Scherchen’s “Eroica” rocks. Adopting what at the time (1958) seemed absurdly fast speeds in the outer movements, a funeral march bereft of excessive sentiment, top-to-bottom ensemble clarity, and a comparatively cavalier approach to ensemble discipline, it turns out that the old maestro actually beat many of today’s period instrument folks at their own game. The whole performance whizzes by with boundless energy, and it’s great fun. Yes, the coda of the finale blurs everything together incoherently (Szell/Cleveland, recorded at roughly the same period, keeps everything–horns included–miraculously clear at virtually the same sizzling tempo), but it’s so exhilarating that you’re unlikely to care terribly much. Here’s one “historical” performance that truly wears its years lightly.
In the “Pastoral” Symphony, the unusually speedy bits come in the first two movements. But once again, there’s so much vertical clarity (listen to the stacked duple and triplet rhythms in those long, first-movement development section crescendos), such perfectly touched in detail from the horns and lower strings, that the music never sounds too fast–merely invigorating. The rest of the symphony proceeds more normally tempo-wise (though I wish the scherzo’s repeats had survived intact), with soggy timpani weakening an otherwise excellent storm, and some general scruffiness from the strings (the lead-in to the first movement recapitulation, for example) and horns (the scherzo particularly). Still, like the “Eroica”, this is vintage Scherchen, and damn good Beethoven too. Both performances have been well restored in this latest of several CD incarnations, though if you own the earlier MCA or Japanese Westminster releases you probably won’t find the sonic improvement worth another go-round.
