The beautiful thing about Beethoven's Symphonies is that they are always in vogue. We are currently blessed with the embarrassment of riches from the ongoing recording of symphony cycles from two fine orchestras and conductors. In the recent article Two Beethoven Fifths, we took the bull by the horns and faced the most recognizable piece of classical music on record. Here we turn our attention to Beethoven's groundbreaking Third Symphony, the symphony after which music was never the same again.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (Op. 55) is considered by musicologist as the beginning of the end of the Classical Era. Beethoven began composing the symphony in 1803 while in residence in Heiligenstadt. Beethoven had move to Heiligenstadt in late 1801-early 1802 on the advice of his physician, Johann Schmidt, to rest his hearing, which had been giving the composer trouble since 1796, when the composer was 26 years old, and began to fail dramatically at the turn of the century.

It was in Heiligenstadt that Beethoven wrote his famous Heiligenstadt Testament where the composer put to paper the reconciliation of his hearing loss with his determination to live for and through his composing. In the testament, Beethoven alluded to suicidal thought, a fact confounded by the sunny and determined music he composed while there in residence (consider his Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 26).

Beethoven originally considered dedicating the symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven greatly admired ideals and ideology of the French Revolution. The composer saw Napoleon as the embodiment of such ideals but instead, dedicated the work to Prince Franz Joseph Maximillian Lobkowiz.

Beethoven continued to entertain giving the work the title of Bonaparte only to become disgusted and disillusioned when Napoleon proclaimed himself. Urban legend has the composer scratching the name Bonaparte out so violently that he tore a hole in the paper. Beethoven changed the title to Sinfonia eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uomo ("heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man").

Beethoven composed most of the symphony in late 1803, completing it early in 1804. The symphony was premiered privately in summer 1804 in his patron Prince Lobkowitz's castle Eisenberg in Bohemia. The first public performance was posted in Vienna's Theater an der Wien on April 7, 1805 with the composer conducting. Beethoven's originally scored the symphony for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B flat, 2 bassoons, 3 horns in E flat and C, 2 trumpets in E flat and C, timpani and strings.

The two orchestras and conductors are Osmo Vanska and the Minnesota Orchestra (in the first American cycle in decades) on BIS and Philippe Herreweghe and the Royal Flemish Philharmonic on Pentatone. These two conductors and orchestras approach Beethoven from two vastly different but well-established directions with two equally unique and fresh performances. Hybrid SACD further adds value to these recordings. When starting with music of the quality of the Beethoven Symphony cycle listener is guaranteed nine sublime pieces of music.
 
Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven Symphonies 3 & 8 [Hybrid SACD]
Minnesota Orchestra, Osmo Vanska
BIS
2005

Osmo Vanska and the Minnesota Orchestra expand their sonic palette with their fine recording of the Third Symphony (coupled with the Eighth) as an SACD hybrid. Where their previously released Fifth Symphony was sumptuous but somewhat one dimensional in sound. Gladly, this expands to a three dimensional amphitheater sound that places the listener with the orchestra in the front and on both sides.

While Vanska insists on strict adherence the Beethoven's metronomic documentation, his first movement allegro con brio is slightly slower than those employed by the period history performances popular in the 1980s and '90s. His opening E flat Major chords have command and authority and are briskly delivered before conductor and orchestra settle into a determined momentum. These first two notes have been the most important of the symphony performance since Felix Weingarten squeezed them from The Vienna Philharmonic on to acetate sides in the 1930s. Vanska readily acknowledges this.

The Marcia Funebre: Adagio Assai was a sensation when Beethoven introduced it as the second movement, blowing the sonata form perfected by Haydn and Mozart into ravenous particles. Vanska approaches the movement with a measured determination in the low strings. The conductor and orchestra continue to produce this performance in the third and final movements as if deftly carved from marble. Vanska achieves a heroic resolution to the Eroica that is as stately as it is modern.
 
Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 [Hybrid SACD]
Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Philippe Herreweghe
Pentatone
2007

Philippe Herreweghe continues his Beethoven Symphony survey from the vantage point of modern instruments confined by period practices. This was previously accomplished by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and his Chamber Orchestra of Europe with his set from the early 1990's. At the time Harnoncourt made quite a stir with his interpretations. Herreweghe is doing the same thing at the close of the 2000s with the incorporation of natural horns and baroque tympani.

Where Herreweghs's previously release Fifth was a piece of music the listener could enter and walk around in, seeing (hearing) the Beethovenian nuances from several different angles, his performance of the Third Symphony is a sonic affair where the listener stands outside the work, circling it and seeing it as the monument it is.

The symphony is presented as a crystalline palace into which the listener may see (hear) its treasures without achieving the intimacy allowed in Herreweghs's Fifth. The Royal Flemish Philharmonic weaves a seamless tapestry of sounds with oboes becoming violas and low horns becoming cellos. Where Vanska is decidedly determined and thoughtful, Herreweghe again performs a high wire act: he initiates the symphony and allows it to develop with its own inertia, directing the performance only enough to keep it from spinning out of control. This makes for an exciting and essential reading of this Beethoven masterpiece.

This review was first published in Blogcritics.org