Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2.Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. Sir Neville Marriner Sir Neville Marriner (born April 15, 1924) is an English conductor and violinist. Marriner was born in Lincoln and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. , Academy of St. Martin in the Fields The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields is an English chamber orchestra. The group was founded in London by Sir Neville Marriner, attracting some of the finest players in London, many of whom considered themselves as refugees from conductors. . PentaTone Classics 5186 118. I was talking to Noun 1. talking to - a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to" lecture, speech rebuke, reprehension, reprimand, reproof, reproval - an act or expression of criticism and censure; "he had to a friend recently who reminded me that as time goes on things may evolve and grow different, but they don't necessarily get better. Conductors fit into this category, too. Not all of the great conductors of the sixties and seventies are today any better than they were; indeed, some of them have simply grown old and stodgy stodg·y adj. stodg·i·er, stodg·i·est 1. a. Dull, unimaginative, and commonplace. b. Prim or pompous; stuffy: . But thank goodness we have recordings to preserve them in their prime, such being the case with Sir Neville Marriner and his wonderful 1970 recordings of the Beethoven First and Second Symphonies. We take for granted today a small chamber orchestra Noun 1. chamber orchestra - small orchestra; usually plays classical music orchestra - a musical organization consisting of a group of instrumentalists including string players playing early Beethoven, often on the same period instruments Beethoven had in mind. But do we recognize that Sir Neville was among the first persons actually to effect this with his Academy of St. Martin in the Fields? By paring down what had become traditionally big-scale, often inflated interpretations by full orchestras, Marriner was able to show us the grace and inner beauty of the composer's first two symphonic efforts. I had not heard them in years and was amazed at how well they held up, comparing to any recordings of these works by any conductor at any price! The two pieces come off as elegant and refined, as we would expect of Sir Neville, but they are also wholly charming, flexible, supple, enchanting, exciting, and exhilarating. They may not match what the great composer had in store for us next with his monumental Third Symphony, but the first two symphonies are rendered here as felicitous fe·lic·i·tous adj. 1. Admirably suited; apt: a felicitous comparison. 2. Exhibiting an agreeably appropriate manner or style: a felicitous writer. 3. extensions of the Classical Age yet clear precursors of the Romantic. The sound holds up equally well. Recorded initially in quadraphonic quad·ra·phon·ic also quad·ri·phon·ic adj. Of or for a four-channel sound system in which speakers are positioned at all four corners of the listening space, reproducing signals that are independent of each other. , they were only released by Philips in two-channel stereo. But they are here available, as always with PentaTone, on a hybrid SACD stereo/multichannel disc in both two and four-channel sound. What's more, they have been completely remastered from the original tapes, and the sound is at once smooth, spacious, transparent, and natural. I loved everything about this disc and its two performances. |
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