Period orchestras usually base their approach to Romantic repertoire on the playing style they have developed for earlier music. A big effort is also made to use appropriate instruments for each piece: this means, for example, using French wind instruments for playing Berlioz, which are dramatically different to the German instruments appropriate for Brahms. Symphonie Fantastique decided to try the opposite approach. From what we read in 19th Century treatises and what we hear in the earliest recordings, the taste and the style of 19th Century musicians was something very different from everything we hear today, resembling neither the way modern orchestras nor period orchestras play. Not only that: even at a given moment, taste and style differed greatly from country to country.

So, how do we explore all these differences and put them all together in a program that contains, as in our case, Beethoven and Onslow? Even if this were possible, it would make very little sense, to us or to the listener. That’s why we decided to spend time investigating the Viennese style of the second half of the 19th Century and playing on instruments appropriate to this place and time, taking as reference points not only treatises but also recordings of – just to name a couple – Joachim (Brahms’ violinist and close friend) and Arnold Rosé (Konzertmeister of the Vienna Philharmonic from the early 1880’s for more than 50 years).

A performance of Symphonie Fantastique is therefore not a general mix of styles and instruments but an attempt of reproducing the sound and style of a specific time and place. For some time to come this will be Vienna, in the second half of the 19th Century.

Symphonie Fantastique oboist Leo Duarte with Laurence Cummings on the harpsichord plays Telemann’s Sonata in e-minor for oboe and continuo. Listen on BBC Radio3 at this link until June 10th.

Photos of the Concert on May 26th, 2010 in Vienna’s Ehrbar Saal.
Please click the image for a slideshow!

Today we’re playing our second chamber music concert at the Ehrbar Saal in Vienna. You can find more information here at our projects!

Directions / Map

We’re looking forward to seeing you tonight!

Symphonie Fantastique

Wind quartet playing in front of Santo Spirito in Vienna’s Kumpfgasse.
Please click the image for a slideshow!

Rehearsals for the Concert on May 26th, 2010 in Vienna’s Ehrbar Saal.
Please click the image for a slideshow!

“My tempo markings are valid only for the first bars, as feeling and expression must have their own tempi” – L. v. Beethoven

It has always been a general recognition that a good performance allows a certain flexibility in tempo; still, the amount of freedom that a musician was allowed to remain in the borders of the good taste, has changed greatly from the Baroque, through the Classic, to the Romantic.

During the eighteenth Century, most of eminent musicians supported a quite restrained use of tempo flexibility, where not exactly indicated by the composer; the most common  technique was a tempo rubato that applied only to the melody and left the tempo unity undisturbed. The romantic aesthetic changed this dramatically; during the whole nineteenth century, modifications of tempo that affected the steadiness of the beat became more and more in use, in spite of the strong reactions of those that were true to the older aesthetic – this began from the solo and ensemble performances and spread to the orchestra performances (especially with the conducting of Richard Wagner).

Already at the beginning of the 19th Century, many sources indicate the habit of soloists of indulging in big tempo chages. Johann Friedrich Reichardt, published a review of a Ludwig Spohr’s concert in 1805 complaining about the far too big freedom that the violinist took in the tempo chages. A few years later, it seems like this sort of playing has become the norm. Feski wrote in 1833: “Ritardando and accellerando alternate all time. This manner has already become so fixed in the minds of the musical public that they firmly believe a diminuendo must be slowed down and an crescendo speeded up; a tender phrase (e.g. in an Allegro) will be performed more slowly, a powerful one faster. At times, this kind of treatement may well be applicable; but how to determine where requires very deep inside the composition and very correct feelings. Furthermore, the compositions of the older composerstolerate this type of treatment extremely rarely, and the newer ones are well enough endowedwith markings of this kind! In these, on the other hand, one misses the exalted calm, in which the older composers distinguish themselves.” [J. Feski, Caecilia, 15 – 1833]

A Spohr’s contemporary and early biographer of Beethoven, Schindler was supporting the idea that Beethoven’s late style changed to introduce two principles for a movement’s contrasting subjects, which affected the performance (including the tempo) of the passages concerned. Even though many of Schindler’s claims were proved to be fake, they reflect a general tendecy of those years. Besides, it seems like in Vienna even the orchestral performances allowed a great freedom in tempo already in the 1790s: a visitor wrote a report about the orchestra at the Hoftheater in 1795. “Such order rules here, such a rare unanimity of ensemble, depending not merely on the beat, and such an equal and unanimous feeling in the subtleties of expression, that no orchestra in Europe, even though it might surpass it in detail, surpasses it as a whole. [...] As the storm of passions gradually sank to exhaustion and the most violent agitations gave way to milder feelings, so the orchestra allowed the beat to relax in the most perfect accord with the singers and the melodies to ebb away more and more slowly , as the mood was intended to become more and more gentle. When the passions grew again, so the pulse became more impetuous and emphatic, and they also accelerated the flow of the melody with a rare unanimity of ensemble.” [Anon., Reise nach Wien - 1795, 253]. If we believe this report, this was the style that Beethoven learnt to know in Vienna and that reflected in his words: “My tempo markings are valid only for the first bars, as feeling and expression must have their own tempi”.

Left aside this review of the Hofthater Orchestra and a few others, tempo modification was not very common in orchestral performances until the mid of the Century. This was mostly due to the abscence of the necessary conditions to get to know the pieces well enough and allow a good reharsal time. Conductors were those who later allowed a greater flexibility of tempo in orchestral playing, most of all Richard Wagner, whose work had consequences until the first half of the 20th Century. The recordings of Nikisch , Fürtwängler among many others, speak for themselves and reveal the tradition of performance practice that had developed during the second half of the 19th Century.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFY1s6y6r5M

Giulia Barbini

We are glad to announce the first chamber music project in 2010:

Program

• S. Neukomm – Septet (Fantasia Concertante) für Bläser und Kontrabass
• L.v. Beethoven – Septet op. 20
• G. Onslow – Nonet op. 77

Concert

26.05.2010 at 7.30pm, Ehrbar Saal, Vienna

Tickets

Tickets are avaliable at this link

Thanks to Clemens Horvat and the Stadtinitiative Wien for their support.