Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8

Ludwig van Beethoven (Composer), Pablo Casals (Conductor), Marlboro Festival Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Marlboro Festival Orchestra
• Conductor: Pablo Casals
• Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
• Audio CD (May 3, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00000270N
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #205,339 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beethoven for the first time, November 6, 1999

By 

Tommy Nielsen (Kolding Denmark) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8 (Audio CD)

Listening to this recording is like discovering well-known music again. The only competetive version of the 7th symhony is Toscanini's old one with the New York Philharmonic (better than the later NBC version) - but the sound is mediocre. Karajan's 7th with the Vienna Symphony is only nearly as good (why didn't he make more recordings with this orchestra with whom he obviously had great affinity?). Casals' 7th has got the best orchestra, the most "urgent" atmosphere as it is a live recording, and the best sound. The real surprise, however, is Casals' account of the 8th symphony, so vivid and brisk as never before. He opts for the same tempi as Gardiner does in his recent DG version. The difference is that Casals has got rhythm as well. Sony, please, release more recordings with this great musicien.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Conducting and Playing, December 2, 2007

By 

Robert T. Martin - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8 (Audio CD)

It seems this wonderful CD is only available via third party sellers. Despite this I'm compelled to tell anyone who might happen to come across this review that here is an example of what great music making is all about.
Maestro Casals leads a festival orchestra of about 50 players in the Seventh and 40 in the Eighth, but what they lack in numbers they more than compensate for in intensity. Every note played here conveys commitment and meaning. Consider, for example, the bass line in the second movement of the Seventh, these people aren't just keeping time but playing like soloists in counterpoint to the upper strings-extraordinary! I can only imagine what playing for a legend must have been like. The sound is not first class but more than good enough. This belongs in every orchestral collection, I hope it becomes more widely available.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very old, very great musician gives us Beethoven with passion, February 21, 2010

By 

Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8 (Audio CD)

I was present at the performance of the Beethoven Seventh when I had the summer off in college. As many eyewitnesses have testified, Casals came alive on the podium. He sat in the wings when he wasn't conducting, and one often heard his vocal praise whenever the music moved him (often a growling, Spanish-inflected "bee-yoo-tee-ful"). His great age made him seem enfeebled until he rose with stick in hand and the band of Marlboro musicians who adored him suddenly responded. Everything was incredibly heartfelt -- as both of these Beethoven sympphonies display -- and the old man's lapses of concentration were trivial comapred to his astonishing musical presence.

The four-star reviewer offers a demurral I find unconvincing. A few coughs are barely worth mentioning, but the implication that this was bucolic, unsophisticated music-making is a more serious charge and far from right. Every musician in the catch-all Marlboro orchestra was either a young virtuoso or an old hand who led a section in one of America's greatest orchestras. True, Casals approached music spiritually rather than technically, but he wasn't a child. As far as tempi go, the four-star reviewer finds them slow when they are nothing of the kind particularly in the Eighth. Only Toscanini and our current crop of HIP conductors are notably faster. Casals wasn't Knappertsbusch. to my ears, only the Scherzo and finale of the Seventh seem a bit broad. I used to think there was a certain rough-and-ready quality to this Seventh, but I no longer find it so. Quite the opposite. Casals' rivals now sound too polished and urbane to me, most of them.

I wish I had been at the recording of the Eighth, too, because as everyone else has noted, it's a gem -- ebullient, full of life and character, not to mention the genuine passion that marks great Beethoven readings. In both symphonies one laments that better recording equipment wasn't used. The venue was a covered screened-in shed, and in person the sound was tight, loud, and dry. A good deal of that still comes across, but Sony's digital version is listenable enough, so long as the absence of "air" and hall resonance doesn't bother you.

To this day, Casals' Beethoven Eighth is my touchstone for a great performance.