Search - Beethoven, Jochum, London Symphony Orchestra :: Complete Symphonies

One of the best sets ever recorded

M. R. Simpson | St. Davids, PA | 08/17/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Eugen Jochum was one of the great conductors of Beethoven's music in the 20th century. His interpretations have the same extraordinary depth of musical understanding that one finds in Wilhelm Furtwangler's recordings, but with Jochum there is a greater classical restraint--he is not quite so prone to the kind of expressionistic extremes that mark Furtwangler's conducting. That is not to say the performances here are less exciting, on the contrary, Jochum's accounts of the 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th symphonies are as fine as any in the catalogue. Unlike many conductors, Jochum doesn't hinder or temper the brass section from playing with their utmost intensity, something that I am sure Beethoven would have approved of. Yet, Jochum is also fully attuned to the subtler aspects of this music as well. Compare these recordings to those of Herbert Von Karajan, and you will hear just how much Karajan glosses over in this music--in fact, his interpretations sound generalized in comparison.



Now, I can't say that I've heard all of the recordings ever made, but over the years I have listened to a great deal, and to my mind there are only a handful of conductors that have really understood the sublime spiritual triumph that is contained within this music--its lifeblood, if you will--they would include: Eugen Jochum, Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwangler, and on period instruments, Sir Roger Norrington. And in the end this music is about the triumph of faith--an almost superhuman faith-- over our common despair and suffering; much like the Psalms of David, or the late plays of Shakespeare.



For those who have the LPs from Jochum's earlier set with the Amsterdam Concertgebeow Orchestra, you will remember a short, but profound essay by Jochum that appeared on the back cover of the LPs. In this brief essay Jochum reveals a depth of understanding about Beethoven and his music that few biographers have approached in many more pages (it is well worth seeking out).



I should also mention that when I first began collecting back in the 1980s I asked a friend of mine-- a composer of considerable stature --if he knew of any conductor who was better than Jochum in Beethoven or Brahms--he thought for a moment and replied "no." He then added that Jochum was "the nicest man I ever met who was a conductor."



And when Karl Bohm passed away while in the midst of recording Beethoven's Piano Concertos with Maurizio Pollini back in the early 1980s, Pollini searched far and wide for a conductor to replace Bohm, and decided upon Jochum. He then subsequently recorded the first and second piano concertos with Jochum in what are among the finest recordings that Pollini has ever done. In addition, I might add that Wolfgang Scheiderhan's recording of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, also with Jochum conducting, is often spoken of by music critics as one the finest recordings of that piece ever made.



EDIT: I recently came across an old Phillips LP from Jochum's Amsterdam Beethoven cycle in a used bookstore, and jotted down his brilliant essay from the backcover, which I am assuming is in the public domain:



"What the New Testament is for Christians, Beethoven could be--and even is to a larger extent--for those who strive after the humanitarian ethos. Is it perhaps that the human being is the subject of all he has to say?



The human being who in Bach lived, believed, suffered, and died sheltered but also confined within the strictly defined bounds of Protestant Christian existence, humble, bound to a God in an objective order. The human being who in Mozart already enjoyed full freedom in the seraphic beauty of a perfect harmony, almost innocent, in spite of every refinement touching only in 'Don Giovanni' the dark substratum of the world, hubris and destruction, but in the confrontation of forces returning to the law.



But what is the human being in Beethoven? He is the entity entirely filled with consciousness of himself, the hazards of his existence, his suffering, his nobility, and his greatness. This man Beethoven, who was he?



Certainly no hero in the sense of the martial victor, no Achilles, radiant even in downfall, but a man pursued by the demons of his inmost being, seaching for freedom, greatness, and above all love. And all wrung under the most adverse circumstances from humiliation and misery, and in the unimaginable lonliness to which deafness condemned him, without ever the sound of a loving voice to break this barrier.*



As 'God gave him the power to say what he suffered,' he could only put all that white hot emotion, mute suffering, humiliation, and intimations of an ineffable sublimity into musical form. And so he transmuted in the forge of his suffering the human means of expression into musical form, relentlessly wrought into the most exact design. And then the miracle happens, that in this most pure, virile music all that stirs the heart of a human being is turned to speech; suffering, grief, lonliness, but also, and above all, the indescribable sweetness of consolation, happiness, dance, ecstasy carried to the bounds of mystical transport; from the Virgilian secular piety of the 'Pastoral' symphony and the 'Concalescent's hymn of thanks to the Godhead,' of the String Quartet Op. 132, to the visionary perception of a Father beyond the stars and the devotion of the 'Missa Solemnis.' The entire span of the human heart and spirit is in that work, perceptible, communicable. There is appeal and reassurance, the courage to shoulder one's own destiny in the faith in the indestructible, invincible dignity which makes human beings what they are.



That is Beethoven for me.



[*That he enjoyed a social position among the Viennese nobility which was exceptional for a musician of the day alters nothing. To him this position was a mere veneer, more or less arrogated, and at the same time despised. Nor was there solace in his many erotic episodes, none of which led to the marriage he so earnestly desired. They only deepen the shadows in the picture of this Goyaesque life.]"



What a remarkable man Jochum was."

A great Beethoven cycle from the last conductor of the roman

Ronald J. Kaye | MD | 04/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Jochum was assistant to Furtwangler in Berlin at the start of the 1930's and thus was the last in the line of the German romantic conducting tradition as exemplified by Nikisch, Bruno Walter, Furtwangler,and Horenstein (also a Furtwangler protege). Like Furtwangler, he was a tall

imposing figure. His temperemt and approach to conducting was,however, more in the collegial vein, much like Walter...a very friendly man. He was the only German conductor that the Dutch allowed in Holland after WWII, because of his staunch refusal to join the Nazi party during his stint in Hamburg during the war. I met Jochum in 1974 when he was in residence at the Tanglewood Festival in Lenox, Mass., and can attest first hand to his kindness, humility and generosity of spirit. His great humanity and spirituality shine through in this his last Beethoven symphony recordings with the LSO...he had recorded previously Beethoven symphony recordings,beginning in the 1930's, with the Vienna Philharmonic,Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony and Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Here, the London Symphony is in great form for Jochum (who they named conductor Emeritus) and receive excellent sound from EMI's engineers...the best sounding of all of Jochum's prior cycles...probably a Kingsway Hall venue recording given its' full rich sound. This LSO cycle may not have as much fire as Jochum's earlier Beethoven, but it has a fullness and richness of spirit unmatched in his younger efforts. Jochum is in the great pantheon of

20th century German conductors....he belongs in the select company of Walter, Furtwangler, and Klemperer...the greatest German exponents of the

Austro-Germanic symphonic tradition.

"

GET IT IF YOU FIND IT!

Ryan Kouroukis | Toronto, Ontario Canada | 05/29/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Let me tell you all. If you ever find this set, you must get it!



It's like Klmeperer and Furtwangler combined! Jochum finally gives us a cycle to cherish!



A tremendously unique treat like the Isserstedt set!

"