Teodor Currentzis released a preview of his recording of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. It's the final movement and the full recording will be released next month. Like many people, I wasn't a fan of Currentzis' now notorious version of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. He claims to have uncovered some kind of hidden truth in Beethoven that others have ignored for nearly two centuries, placing himself on a pedestal as the genuine keeper of the flame. He presents himself as a lone soul trying to preserve Beethoven, when it's kind of obvious to everyone that he wants his Beethoven to sound different from everyone else's just for the sake of being different. Nevertheless, there was something compelling about his version of the 5th. Its pugilistic fervor and bludgeoning, monotonous consistency made for a passable hulk smash version of the work, even though, as many have noted, it had very little connection to what Beethoven wanted it to sound like. His 7th goes of the rails in the opposite direction, coming off as a jaunty pantomime, a teeny bopper roller rink version of a piece that should continuously ramp up the tension toward the finish. Currentzis obviously likes his role as the maverick outside, and why not -- every musical genre has a place for novelty cover versions.
And yet, it wasn't the worst version of Beethoven's 7th that I heard this week. That honour goes to Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic, who actually performed this piece at an empty Hollywood Bowl a few months ago, although I only heard it for the first time now. I want to like Dudamel. He's passionate about music, smashes the European mold of the stuffy concert conductor, and has an undeniable star quality. He's a rock star and he's perfect for LA. When he's good, he's brilliant but when he's bad he can churn out the absolute worst interpretations in the standard repertoire, and this Beethoven's 7th falls squarely into the latter category. There is no middle ground with this guy.
The reduced orchestra is badly out of sync in parts -- in particular, the timpani player is playing from another planet -- but perhaps that's to be expected when the players have to sit so far apart and behind screens and masks. In one sense, you can't blame the conductor for the hand he was dealt by the pandemic, but on the other hand you can because he's the sole member of the orchestra who hears the music from the vantage point of the audience. It's his job to make those key adjustments to timing and dynamics because what the players hear is influenced by those sitting nearest to them, he's the one tasked with making sure the orchestra is playing together.
But Dudamel's main problem as a conductor is that he's clueless when it comes to changes in tempo. If a piece is uniformly slow or has subtle adiabatic changes, he can be brilliant. His performance of "Bolero" with the Vienna Philharmonic comes to mind, that clip is a youtube staple. He's good with fast, energetic music too, he understands how to keep the piece moving and the enthusiasm high. But transitioning from the slow opening few minutes of the first movement of Beethoven's 7th into the vivace section? At around the five minute mark, the piece slows to a crawl, which is a Dudamel staple. Whenever a piece goes pianissimo, his tempo drags and the music simply dies. Then he cranks the tempo abruptly in a jarring transition. Yes, it's supposed to be an sudden shift but the conductor has to control the flow of the music, the two sections aren't supposed to sound as if they were stapled together from two different works. From that point, the movement could still be saved if he could keep it the tempo rolling. But yet again, the piece sags only for Dudamel to crank the engine again leading to the unison where the entire orchestra repeats the theme. In the space of about a minute there were a flurry of unnecessary tempo shifts, I'm feeling seasick, and the first movement is barely half over.
I could continue picking apart the performance in this way, but these are the kinds of mistakes Dudamel makes all the time, they're hardly specific to Beethoven. In most instances, he can be counted on to nail the big finish of whatever work he's conducting, leaving a positive final impression and leaving the audience satisfied. This is one of those times when he couldn't finish strong, as the fourth movement lurches toward the finish, no thanks to a number of sloppy asynchronous moments, and I was practically begging it to be over five minutes before it finally did end.
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