Beethoven in Toto

The “Complete Beethoven Edition,” issued by Deutsche Grammophon to celebrate the label’s 100th anniversary, requires 87 CDs and comes in a small suitcase that contains a two-tiered acrylic shelf, designed to hold the 20 volumes of multi-CD sets and a special book. It weighs a ton. Drop it on your foot and you could easily break a toe. Beethoven is heavy.

It’s all here, every scrap that Beethoven wrote. The Fifth Symphony, the “Eroica” and the “Ode to Joy.” Opus 111 and the C-sharp minor String Quartet. The “Emperor” Concerto, “Archduke” Trio, “Moonlight” Sonata and “Diabelli” Variations. “Rage Over a Lost Penny” and “Fur Elise.” “Fidelio” and “Missa Solemnis.” Not to mention Three Equali for Four Trombones or arrangements of “Let brain-spinning swains” and “Auld Lang Syne.”

Now for some daunting statistics. The total timing for the 87 CDs is 101 hours, 53 minutes, 35 seconds. It would thus take two weeks, listening every day for approximately seven hours and 15 minutes, to hear every scrap Beethoven wrote. Besides the nine symphonies, the 32 piano sonatas, the 16 string quartets, the 10 violin sonatas, the five cello sonatas, the two masses, the many sets of variations, the miscellaneous choral, vocal and chamber music, the edition includes an enormous amount of Beethoven you have very likely never encountered. For instance, all of the 168 folk-song arrangements he made when he needed money.

No question that this is a monumental oeuvre and that a complete edition of recordings is its own kind of monument. For nearly two centuries now, Beethoven has loomed over music. He was certain of his own greatness and was responsible, single-handedly, for creating the Romantic-period notion of the artist as great figure in society, not merely a craftsperson in the employ of aristocrats. Certainly, there has never been a moment since his death in 1827 when Beethoven hasn’t been a force--even the force--with which music history has had to reckon.

But this edition comes at a curious time in the history of classical music, and it probably tells us more about ourselves than it does about the monumentality of Beethoven.

For one thing, it doesn’t mark a particular Beethoven moment. It is not an anniversary season (the bicentennial of his birth was in 1970, and DG had a Beethoven set then, massive and landmark but not nearly as complete), nor are we in the midst of any notable Beethovenian reevaluations.

We are, in fact, in an era of Beethovenian glut. If there is any trend, it is that the record companies have finally begun to crack down on vain maestros who still insist upon their own symphony cycle, on pianists who still insist upon a concerto cycle. The bottom line has asserted itself.

The recording of Beethoven began in earnest in 1913, with a performance of the Fifth Symphony by Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic--the first recording of a complete symphony. The ‘30s and ‘40s, the heyday of the 78s, brought many of the landmark Beethoven recordings, and they remain much in favor with collectors. These included the piano sonatas played by Artur Schnabel, the symphonies conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler and Arturo Toscanini, the string quartets performed by the Budapest String Quartet. Back then, the recording of even a single work was an event. It required a number of discs just to hold a symphony, and the set was costly.

The LP changed all that, making Beethoven’s music more easily accessible and consequently better known and more popular than ever. And the CD has only further accelerated accessibility and affordability. There are nearly a hundred interpretations of the Fifth Symphony currently in print.

It is possible, of course, to overpromote even Beethoven, and with the onslaught of Beethoven LPs in the ‘50s and ‘60s, came, also, the first wave of genuine disgust with the composer.

Beethoven had always served as an example to modernists and visionaries. The late works, like the “Grosse Fuge,” still felt avant-garde a hundred years later, inspiring Stravinsky, Bartok and Schoenberg. But all those LPs made Beethoven pervasive, and composers wanted out of his shadow. His pushy omnipresence seemed to smother creativity.

Still, the recordings and performances continued, and then came the CD reissues and new releases, and that led to a second backlash. Beethoven became the ultimate dead white male composer. His lording over culture again seemed excessive, oppressive, especially among the politically correct.

Now comes the third backlash. Beethoven remains ever popular, but how much of him can you sell? The competition among recordings of his symphonies has even reached the point that there is now a set of all nine symphonies on Lydian that sells for a mere $12.

So why all of Beethoven? And why now? The main reason, I suspect, is that it is the only way left for a record company to impress us.

And the DG “Complete Beethoven Edition” does a pretty good job of doing just that. The set seems to exist less because it is needed than because it is possible. DG, a German company (though it’s now owned by PolyGram) with a distinctive yellow label, is the outfit that made that Nikisch recording of the Fifth Symphony, and it has built an unequaled Beethoven catalog in the succeeding 80 years. For the complete edition, it had to engage performers to record the juvenilia and the music Beethoven wrote for hire (music no one but musicologists ever cared about before), but for the main body of the Beethoven repertory the company had multiple distinguished versions to choose from.

This is where the arguments begin. The “Complete Beethoven Edition” cannot be a scholarly enterprise or a labor of love, like the catalogue raisonee of an artist or a complete edition of the works of an author. The raw material simply isn’t available outside of a commercial establishment like DG, with its long history of recording great artists. But then the temptation, to which DG has evidently succumbed, is to use the edition to enshrine the company as much as create a coherent picture of the composer.

Listening to these CDs, one can hear the corporate mind ticking. For instance, the first volume, devoted to the symphonies, is the classic set that Herbert von Karajan recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1961. This was a coup for music but also for DG. It was the first time all the symphonies had been recorded as an entity, and it was, for its time, a feat of orchestral polish, of interpretive single-mindedness and of recording technology. It solidified the reputation of Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic as the world’s leading conductor and orchestra. It also seemed, at $40, a huge investment for the consumer at the time, and there were protests that DG was trying to reverse the trend of making Beethoven accessible through such an elitist product.

DG had many other sets of the symphonies to choose from for its new edition. There is greater warmth in performances by Rafael Kubelik, greater depth from Karl Bohm, greater effusiveness from Leonard Bernstein, greater vitality from John Eliot Gardiner and additional polish in a later, digital Karajan set. But the 1961 set stood for Deutsche Grammophon and what it could accomplish. So here DG has lovingly remastered it with the latest computer techniques, as if by enshrining it the company might also recapture the optimism of the early ‘60s.

There is, progressing through the 20 volumes of the edition (each of which is, by the way, available individually and at mid-level prices, for those who can’t or won’t or don’t need to spring for the whole $1,050 suitcase) much to celebrate and much to quibble about. Some of the performances, such as those of the violin sonatas performed by Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich, are downright electrifying. DG has included its classic 1964 set of the piano sonatas performed by Wilhelm Kempff, also in their best sound ever, and they hold up as solid, to the point and never disappointing.

But most of the volumes are compromises. Every effort seems to have been made to make room for as many of DG’s soloists and conductors as possible, and not to show favoritism. Bernstein is represented in but one work, “Fidelio,” although it is a superb performance and packed in Vol. 4 with Gardiner’s also fine period-practice new recording of the earlier version of the opera, “Leonore.” Politics presumably make for some of the more curious choices, such as including Daniel Barenboim’s unimaginative performance of the “Diabelli” Variations.

Collectors will probably be the most intrigued with the obscure works. There is the fascination in visiting Beethoven’s workshop and of hearing the juvenilia, which offers insights into the development of a genius. Some will probably have more patience than I do for all those youthful sets of variations. These works are clearly precocious, but a little bit of the show-off kid goes a long way. At least, the pianists DG hired for the thankless task of ticking off these works include the luminous Mikhail Pletnev and the perfectly competent young Italian recently signed to the label, Gianluca Cascioli.

Genius is equally rare in the reams of marches and wind pieces, or the often embarrassing theater music that Beethoven wrote to pay the bills. Although one reviewer for Gramophone, the British record magazine, claims he woke every morning in great cheer anticipating yet more folk-song arrangements to listen to on the seven CDs of Vol. 17, he is surely the exception.

The other curiosity for collectors is Vol. 20, which includes historical performances, most of which have never before been on CD. By keeping the offerings rare, DG had to dig deep in its archives and few genuinely classic performances actually show up on the six CDs. But the range can be fascinating. For instance, we hear Carl Schuricht coddling his Nazi audience in 1941 as he sincerely plods through the “Eroica” with the Berlin Philharmonic. But there is also Furtwangler conducting the same orchestra two years later in a maniacally white-hot wartime account of the “Coriolan” Overture. This is one of the most arresting and disturbing performances of Beethoven you will likely ever encounter.

One find is a richly expressive performance of the Violin Concerto, performed by Josef Wolfsthal in 1929, two years before his death at age 31. From the evidence here, he surely would have become one of the century’s great players had he lived longer. The other find is a sterling performance of the Third Piano Concerto by Annie Fisher, with Ferenc Fricsay conducting the Bavarian State Orchestra in 1957.

And what about the Nikisch Fifth, from which it all began? It is the performance that should tell us the most about the tradition of performing Beethoven. Nikisch was born in 1855, only 23 years after Beethoven’s death.

Even so, I’ve never trusted this recording. The approach to the symphony is not quite as flexible as one would expect. Nor is there the urgency or excitement such still fresh music should evoke. But we have to wonder just how natural the performers felt under the then- experimental recording situation. Conditions must have seemed artificial to the musicians, and there is no way of knowing whether or not this is an accurate document of what their performances were really like.

But I’m glad it’s on the set. It reminds us that this “Complete Beethoven Edition” is not definitive. And that no edition could ever be. It is just one record company’s idea of Beethoven.

Over-recorded as he is, over-reaching as his position in history remains--heavy as this set of CDs that mimic his music is--Beethoven still has a way of looming larger.

* “Complete Beethoven Edition,” various artists, Deutsche Grammophon. Set: $1,050 list; $800 street. Each of the 20 volumes is available separately, priced from $24 to $84.