Audition - Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Monteux r 1958 #LVB6

Beethoven: Symphony No. 6

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Pierre Monteux

This recording was made in October 1958 by Decca.

There is so much to hear in Monteux’s Beethoven and so much to enjoy.. It is propulsive and pictoral and the VPO sounds like a well-maintained engine running on breaths of country air. It is not always tidy, but my word it is interesting. The pointed rhythms must be heard in the first movement. Monteux pushes the delineation of the strings not least putting the violins left and right. Every interjection especially in the horns and the woodwind is prominent.

The propulsive quality works with the slow movement very well too, the voices are revealed naturally even if at times the VPO lose cohesion slightly.  There’s not much to say about the rest of the symphony other than it seemed to have qualities closer to France than Germany. 

Digging into this we see little appetite for Beethoven in France when the composer was alive - he didn’t go to France.  But his reputation was boosted when  Beethoven died in 1827. By the next year the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, (le Société des Concerts du Conservatoire) was established, under conductors François Habeneck (1781 -1849) and Édouard Colonne (1838 – 1910).  Monteux (b. 1875 - d.1964) played viola in the orchestra under Colonne’s leadership and absorbed through that tradition of orchestral sounds. 

Monteux’s library of marked up scores (now lost) noted how conductors of his age interpreted and amended Beethoven’s works.  So it could be argued that Monteux was the most experienced Beethoven conductor post 1910 within a long lived Beethoven tradition.  

This lineage is important in the way we can listen to this disc – it is full of surges in tempo and volume which are thrilling and give a natural if not pastoral spirit to the peace. This extends to the brass and percussion too. 

Monteux doesn’t wallow in the melody or show the lines of the structure buthe pushes with a figure and insight he makes Beethoven sound even better.

PS this recording was very good largely I think because John Culshaw was at the desk.

Performance 10 out of 10

Interpretation 10 out of 10

Recording 10 out of 10.