Beecham, style and elegance

Schubert is one composer that at least I took lightly in the beginning. Completely immersed in the profound musical dramaturgy of Beethoven's music and bewildered by the genial creativity of Mozart, Schubert was at the periphery of my musical interest. He didn't meet the criteria of any of the things I just discovered and understood in music.
Fortunately, with time, I came to realize what a great composer Schubert was. His music, now, is a continuous source of delight and profound excursion into the soul of man. As usual, getting the grip of ones compositions generates the search for the interpretation that brings the most out of it to ones best understanding. Unexpectedly, the search proved to be very difficult. It is very hard to manage grace, rhythm, elegance, yet undemonstrative masculinity, relentless pace yet relaxation and contemplation. And the recorded leagcy is a prove to that. However, sooner or later, one comes across the masters of Schubertian music. With a very rewarding stop at Bohm's recordings, and a nice breakaway with Carlos Kleiber (about all of them, soon on the lists), I came to Sir Thomas Beecham, said by many to be the Master of this music. And I must say that I couldn't agree more.

His recorded legacy on Schubert is present in two cd's: one coming from EMI in their Great Recordings of the Century series (comprising the 3rd, the 5th, and the 8th) and the other one from Sony (1st, 2nd, and 8th). Perfectly listenable sound on both cds and what proof of music making. Beecham manages an almost perfect blend of all the attributes mentioned above. His orchestra (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, his own creation) responds with all their hearts and minds to Beecham demands and the result is delightful. Just listen to the unimposing elegance in the strings at the beginning of the 5th symphony and the conception and perfect execution of the orchestra is obvious. It is hard to point out certain moments as all the symphonies form uniform bodies, perfectly carved in sound. Incredible insight governs Beechams choice of tempi and phrasing. He carefully puts the accents and injects energy in the right spots managing to keep things balanced and make everything sound light but serious, smiling with confidence, coming forward with being aggressive, describing nice landscapes without becoming self indulgent or dreamy. In Beecham's

hands Schubert's music is on the verge of ethereal never falling to the ineffable. It is as real as it gets and actually it conveys an energy that moves every bit of sensible matter inside you.

So, here I stand, achubert's music is brought to light close to perfection by the nother guy saying that Beecham is great in Schubert or that great British conductor. Give it a try and have his take on this wonderful, youthful musical masterpieces. You won't be dissappointed. Maybe you look for something slightly different in this music but nevertheless Beecham will bring so much that it will be so worthwhile.