Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.
Following the first three movements, it’s more good cheer in the finale of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, opus 60. “Allegro ma non troppo” is the movement heading, “fast but not too fast.”
Beethoven keeps us on our toes here, teasing us with a back and forth of loud and soft passages. And it all begins with rapid-action motion in the strings, a perpetuum mobile that returns again and again.
“Perpetual motion” – self-sustained motion with no friction or loss of energy – is something that physicists and inventors of mechanical objects have dreamed of for ages. Maybe they don’t know that it actually exists – in music. And it already did way back in November 1807 when Beethoven himself conducted the first public performance of his Fourth Symphony at the Vienna Burgtheater.
Beethoven’s latter-day successor as conductor, Paavo Järvi, provides the initial spark in this recording at the Beethovenfest in the composer’s home town, Bonn, Germany. The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie sustain the energy, but it’s Beethoven himself who’s the motor, carrying them along too.
To continue the metaphor: Not only does the music in the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Fourth propel itself forward, it sweeps us all along with it.
Enjoy the ride!
Deutsche Welle and Unitel Classica present Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi, conductor of the year 2019, and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, recorded at the Beethovenfest in Bonn.
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