After 100 years with pretty much only one option, conductors now have many choices of what edition of the Beethoven symphonies to use. So what parts have my colleageus been looking at, and what scores have I been? Why?<\/p>\n
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The Edition-<\/strong><\/p>\n In Lancashire they actually used the \u201cold\u201d Breitkopf edition. I hadn\u2019t used that edition in several years, having done my last several performances and the 2005 RCICW using the Barenreiter edition by Jonathan Del Mar<\/a>. It is always worth using the best sources one can find, but I would caution conductors against taking Barenreiter\u2019s marketing hyperbole to heart<\/a>– the old edition is still perfectly useable, and although Del Mar\u2019s edition is exceptionally well-researched and beautifully typeset, there are plenty of editorial decisions that are just that- editorial decisions. Some of the \u201cnew\u201d discoveries that we\u2019ve heard so much about\u00a0 are actually more alternate readings the Del Mar has chosen from among many different possibilities in the original sources. Since Beethoven never left us a \u201cdefinitive\u201d source that expressed his complete and final wishes, you can\u2019t call Del Mar\u2019s parts an Urtext so much as a Critical Edition.<\/p>\n For the SMP performance, we are using the \u201cother\u201d Critical Edition, the \u201cnew\u201d Breitkopf edition<\/a> that has been prepared by Clive Brown<\/a> (Peter Hauschild edited some of the other symphonies in the edition) and released in 1996. I remembered reading about this edition a few years back and being a bit baffled at why it had received almost no discussion in the press. While record companies are quick to trumpet that this or that new set was recorded using the Del Mar, and critics have raved about the \u201cfresh\u201d insights of performances using Del Mar, I\u2019ve heard very little about Brown\u2019s edition.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t help but ask myself \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d with Brown, so I ordered the score, and the answer seems to be that there is nothing at all wrong with it. It is beautifully researched, with contentious points carefully discussed. There is a shortened version of the critical report in German in the back, and a separate book in English (and German) called \u201cA New Appraisal of the Sources of Beethoven\u2019s Fifth Symphony\u201d is available, which has a wonderfully detailed and lucid comparison of all the available sources. I\u2019m so glad we have the chance to use Brown\u2019s parts this week (in spite of a few dodgy page turns<\/a>), and if I remain as happy as I am now, I think I\u2019m going to by a set for myself. It isn\u2019t as beautifully typeset as the Barenreiter, but I feel more comfortable with some of what is in it.In any case, I would really recommend that even if you love the Del Mar, it is worth it for any conductor to\u00a0get the score of Brown and compare the two. You may find that some of the changes from the “old’ edition to Del Mar are not present in Brown, and that he has strong reasons for keeping the old readings.\u00a0There is also a Norton Critical Score with some interesting articles and examples of the sketches.<\/p>\n As it happens, I\u2019ve asked Dr. Brown if he will do an interview for Vftp discussing what he thinks young conductors need to know about performing materials, scholarship and performance practice, as I think that would be tremendously useful for my students who read the blog (and for me as well). This will involve threading the needle between his many publication deadlines, so keep your fingers crossed. Meanwhile, I\u2019d encourage conducting students to find a copy of his \u201cClassical and Romantic Performance Practice: 1750-1900.\u201d<\/p>\n So many of the reviews I read of performances using the \u201cnew\u201d edition show real confusion about what is new and what isn\u2019t. Neither Del Mar\u2019s nor Brown\u2019s edition forces us to \u201cre-think Beethoven\u2019s metronome markings,\u201d which is something I’ve heard many, many times. Yes, \u00a0there are editorial recommendations that, for instance, we consider the possibility that the 6\/8 March in the last movement of the 9th<\/sup> was supposed to be dotted-half= 84 rather than dotted quarter=84, but otherwise, the metronome markings have been there for years. Likewise, some of the famous \u201cretouches\u201d that conductors have used over the years, such as replacing the bassoons in bar 303 of the 1st<\/sup> mvt of the 5th<\/sup> with horns were never in the \u201cold\u201d edition. One only has to look at this film of Toscanini in 1952<\/a> (not quite at 108, but not slow) to realize that conductors have always been aware of LvB’s metronome marks, it is simply that some ignore them.<\/p>\n Also, one can distort, change or ignore the text in Del Mar or Brown just as easily as one can in the \u201cold\u2019 edition. My former-teacher David Zinman got a lot of press for being the first conductor to record the symphonies using Del Mar, but he gleefully told us in our seminar class at Aspen that his \u00a0set of parts \u201cdidn\u2019t look much like Del Mar\u2019s edition. My parts are so marked up, they look like a fucking Mahler symphony.\u201d One of these days, when I\u2019m feeling brave or career-suicidal, I might do a post just comparing how \u201cfaithful\u201d or accurate the readings of different conductors\u2019 Beethoven symphonies are, complete with audio samples. It might surprise readers to find that there are just almost certainly as many demonstrable sins against the text in HIP-ish recordings like like Norrington and Zinman as there are in Karajan or Furtwangler, just different ones\u2026. Harnoncourt recently did the piece (brilliantly)\u00a0with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and added\u00a0two bars of rests\u00a0in the first movement ! Beethoven’s intentions are prety clear in the old edition, in spite of the mistakes- it was just as much a question then as now how closely the conductor wants to adhere to those intentions. And I’d rather hear Harnoncourt or Furtwangler break the rules than a lesser musician following them.<\/p>\n Brown’s New Appraisal ends with a note of rational humilty that the Barenreiter marketing office would never tolerate<\/p>\n “These new findings do not significantly affect the masterpiece that has been the admiration of scholars and music-lovers alike for nearly two centuries: a little extra brass and timpani in the first movement, some additional dynamic markings, modified slurring and notation of note beams, etc… may seem to be of minor importance…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The true value of both new additions is not in correcting the evils of the old one, but in giving the interpreter far more tools for understanding how the score one is studying came to be: what is in it and why. In that sense, they are really only of significant value if you subject the various editorial decisions to careful scrutiny, rather than accepting the printed page as divine revelation.<\/p>\n Anyway, one can do a HIP or Old School performance of a Beethoven symphony using any of the editions. I have no interest in doing either.<\/p>\n For me, the HIP aesthetic offers a lot to think about, but it is basically a tired and simplistic 25 year-old approach. Today\u2019s musicians need to look just as critically at the assumptions of the 80\u2019s generation as they did at the assumptions of the 60\u2019s generation. I’m not convinced that conductors in London in the 80’s were channeling LvB any more than any of their predecessors- they weren’t content to regurgitate existing performing styles, and we shouldn’t be either.<\/p>\n