BERNSTEIN - BEETHOVEN • PART V

 

Bernstein : Overtures String Quartet Op. 131

    "  Beethoven's late string quartets are my Desert Island music at any time. Some consider them as the very pinnacle of Western music. I completely agree with that. Each listening could be different (and hopefully deeper and more moving experience). I always find something new after each listening. It's no easy music. One needs to drop everything to listen to them, much like worship.  "

Release 15 Sep. 2008

 Review (from Amazon)

Beethoven's late string quartets are my Desert Island music at any time. Some consider them as the very pinnacle of Western music. I completely agree with that. Each listening could be different (and hopefully deeper and more moving experience). I always find something new after each listening. It's no easy music. One needs to drop everything to listen to them, much like worship. They are also extremely difficult to play. The members of the world-famous Tokyo String Quartets, for example, once mentioned that, in Japan, one must have God's gift to be "worthy" to perform the late quartets. They even described their constant struggles when playing them. So Lenny believes having one mind unifying all the deep hidden meanings could make the "struggles" easier. May be this is one of the reasons why Bernstein recorded string orchestra version of a few late Beethoven quartets. Lenny even considered the Op. 131 the pinnacle of his collaboration with the Vienna Philharmonic. You may debate how unpure this version may be, even basically the parts are the same as the string quartet version, with double-bass doubles the cello lines as the only change. The performance itself is breathtaking, and the virtuoso display of Vienna Philharmonic strings is beyond belief (may be except the 5th movement, when the tempo is way slower than usual. But the cadenza-like presto passages are already near impossible for 4 string players, we cannot expect Lenny could pull it off w/ much more players). The performance is also light on the Bernstein-egomania. It certainly doesn't performed like Bernstein's great (but very subjective) Mahler cycles, when his ego is so big, you gotta like them or hate them. It would be also worth-while to compare this performance with Mahler's 10th symphony for the sake of argument from the purist's perspective. Yea one may argue different performance versions of Mahler's 10th is not Mahler's original composition, much like people would argue this Op 131 is not Beethoven's vision. But the supreme beauty of this music just cannot be denied. And the different performance medium in this Op 131 (4 strings vs the string orchestra) has revealed so many important new perspectives, I really appreciate Lenny had the gut to do this.

Or...there are many ways to connect with God and worship God. This performance is one of such ways.

Absolutely not to be missed.

P.S. May be Bernstein *wants* to be like Mahler, who also changed orchestrations of some Beethoven works when he was in Vienna. (Mahler, like Lenny, got its share of negative critisms too).

 By H. Pang "The Silent Music" (New York City, NY) 

Bernstein - Beethoven Cycle Part 5

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Egmont Overture, Op. 84 Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 Leonore Overture No. 2, Op. 72a König Stephan Overture, Op. 117 String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 131 Transcription for String Orchestra

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Wiener Philharmoniker, Leonard Bernstein & Humphrey Burton (director)

with introductions to the King Stephen overture and String Quartet from Leonard Bernstein
Recording Place & Date:
Musikverein, Vienna, February 1981 (Egmont, Coriolan)
Musikverein, Vienna, November 1978 (King Stephen, Leonore III)
Konzerthaus, Vienna, September 1977 (String Quartet)

 [ LINK ]  (image nero + cover hidden in dvd) 

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