After all the gloomy, nostalgic remarks we've been reading in the correspondence pages recently, it's more than a pleasure to find the traditionalist-classicist approach to Beethoven in such abundant health. Gunter Wand's studio cycle ((CD) RD60090, 10/89), remains high on my list of recommended Beethoven sets, but this concert Eroica is a very special release. Like Furtwangler (EMI), Wand finds the melodic thread that pulls all the sharply defined short phrases in the opening Allegro con brio together, while at the same time homing in on expressive or colouristic details—it's a performance that seems alive on many levels at once. At the same time there are none of the Furtwangler-style tempo modifications which seem to me so inappropriate in this movement. Pulse remains paramount—though it's far from rigid.
After this comes a Marcia funebre unusual for its combination of intensity and—in the best sense of the word—dignity. Everything moves at a measured tread, except for a few telling moments where the pace seems briefly to falter, and it's this very tension between control and deep feeling that makes the performance so memorable. After this the Scherzo is no anticlimax, but the logical if strongly contrasted next step in an unfolding musical drama. Its dancing energy—light but rhythmically muscular—is momentarily thrown into shadow by the trio; some fine horn-playing here. Purposefulness intensifies in the finale, until the glorious opening out at the poco andante (a pre-Norringtonian, though not excessively slow tempo). In Wand's hands this is the symphony's true apotheosis, radiant at first, then recalling the Marcia funebre in the broken woodwind-strings exchanges just before the tumultuous final presto. The notes are so familiar, and yet the experience Wand draws from them is one of continual discovery.
Leonora No. 3 is hardly less impressive, from the probing pianissimo modulations of the introduction to the thrilling long build-up of the coda—Wand doesn't make the common mistake of building too quickly and leaving the final pages with nothing to do. Here, as in the Eroica, the sound-quality is unusually satisfying for a concert recording: clear, with plenty of ambience but minimal intrusive noise. After this, plus a recent brief but very appetite-whetting preview of the new Harnoncourt/Teldec cycle, I don't think I'll be asking Gramophone to transfer me from Beethoven just yet.'