At the premiere of the Ninth, Choral Symphony in the Kärtnertor Theatre, Vienna in 1824 it is clear from a contemporary account that Ignaz Schuppanzigh led the orchestra, and Michael Umlauf was director of the whole, with a baton. Beethoven also took part in the general direction: ‘He stood …by the side of the presiding marshall [Umlauf] and indicated the beginning of each tempo, reading in his original score, because a higher enjoyment sadly was denied him owing to his hearing inability.’ The pianist and composer Thalberg, who was present, recalled many years later that ‘Umlauf told the choir and orchestra to pay no attention whatever to Beethoven’s beating of the time, but all to watch him.’ Thalberg also recalled that Conradin Kreutzer was at the piano, a detail missing from other accounts. One possible explanation of Kreutzer and the piano’s presence is that there was vocal music involved – in all the performances where we know for certain that Beethoven played the piano in the orchestra there were singers involved.
Geoffrey Lancaster is playing fortepiano in the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s performances of all nine symphonies. These are linked to recordings, the first complete set of the Beethoven symphonies by any Australian orchestra, and the fortepiano’s participation is a special feature.
Geoffrey Lancaster is not only one of the world’s leading specialists on this instrument, but a musician at the forefront of scholarship about how music of earlier eras should be performed. He’s the kind of musician who is not only a superb performer, but can justify what he does.
Of course, Lancaster is not the director of the performance, which is under a conductor, David Porcelijn. But historical research suggests that in Beethoven’s day the direction of the orchestra was usually shared by the first violinist and a keyboard player, even after conducting as a separate métier was well established. A German source of Beethoven’s time tells us: ‘fusion of the individual members to the reproduction of a single feeling is the work of the leader, concertmaster, music director, or conductor’ – this reflects a varying practice.
Almost all modern performances and recordings of the Beethoven symphonies, whether on period or on modern instruments, assume that participation of a keyboard player is superfluous, a relic, where it survived in Beethoven’s day, of the tradition of joint direction. By then, it is thought, the director at the keyboard, if he played at all, did so to assist the other players, and perhaps to add to the sound where numbers of players were insufficient.
But Geoffrey Lancaster has found that keyboard continuo remained a common, though inconsistent practice well into the early 1840s for symphonies and concertos in Austria, Germany, and England. For Symphonies Nos 1 and 2 Beethoven used the members of Vienna’s Italian Theatre orchestra, which came with a continuo player. Lancaster believes that keyboard may have been used in all the symphonies up to No.6, while there is evidence suggesting it was not used in the first performances of Symphonies 7, 8 and 9. For Symphony No.9, as we have seen, the evidence is ambiguous.
Symphonies published without a separate keyboard part leave us to guess how keyboard players were expected to support the playing of the rest of the orchestra. Thanks to their proximity in the orchestra to the first violinist, they were able to improvise keyboard accompaniments from a string bass part, even when figures suggesting the harmony were not provided. The composer directing his own music while playing a keyboard instrument was one of the performance possibilities, described in a 1779 source: ‘commonly the composer, who always plays along at a keyboard, with the basses, sits in the middle of the orchestra.’
The keyboard player’s main task was to reinforce the bass line by playing it in the left hand, adapting the rest of the part to a keyboard idiom. There is no evidence actually prohibiting keyboard in any of the symphonies.
Only the balancing achieved by the recording producer and engineer can make the fortepiano’s part completely obvious to the listener. The partial inaudibility of the fortepiano in a concert performance may be considered authentic. J. Arnold, writing in 1806, suggested that if the director of a performance played at a piano, it was ineffective in a full orchestra, and could not be heard through the ensemble. If ‘the Flügel beats through, to be sure’ in certain passages, its ‘ringing sounds spoil the effect of the other instruments.’ He didn’t like the effect: ‘Its strumming gives only a disgusting, ineffective disturbance against the tone of the orchestra.’ Perhaps he had never heard it skilfully played.
The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s performances and recording make no pretence that ‘this is how it was done’. Geoffrey Lancaster’s contribution does, however, suggest how some performances may have sounded in Beethoven’s day. The instrument Lancaster has chosen to play in the symphonies is the fortepiano, even though the rest of the orchestra is playing modern instruments. (He plays a modern copy by Paul McNulty of a Viennese instrument by Anton Walter.) The fortepiano’s clarity, contrast of registers, and lesser resonance by comparison with a modern concert grand make it possible to realise a discreet yet present contribution to the sound.
First published 2000