CD Review: Beethoven: Symphony No 3 - VPO/Bohm

Dr Karl Bohm (1894-1981) recorded the Eroica symphony twice on LP and it’s the second recording which I will consider here, made on the 18 September 1971 in the Musikverein, Vienna. At the time Bohm was conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in a cycle of the Beethoven symphonies for Deutsche Grammophon. Bohm was a star conductor across the world having shone in Vienna, Berlin, New York, Bayreuth and with the great German orchestras and in the world’s finest opera houses. His readings of Mozart, Wagner, Richard Strauss and Alban Berg are still authoritative so is his Beethoven.

For many people getting to know Beethoven in the 70s this was the boxed set of choice. As ever with DG at that time the sound is clear and and well balanced. Bohm was a an experienced, venerated and something of a grumpy conductor though his character we subsequently learn could be unpleasant. Musically though he was something of a conjuror.  There was much that was attractive here. The competition at the time was considerable see my post of Eroica on record.  In particular the even more venerated (especially in this work) Klemperer, Karajan and Jochum. The only thing which would sound less familiar to us nowadays was the unique Vienna wind section. This reminds us of a time when orchestras all sounded very different to each other, a time sadly lost.

The original cover art shows Bohm at work in the Grosser Saal in the Musikverein and, if the detail in the booklet is to be believed, the recording was completed in a day. Bohm worked his orchestras hard especially in matters of line and balance.  Rarely have I thought his recordings were inspirational "events" but he was often closer to the score than most.  He can bring of moments of exquisite beauty or lines of perfect balance and shape, but I rarely think his ideas are earth-shattering. In Eroica, the challenge is making the beast sing and hold together a piece which should be the most tremendous thrill - he excelled in this kind of work.

The first movement of Bohm’s Vienna Eroica starts as many do with two chords that sound louder than marked in the score. It proceeds with a mellow but thorough approach, there's a genial account of the familiar set of four themes punctuated, more often than not, by accents which are more forthright than most.  He does not conduct convivial Beethoven. He keeps things tight as the the urgency of the music builds in this extraordinary, long and complex movement. Somehow things go awry in the recapitulation - muddy wind sound and a loss of energy by the players - a different take perhaps - it’s a rare lapse. The momentum is recovered for the approach to the coda where that new theme is so tiny that we fear it will be smothered. But I have bigger problems in the coda which where he seems to regard the movement as static or circular.  The return to the first theme at bar 631 seems to repeat the opening too closely where others are stretching to get to the finish line.  It seems nothing much has changed in spite of all that has been experienced. It’s a somewhat hollow final climax - including Wagner’s added trumpets.

Bohm’s approach to the Funeral march is overall deliberate and martial but beautifully nuanced in it’s details.  The benefits of this throughout the movement are many - only the Trio section (bar 69 -101) gets a tad too heavy. The three interpolations which change this Adagio into a radical moment in music history are very well realised. Here Bohm dramatises with the ear of a master of theatre and it is without the lazy effects others bring. There’s great elegance in the more fluid music - say in the double fugue and the final section of the movement where the march is broken is perhaps the emotional centre of the symphony in this reading. It is a moment of sublime control from both conductors and players. The third movement is spritely and neat and collected, the trio is contained in a Haydnesque way, and it’s quite nice the way the Vienna horns are bright but not too prominent.

The whole of the first section of the finale has a classical restraint until the theme is stated and even then the music and the playing is emboldened and swankier but not fully grand. This is interesting restraint from Bohm who views the symphony as having more facets than most. The middle sections - the fugue, stretto and the delicate flute-led variation are emphasised with pointing not bravado. It’s only after the double fugue that the drama is set free - if that’s the right word. The Poco Andante is perhaps a different take, it’s certainly a different mood - slower and rather exaggerated. Bohm holds the horn led variation back - the Vienna horns are burnished (but somewhat indistinct), the effect (Beethoven knew what he was doing) is of treading water before the final section of this monumental piece. Its a ski-jump of a coda - for the most part held back then suddenly released in a Presto that sounds a tad too much for the orchestra but exhilarating for the listener.  This is the only time where I would say Dr Bohm pushes for a flashy effect - it works though.

On the whole I was intrigued and learned a lot from Bohm’s reading about different approaches to the ebb and flow in Beethoven's great work - an art that has been lost somewhat and in some hands it has disappeared. This great man of the opera house can maintain a dramatic pulse in this symphony because he knows when to pull it back and how the excitement must build. It may appear very orderly, but the material has depth and inner dynamism to sustain symphonic drama throughout.  That said I don't think this is far from the middle ground and both Monteux and Klemperer in different ways push it much further. 

There is another reading made nearly a decade earlier by Bohm and the Berlin Phil but that is for another day.