A late echo of the Beethoven year 2020: the release of the second part of Jordi Savall's complete recording of the symphonies.
The first part with the symphonies one to five could be completed in time, then Corona thwarted the plans of the Catalan original sound specialist (in the truest sense of the word: important income from the planned tours was lost, the project was short before cancellation).
Savall combined this complete recording with an educational project: Young musicians on the verge of a professional career should also be involved in his investigation and evaluation of the available sources.
They were selected in auditions and made up around a third of the ensemble, the core of which was Jordi Savall's "Concert des Nations".
Several work phases preceded the recordings and concerts, the recordings were made in the collegiate church of the Castell de Cardona, north of Barcelona;
in the case of the eighth symphony, Breslau was chosen, whose "National Music Forum", the Philharmonic that opened in 2015, nevertheless provides church acoustics.
Placing Ludwig van Beethoven's music in the sacred space seems to have been less of a concern for Savall - even if he can move on the verge of religious admiration when speaking about the composer.
But he likes to take the opulent sound of a church with him, which one can find problematic with a strict look at the original sound concerns.
The medium-sized halls in Vienna, in which Beethoven's symphonies were performed during his lifetime, must have been much poorer in sound-supporting reverberation.
Perhaps Savall simply wanted to send a signal that efforts to achieve original sound in no way have to amount to a reduction in the tonal resources.
Because that's the first thing you notice: the tonal sensuality of these recordings.
The strings appear as a body of sound vibrating with liveliness, the surface structure of which is characterized by noise components - much more than in modern instruments.
A forte chord as at the beginning of the seventh symphony is thus given a silvery framing that arises from the sound of freely vibrating gut strings.
In turn, woodwinds and brass fit into such a sharpened sound without any problems, which here sound more nasal and never hard in the forte.
What modern symphony orchestras have to put a lot of work and awareness into,
And Savall is very aware of these sonic components.
When in doubt, he even seems to give them preference over the demand for absolutely clear articulation.
At the beginning of the “Pastorale”, for example, Savall lets the first violins play so softly that the pattern of two legato-linked eighths and one eighth note with a staccato dot is barely discernible.
The legato of the coming bars is already taken into account, the "pleasant" feelings "which awaken in people when they arrive in the country" seem more important to him than the "cheerful" ones (or the strict ones of the mere musicologist).
The fact that Savall's awareness of sound is quite close to a romantic performance tradition (Wilhelm Furtwängler's recordings are among the conductor's earliest listening impressions) is surprising,
is probably also a sign of how much the Catalan's heart is in the matter here.
Only in the slow movements does he stay true to the customs of the original sound scene, taking them fast to restless, referring to the composer's metronome markings.