“A Salute to Beethoven on the 250th Anniversary of His Birth”
“A Salute to Beethoven on the 250th Anniversary of His Birth”
December 17, 2020
My Life With Beethoven’s 5th Symphony
-William Henry Curry
When I became the Music Director of the Durham Symphony Orchestra eleven years ago, I decided that part of my mission would be to present fresh and thoughtful performances of classical music’s “Top 40.” These are the evergreens, the warhorses that challenge an orchestra and delight an audience no matter how many times they are played. After three years of productive work, I believed that we were ready to take on one of the most difficult and iconic of these masterpieces: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
I first heard this work when I was 14. It excited me with its intensity and “in-your-face” aggression. I listened to several recordings and bought a conductor’s score. After studying it, I thought I knew it fairly well—until one day I heard a version conducted by Otto Klemperer. I was stunned! Was this the same piece? This version seemed to be channeling the very spirit of Beethoven. Klemperer brought out a majestic and humane aspect of the piece that I didn’t know existed. For me, it was a “light-bulb-over-the-head” moment. I realized that great orchestral music deserved the best possible interpretation and that I wanted to create such a definitive conception. My decision to become a conductor—made that very moment—was a commitment to serve the expressive content of the music.
The first time I conducted the famous opening movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony was when I was 22 and auditioning for the post of Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. This movement is one of the most technically difficult for the conductor in the standard repertoire—which is why the judges included it on this audition. As I began conducting, I was determined to make the walls shake with Beethoven’s eruptive sounds! As a result, I was hired a week later on the basis of my thunderous rendition. But in my excitement, I must have broken a musical speed record. Evidently there was some discussion after the audition that I should be hired IF someone could slow me down! For a while, in fact, that orchestra’s nickname for me was William Henry “Hurry”!
Over the next 25 years, I conducted eight performances of the complete 5th Symphony. During this time I was never fully satisfied with my interpretation and felt as if I were trying to untie a musical Gordian knot. At the end of the 1990s I came to the realization that I had no business performing the piece until I had a deeper understanding of what Beethoven was trying to say. This lack of certainty led to my removing Beethoven’s music from my programming for several years as I rethought my approach.
During this period of reflection, I questioned every aspect of my interpretations. I came to realize, for one thing, that the sonic palette I had adopted for this music was too redolent of music from the Romantic era. The correct timbres and articulations should be similar to those of the Classical era in which Beethoven’s music is rooted. But how to make sense of the composer’s metronome markings? These indicated brisk, “space-age” tempi that left in the dust the more expansive ones I had grown up with. This fact led me to ponder how much of my decision-making about the speed of the music was based on habit and conformism and how much was based on intellectual reasoning. Eventually, I decided to eschew all the musical traditions that I could not justify from my reading of the score. For instance, many of the old-school interpretations of the first movement featured a much slower tempo each time the opening bars return throughout the movement. This is based on what Anton Schindler, a Beethoven assistant, quoted directly (supposedly) from Beethoven himself. In Beethoven’s words; “The beginning of the first movement is Fate knocking on the door. And on each repeat of this motive, the theme should be slower and heavier.” I heard this Beethoven quote a thousand times while growing up. However, when I bought a copy of Schindler’s “Beethoven as I Knew Him”, the “Fate knocking on the door” quote is there, but NOT the second sentence that states that each time the theme returns the tempo should be slower! And since Schindler wrote his biography of Beethoven more than thirty years after the composer’s death, it is possible that his memory betrayed him about this detail. Or could it be that NEITHER Beethoven or Schindler ever said that? So often in non-fiction, authors will simply repeat information from earlier books, which often results in mistakes, rumors and myths eventually becoming FACTS! And people often DO “stretch the truth” in order to get the result they want. For instance when one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, Willem Mengelberg, was conducting a rehearsal with the BBC Symphony in the 1930s, he noticed the orchestra was becomingly increasingly restless about some of the changes he was imposing on a piece by Beethoven. In order to convince the players of his editing, he said to them (in his Dutch-accented English);
“Beethoven, like many composers, made changments in his scores, even after publication, and then he was also deaf. So vy not the conductor also, who often knows much better than the composer? I vos de best pupil of Schidler (sic) who vos the best pupil of Beethoven, so I know vat Beethoven meant! “
Bernard Shore, from Harold Schoenberg’s “The Great Conductors”
Mengelberg was referring of course to Schindler. However, since Schindler died in 1864 and Mengelberg was born in 1871, well…the conductor got what he WANTED.
As a result of my inspection of these various hand-me-down traditions, I decided to wholly rely on what the score said. And, from that, my concept of Beethoven’s music became more literal. Gone were the tempo modifications and other rhetorical excesses based on hand-me-down traditions becauseI now saw them as being a hindrance to projecting Beethoven’s unvarnished simplicity. And I reconciled myself to the quicksilver metronome markings seeing them as related to Beethoven’s hypo-manic character. This I gleaned from reading about the composer’s personal life and how his personality was reflected in the music.
After several years of research and reconsideration, I gradually began adding Beethoven’s relatively short overtures back into my performing repertoire. I was guardedly optimistic and patient. I knew it would take time to adjust to this “brave new world” of Beethoven interpretation. After a time, I began doing the large-scale symphonies again. I conducted a performance of the 2nd symphony with the Durham Symphony that, because I ran out of rehearsal time, was inconclusive as to the success of my musical ideas. Then I performed the 3rd Symphony (“Eroica-Heroic”) with the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra. I was determined to obey Beethoven’s metronome markings. The result was the fastest rendition that group had ever done!
While some of the musicians were openly perplexed by my driven and sometimes breathless conception, others saw merit in it. Increasingly, however, I myself felt conflicted. Was I indeed getting closer to the ideal? Or further away? Two weeks later, I decided to listen to a recording of the piece conducted by one of my heroes and one of the finest German conductors of the first half of the 20th century, Hans Knappertsbusch. Hans was “all music.” His musical integrity and personal humility were legendary. As I listened to his decidedly old-school version, I realized that though I did not want to imitate his idiosyncratic, slow-motion tempi, those speeds at least allowed the music to “breathe”, which I thought made the message of the piece more human and eloquent.
I then realized what my recent interpretations had lost. In my zeal to be rational and “correct” I had lost the deep nobility and warm humanity in Beethoven’s music that had inspired me in the first place! What I needed to find was a common-sense middle ground between academic scholarship and intuitive feeling—an approach that was mindful of both the spirit and the letter of the work.
With this thought, I decided to program the 5th symphony for my March 11, 2012 concert with the DSO. The five rehearsals preceding this event were very promising indeed. Because so many of us had done the work before, it seemed like we were all involved in a master class. But when the dress rehearsal arrived, I became frustrated. Although the playing was very good, I felt that all our polishing and attention to detail had only resulted in a succession of well-manicured and meaningless sounds. Where was Beethoven’s grandiose musical MESSAGE?! I despaired at having failed to communicate to the players my own sense of WHY this work is the most often-performed of his symphonies. And I delivered a spontaneous, five-minute lecture/tirade that was probably more sincere than concise.
I began by saying that one must be worthy of scaling this musical mountain and that the only way one could do that would be to look upon it not as a collection of notes, but as a personal journey that goes from torment to triumph. When Beethoven wrote his 5th Symphony, he was in his mid-30s and considered to be the worthy successor of Haydn and Beethoven. Tragically, he was also losing his hearing and would eventually become completely deaf. His reaction to this disability was extreme depression and thoughts of suicide. He revealed his state of mind about these circumstances in a document now called the Heiligenstadt Testament. In it, he outlined his desire to go forward and to continue to compose with the talent God had given him. Over the next few years, having made this resolution, he proved to himself that he had survival skills he’d not been aware of, and his music attained a new level of power and poetry that it had previously lacked. His strength and miraculous gift from the Muse are as inspirational as anything I have experienced in my life. In fact, though no one could love the music of Beethoven more than I do, the following story reveals what I love the most about Beethoven.
When I first read this four years ago, this one section struck me like a lightning bolt and has stuck in my memory ever since. This quote is from a section of a letter a young lady had written to a friend, describing the break-up of her romantic relationship with Beethoven. At the end of the letter she states; “He is an even greater MAN than he is a composer.”
His human legacy is as eternal and admirable as his music.
One doesn’t have to be a musician to be inspired by Beethoven’s heroism in the face of tragedy. For me, the miracle of his regeneration proves the veracity of Nietzsche’s statement, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Equally applicable is something from Aeschylus: “Wisdom comes alone through suffering.”
In concluding my remarks to the orchestra at that final rehearsal of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, I told them that if they gave 100% of themselves to the music, the result would be a spiritual victory they would never forget. We then continued the rehearsal with the 2nd movement. As the music streamed forth, it seemed to all of us that whatever barriers had been blocking our progress in this piece were now gone. We were now one, a conduit for Beethoven’s profoundest feelings. At the concert a few days later, the orchestra played the 5th Symphony as if possessed. We were all “in the zone,” an area where preparation and concentration meet love and dedication. These musical moments of grace are rare. They cannot be prompted or willed into existence. They are gifts from the Muse. The audience also sensed something special was unfolding. In the 1960s we called this a “happening.” The long and vocal standing ovation we received at the end sounded almost as sweet as the sounds the orchestra had just produced. It is these magical moments of communal sharing that make concerts exciting and memorable.
As for my life-long grappling with Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, I still consider my interpretation to be a work-in-process. As I write these words it is now eight years after the Durham Symphony Orchestra scaled the heights, and I am still obsessed with this work as I try to better understand Beethoven’s vision. It is indeed both a blessing and a burden to be a perpetual student. I often feel like the Biblical Jacob wrestling with the angel; “I will not let thee go till thou bless me!” The reward from time to time is a transcendent performance that reminds me why I wanted to become a conductor.
If you are a Beethoven “newbie”, I would like to recommend to you some of my favorite works by him.
Missa Solemnis
“Hammerklavier” Piano Sonata
The last 6 string quartets
Leonore overture No. 3
All nine symphonies
And if I had to narrow it down to one piece, it would be the Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” (Heroic)
It was written in the immediate aftermath of his discovery that his slowly deteriorating deafness would one day envelope him in silence. To me, this symphony is the supreme document about mankind’s unconquerable spirit.
William Henry Curry
Music Director
Durham Symphony Orchestra
Celebrating Maestro Curry’s 50 years conducting
& 11 years with the Durham Symphony!
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| Funding is provided (in part) by the Durham Arts Council’s Annual Arts Fund, the N.C. Arts Council (a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources), and a grant from the Triangle Community Foundation. |
