In the latest instalment of the Decca Ansermet Legacy, Decca\nEloquence introduces the Swiss conductor’s recordings of Beethoven\n– his symphony cycle, overtures and the rare Weingartner\narrangement of the Grosse Fuge. They are issued as three 2CD\nsets.

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François Hudry, the supreme commentator on the art of Ernest\nAnsermet writes, “the new vision he brought to the Beethoven\nsymphonies was astonishing. Perhaps he was too early in what he\ndid, in his respect for the text and in his weeding out of all the\nRomantic touches and subjectivity which held sway at the time.\nWithout recourse to so-called ‘authentic’ instruments, Ansermet was\ntrying to return to the composer’s intentions, as given in the\nscore, avoiding the imposition of any responses of his own on the\naudience.”

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Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, so familiar today that one risks\ntaking it for granted, sounds almost as if it were composed in one\nsitting. The composer is supposed to have described the famous four\nnotes that open the symphony as ‘fate knocking at the door’. Even\nthough they have been endlessly appropriated and parodied by\npopular culture, their power and fascination remain undiminished\nafter more than two centuries. Even twenty years after its\npremiere, when the symphony was performed in Paris, French composer\nJean-François Le Sueur claimed to be so disoriented that he could\nnot find his head, when he tried to put on his hat!

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Ansermet’s ‘Pastoral’ seems to depict the feelings of a\nsympathetic visitor to the country, not the experiences of an\nactual country-dweller. Warm, hazy textures and an unerring sense\nof line are its hallmarks and in the finale he lets the melody\nsoar, freely and lightly, into the evening sky. His Seventh is less\nof an orgiastic romp than in other hands and Ansermet conducts it\nas if it were an extension of the ‘Pastoral’. The orchestral\nsonorities are given mass, but inner voices are not obscured.\nAnsermet’s reading of the Eighth is as monumental as that of the\n“bigger” trio of symphonies preceding it; in no way is it to be\ntreated as a “lesser” work than its bedfellows.

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