Are Beethoven symphonies best played by German orchestras ?

Question

all my fave recordings (most of them historic vinyl) are by German musicians.
do they have a special "something" when it comes to Beethoven ?.if i see a new disc by a non-german orchestra i seldom bother,am i missing out ?
i have the occaisional Austrian ones but i'm wondering if Beethoven is similar to Wagner in that the best albums are from Germany.

come to think of it,all my favourite Tchaikovsky is by Russian orchestras !

alright,alright.stop talking to me like i'm aged 7.go and tell all this to the director of the berlin phil.
and anyway,if nationality doesn't matter then how come i couldn't get away with playing sufi music ? why ? because i'm from bloody Wales,that's why !

Answer 1

In a way this is true, and I have mainly Deutsch Grammaphon recordings of Beethoven's symphonies on CD. Mind you, Holst sounds better played by British orchestras.

Answer 2

Undeniably, a tradition was built around national orchestras for ethnic authors (you usually find Villa-Lobos performed by brazilians, Poulenc by french and rare italians like Mercadante by italians); that can account for Tchaikovski and russians in general, since the russian world (not only musically) has always been rather closed (T. was one of the few cases of western openings), though I have Muti and Mehta conducting T.'s symphonies decently.
When it comes to Wagner, we get into the operatic world, where performances are entwined to singing tradition and language, and national preference (not exclusivity) is obvious.
As to Beethoven, his universality puts him above any localism, so, if you were looking for consensus, as someone pointed out, I am not there ! Then, L.v. was born in Bonn but his cultural arena was Vienna, so where was his traditional playground built ?
Just one side point. There's surely a consolidated preference of specific orchestras for specific authors; it is the case of Berliner with Mahler (Bernard Haitink witnessed that in many interviews). The sound is that very special sound. I tend probably to overestimate the technical factor in music, but the usage of instruments of the same origin and brand, in the long run creates recognizable differences.

To Capt. bullshot. It's only your opinion vs. Haitink's bullsh.t. That win the best.

Answer 3

The controversy courting nature of your headline seems to have obliterated what seems to me the heart of the matter you have raised in the body of your question: if you see a new disc by a non-german orchestra, and just for that reason seldom bother to buy it, are you missing out?

Yes, of course you are, potentially. Were you a collector of fine bone china, only focussed on Meissen, what innumerable potential splendours of, let's say, Sèvres and Wedgwood would you not be missing. The moment you might say only Italian opera is worth the candle, the wealth of opera of another provenance would forever be closed to you -- just because of a blinkered application of a 'label' as the sole criterion, to the exclusion of everything else.

Barenboim and Said's magnificent achievement of the Divan Orchestra -- explicitly including their Beethoven performances -- demonstrates how this narrow application of defined labels, and those of ethnicity specifically, are belied by the outcome in performance. Walter Gieseking couldn't have been more Germanic by birth, name and heritage, yet his performances of French music are the stuff of legend, to us pianists certainly. Had your 'preset' been "French only by the French", the only one to be the poorer for it would be you.

So, you're definitely losing out: statistically alone you cannot fail to do so. The remedy is equally simple, beautifully coined 'across the pond': 'just suck it and see', and you're likely to be very much the richer for it at a stroke...

How easy's that eh..? :-))

Answer 4

I don't think one can make that generalization. While I understand that the idea of some sort of common roots would make for a more intimate understanding of a composer's works, history doesn't seem to bear that out.

The most obvious example is Toscanini's reading of Beethoven and Wagner. This with the NBC Symphony which was overwhelmingly comprised of musicians of Jewish origin.

Answer 5

Strangely I've noticed that recordings of most German composers are best played by German orchestras. This is especially true of the 4th Movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I think with the singing in the Choral that it is much better done with German singers, especially the tenor solo "Froh, wie seine Sonne..."

Answer 6

There's a lot of bullsh*t in some of the above opinions (I won't say "answers").Conductors have more to do with the quality of the playing of a given piece than the components of the ensemble, but even then, nationality has little to do with it. Neither should one forget that in recordings, the producer (usually a musician himself) has an important part to play in the quality of the sound.

Answer 7

There is NO national *purity* anymore - get over yourself. Do you know that if enter the FINEST restaurant in your city, regardless of the cuisine - French, Italian, even sushi - the chances are that the chef is MEXICAN. They have assimilated all the skills to cook in ANY cuisine - except their own, often. Their Mama cooks Mexican food - so the male Mexican chefs are more likely to learn a cuisine as their profession. The same with music. If you are talking about ETHNIC music - that is another story. But if you are talking about ART music - well, PLEASE!!! People gravitate to a cuisine or an art because it speaks to them - and they learn all they can to make it speak to others. My ethnicity - or lack thereof - in NO WAY dictates my choice and successful performance of literature.

Answer 8

The Rondo alla ingharese quasi un capriccio in G considerable, Op. 129 - "Rage over a lost Penny" i think of of it as "exercising in pounding out G chords for ever and ever" ... and "rattling it, i can not play it fluidly anymore."

Answer 9

Sounds like you just want someone to agree with you. I don't. It also sounds like you know enough about music to be able to investigate this by yourself.

Answer 10

i'm gonna agree with you,david d.
i can't put my finger on why but i think you're right