Stellar performances close the Boston Symphony’s Beethoven Festival

Beethoven has been central to the Boston Symphony’s identity. His name looms large over the center of the proscenium. The orchestra’s first home boasted his life-size statue center stage. Its first conductor, George Henschel, programmed all nine symphonies in each of the orchestra’s first three seasons. A steady succession of German conductors continued to cement that identification through the first 37 years. With this final program of the Beethoven Festival, Andris Nelsons sets himself firmly and memorably in that tradition with stellar performances of Beethoven’s Eighth and Ninth, winding up a cycle that fulfilled its promise.

Once again, Nelsons stressed refined dynamics, rhythmic drive, balance and contrast. Transitions this time were smooth and lingering no impediment to the overall flow. Nelsons made sure the pulse and punctuation of the timpani, often drivers of the rhythm, were ever palpable. And the orchestra continued to give him what he asked for with fervor and confidence along with a palette of sound and color much different than that of his recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Beethoven pokes fun in the Eighth at his forbears and himself. Nelsons took a lighthearted, light-footed approach The first movement danced blithely until it collapsed with a sigh. He brought out the humor in the clockwork rhythm and articulation of a jovial second movement. Clumsy elegance might sound like an oxymoron but it’s exactly what he and the orchestra achieved in the third movement. The last movement wound down with an irresistible drive marked by hairpin turns from piano to forte and deceptive slackening, as if a mechanism were overheating then kicking back into gear before chugging to its destination.

This program marked Nelsons first performance of the Ninth in eight years and first ever in Symphony Hall. Thanks to its more congenial acoustics, the quality of his current interpretation registered clearly. He did not smooth out the rougher, rawer edge Beethoven gives to parts of the symphony nor try to tame its restless energy. Emphasizing contrast was key to creating dramatic variety and intensity. He dispelled the shadow of tragedy and despair cast by a brooding first movement with the percolating buoyancy and vigorous prodding of the second. Repose, reflection and yearning marked the hypnagogic Adagio evoking a return to the restorative realm of Nature in the Sixth. Brass fanfares were a wake-up call, insistently urging a return to action. Most noteworthy was his creation of a vocal quality in the final movement, long before any voice was raised. 

Cellos and double basses, dyspeptic and impatient, rebuked and rejected every timid suggestion from the rest of the orchestra until quietly but firmly offering the Ode to Joy melody. The orchestra blustered in response but Andrè Schuen rose to forcefully chastise them, then took up the melody himself. With the chorus singing from memory and giving its sonorous all and a quartet which not only blended well as an ensemble but as two sets of duet partners, the voices contributed to a powerfully visceral fourth movement. The drive and tension of the prestissimo finale was Nelsons at his best. The ear-piercing, “Wow!” from the gentleman across the aisle sums up the audience’s response.

Lazy preconceptions are the enemy of appreciation. Combine them with a strain of “Beethoven fatigue”, which can plague concertgoers and critics alike, and you might well have dismissed this cycle a priori as some did. What more could Nelsons say than he has  already? “O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!” The cycle is streaming online. I invite you to listen with open ears and hear for yourself as conductor and orchestra renew with vigor their ten-year collaboration after the tumult and disconnect of the pandemic.