Boston Classical Review

Complete cycles of the Beethoven symphonies aren’t for the faint of heart. Just ask Lorin Maazel, whose 1988 traversal of the set included a respirator in the dressing room—just in case. Then again, Maazel was leading all nine works in a single day. 

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra are opening 2025 with Beethoven’s nine symphonies and, more sensibly, dividing the collective among four programs spread across the next two weeks.

Originally planned for Beethoven’s sestercentennial in 2020 but derailed by the pandemic, this month’s chronological expedition through the heart of the symphonic canon has been repurposed as both a celebration of Nelsons’ ten years in Boston and a nod to the 150^th birthday of former BSO music director Serge Koussevitzky.

Whether Koussevitzky’s legacy would be better served by dusting off some of the neglected Americana the great man championed is an open question: surely William Schuman, Howard Hanson, David Diamond, and Roy Harris would benefit from renewed attention more than Beethoven. But the fact remains that the revered maestro was, to date, the only BSO music director to lead all nine Beethoven symphonies in order at Symphony Hall—back in 1927.

Though Thursday’s opening installment featuring the first three lacked the essentially limber, dancing qualities of Koussevitzky’s recordings of the triptych, they did feature the orchestra’s best playing for Nelsons yet this season. In place of last fall’s sometimes ragged string ensemble and periodically unbalanced brasses, the new year’s first concert offered performances of commendable tonal focus and responsiveness—not to mention huge dynamic ranges.

The last proved particularly impressive in the Second Symphony, whose Larghetto featured a couple of thrillingly measured ppps. For character, too, the night’s account of this neglected masterpiece was resoundingly spirited.

Written as the composer’s ill health caused him to contemplate suicide, the Second’s four movements suggest anything but despair. While the outer pair overflow with high spirits, the middle two, respectively, sing and frolic.

So they did Thursday, despite some heavy footedness in the Scherzo and the orchestra’s exuberance almost getting the better of it during the finale’s raucous coda. Nevertheless, Nelsons and Co. kept their footing.

On the whole, this was a terrific Second, the first movement marked by a shapely introduction that transitioned naturally into a tightly rhythmic Allegro. The conversational aspect of the slow movement came out strongly, as did the finale’s lyrical spots, which included some enchanting solos from the BSO’s woodwind section.

The winds also shined in the Symphony No. 1, especially during their sparkling runs near the end of the finale. Again, Nelsons’ attention to the score’s finer details resulted in a stirring reading, especially over the Andante. At the same time, he didn’t temper the youthful brashness of the music’s more forceful episodes or hold back its tempos.

Nor did the night’s rendition of the Eroica Symphony (No. 3) stint on bracing extremes of volume and texture. Here, though, even the excellence of the BSO’s playing couldn’t quite rescue the performance from the idiosyncrasies of Nelsons’ interpretation.

The first movement involved all manner of fussy tempo shifts, while the great funeral march unfolded at such a stately tread that the music’s architecture sagged. Certainly, there is novelty still to be mined from these pages: the latter’s weird structure and juxtaposition of materials is like nothing before and little since.

Yet, curiously, Thursday’s plodding, episodic version eschewed one of the key takeaways from the night’s first two symphonies, to wit: natural tempos make for fresh, natural Beethoven. Accordingly, for all its intense dynamic contrasts, this Adagio hardly exhibited any urgency. The otherwise well-balanced finale also felt a bit stodgy.

It fell to the Scherzo, with its skirling horn licks and lusty hemiolas, to showcase the music’s originality in full, glorious force. Here, too, what H. L. Mencken called “a touch of hellfire in [Beethoven’s] mirth” came vigorously to the fore.

The program will be repeated at 1:30 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday at Symphony Hall. bso.org

Posted in Performances

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