BY ANGUS MCPHERSON
Anima Eterna Brugge
Beethoven Symphony 9
Sydney Opera House, Concert Hall, 25 January
A performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is always a big event (and Sydney is blessed with two such events this year) but it is especially noteworthy when a group of musicians as interesting as the period instrument specialists in Anima Eterna Brugge are performing. The Australian Brandenburg Choir joined the ensemble, playing for a full house, in the culmination of their six-day journey through the complete Beethoven symphonies at the Sydney Festival.
The technology had evolved visibly since Anima Eterna’s performance of the seventh and eighth symphonies earlier in the week (12 years having passed between the composition of the eighth and ninth symphonies), the flutes were more sophisticated and the French horns more closely resembled their modern incarnations. While the strings exuded power, in the Sydney Opera House’s Concert Hall the sound of the winds was often subsumed into the larger orchestral texture. They still shone out in the solos, however, particularly in the fourth movement. Beethoven’s metronome mark for this movement, the Adagio, is a flowing crotchet equals 60bpm. The speed has long been a point of contention, conductors often opting for a slower (sometimes dirge-like) tempo. Van Immerseel set a brisk pace, perhaps even slightly faster than Beethoven’s, highlighting the composer’s flowing melodies and shifting harmonies. The second movement was energetic and lively, the smaller details of articulation and phrasing coming through clearly.
In the finale, Van Immerseel’s subtle conducting expanded to embrace the soloists and Australian Brandenburg Choir, who flanked the orchestra, standing at the front of the stage. Lars Johansson Brissman’s declaration ‘O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!’ (O friends, not these tones!) cut across the hall, his smooth baritone resonating throughout. The soloists were clear and bright and the chorus achieved movingly dramatic crescendos and full-bodied fortissimos. Antoine Pecqueur’s contrabassoon rumble was a deep and profound accompaniment to the percussion and piccolo in the military-style variation (Pecqueur had stood up to add an extra foot or so of tubing to the top of his instrument during the baritone solo).
The ninth symphony was a joyous and inspiring finale to Anima Eterna’s Beethoven cycle, which shone a spotlight on the evolution of both the composer’s symphonic style and the instruments for which his works were composed.
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