New Classical Tracks: Minnesota Orchestra

The other night while driving home I put the Minnesota Orchestra's new Beethoven recording in my CD player. After I hit four green lights in a row I thought, "Wow, this is going to be a cosmic experience." I was right.

This is the second recording in a five-disc, five-year cycle in which the Minnesota Orchestra will record all nine Beethoven symphonies. The first recording in the series featured the Fourth and Fifth symphonies, a 2004 release that received high marks throughout the music world, and immediately raised the profile of both the Minnesota Orchestra and its music director, Osmo Vanska.

Was the pressure on to repeat that success story? Vanska and BIS recording producer Robert Suff both say yes, and they're confident each release will meet or exceed the quality and excitement generated by that recording. Based on the work they've done together over the past 15 years and now on this project, it's safe to say that they're probably right.

In the newest recording, with a June 1 release date, they've paired Beethoven's powerful Symphony No. 3, "Eroica," with his more playful Symphony No. 8. Originally, Beethoven's Third Symphony was to be titled "Bonaparte" as a tribute to Napoleon. But when Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, Beethoven was infuriated. As a result, he changed the name to "Eroica," rededicating it to "celebrate the memory of a great man."

The influence of Bonaparte, the French Revolution and the German Enlightenment all contributed to the development of the so-called "Heroic" style that dominated Beethoven's middle period. This time in the composer's life was dominated by driving rhythms, drastic dynamic changes, and in some cases, the use of military instruments.

The driving rhythm is the first thing that caught my ear on this new recording with the Minnesota Orchestra. During rehearsal, Osmo Vanska regularly uses the metronome, so his desired tempo becomes second nature during the actual recording session. It's extremely difficult to maintain rhythm and flow during the recording process because of the constant interruptions for corrections and re-takes. When the recording is done well, as it is in this case, we have no sense of that. The pacing is so effective I found myself getting lost in the musical journey, intently listening to hear where Vanska and the orchestra were going next.

Drastic dynamic changes are an important characteristic of Beethoven's "Heroic" period and Osmo Vanska pushes those dynamics to the limit on this new Beethoven release in both the "Eroica" and the Eighth Symphony. Sometimes, however, his pianissimos are so soft I have to keep tweaking the volume to hear every exquisite note. And the fortissimos? I'm not one to turn ahead to the last page when reading a good book, but sometimes I will check out the ending of a good recording to see what the conductor has done to punch up the finale. Since Beethoven lampoons the long, overblown endings often heard in Classical-era symphonies, it made me want to jump ahead to hear the ending of his Eighth Symphony that much more.

In his interpretation of the Eighth, Osmo Vanska knows just how to reel in the listener, creating dramatic dynamic changes, a percussive energy and a pounding melodic line, all of which I found addictive. I just had to hit repeat to hear it again.

The recording process is intense. One of the conductor's jobs is to nurture the psychological side of the musicians. Osmo Vanska did it by telling a few jokes to relieve the tension in the room. It had to help that he and the Minnesota Orchestra were working their way through Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, which is full of musical humor. For example, the second movement pays tribute to the inventor of the metronome. As a regular user of that invention, Osmo Vanska must have found this amusing too, keeping a steady staccato beat that lightly ticks along.

"We're gonna have another winner on our hands," principal trumpet Manny Laureano proudly stated in a recent interview. He says the orchestra's goal is to produce a set of Beethoven symphonies that people will want to keep playing over and over again. Osmo Vanska has heard the recording only once so far and described that experience as "an almost holy moment."

You'll find this new Beethoven disc is of the highest quality technically and emotionally. And the packaging is elegant and beautiful, which truly describes what you'll find inside the jewel box, a recording of Beethoven symphonies that you'll want to listen to over and over again.

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