalklangs

L.v.Beethoven, Symphonies 1-5 J.Savall, Le Concert des Nations Alia Vox SACDs

L.v.Beethoven, Symphonies 1-5 J.Savall, Le Concert des Nations Alia Vox SACDs

Squawk, Scratch, and Contrabassoon

Jordi Savall conducts a Beethoven symphony cycle on period instruments at the Konzerthaus. Unbelievably, a first. Here with Symphonies Nos. 3 & 5.

A "Beethoven symphony cycle". Well, that doesn’t exactly send shivers down one’s spine anymore. We’re practically tripping over the things. Every other week, it seems, someone’s cycling through the Nine, left and right of Vienna's Ringstraße and far beyond. And Beethoven on period instruments? That's welcome, sure, but a bit of an old hat by now. Or so you’d think.

And yet, Jordi Savall and his wonderful Le Concert des Nations have just brought a series of four concerts under way, in which they perform all nine symphonies at the Vienna Konzerthaus. This, the first of these, on Friday, the 22nd of February. Naturally all historically informed and played on original instruments. At a press conference prior to the concert, Savall spoke about his Beethoven project, which he’s been pursuing since 2018 and which has yielded some excellent recordings on his Alia Vox label — as if such a thing had never been attempted before.

Cue the instinctive eye-roll... promptly interrupted by a quick dive into the Konzerthaus archives. And lo: Not only has the Konzerthaus never hosted a Beethoven cycle like this, but Friday’s two offerings — the ever-popular Eroica and the Fifth — had essentially not been heard there at all in the HIP-setup. The Fifth: never, unbelievably. The Third: once, nearly 30 years ago, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Simon Rattle [sic!] — long before the knighthood and the Berlin tenure... and kind-of nixing the HIP-credits of the performance.

The Concert des Nations' Beethoven Symphony Cycle reviewed: Jordi Savall’s Beethoven Cycle at the Konzerthaus, Part 2: A Tale of two Halfs Jordi Savall’s Beethoven Cycle at the Konzerthaus, Part 3: Nearly Ideal Beethoven Jordi Savall’s Beethoven Cycle at the Konzerthaus, Part 4: Choir Yay, Horn Nay

So: high time, and ears wide open, for what Savall & Co. might offer in terms of articulation, tempo, transparency, precision, and color.

What followed in the Eroica was, alas, a bit of a lemon. Yes, the tempos were taut and the opening chords — those twin gateposts of Romanticism — came whipping, right out of the gate. But that’s nothing unusual these days, even from modern orchestras with HIP leanings. And those old instruments? They wasted no time showing their quirks: notes that cracked, slipped, squeaked, and wilted. The overall sound had a tangy roughness, occasionally warm, often clangy — the warmth likely intentional, the rest, not so much.

Savall is not one of those period bandleaders who push for “faster, louder, edgier.” He’s more Brüggen than Norrington, always steering toward a kind of cultivated nobility within historical bounds. But if one claims refinement and elegance as one’s aesthetic, then things have to be — well — clean. And they weren’t. One couldn’t help wondering whether the whole thing might not have worked better in the Mozartsaal — acoustically, at least. (Commercially? Unlikely. The Großer Saal was already bursting at the seams.) In the smaller space, the symphony would have come across as more intimate, yes, but also more immediate, raw, radical — a paradoxical gain in impact through reduction in scale.

As it was, the performance remained colorful, spontaneous even, but ultimately harmless. And yes, playing natural horns is hard. A squeak or two comes with the territory and no one minds. But on good days, even those tricky beasts behave better than this. When the woodwinds play in tune — and they mostly didn’t — their advantages shine through: flutes in particular, characterful and mellow, with a rounded depth that modern counterparts rarely achieve. This is what makes period performance thrilling when it works: like a vintage car rally — infinitely more gripping than the modern F1, even if a wheel occasionally flies off. But this many wheels?

Speaking of which: one poor violinist had to make an unscheduled pit stop in the third movement — snapped a gut string, presumably — and only returned for the Fifth Symphony. And it was not just him, but suddenly, the whole orchestra sounded transformed! Savall kicked off the Fifth with a clarity of intent and momentum that had been entirely absent in the first half. The music surged ahead, energized and driven. A telling moment came in the fourth movement, just before the fanfare: a careful buildup, the tension palpable, and then — a snappy release. And anchoring it all: Katalin Sebella’s gloriously snarling, grittily resonant contrabassoon — and thus: promise.
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