Beethoven Eroica and Symphony 4 – Abbado Berlin

Claudio Abbado’s Berlin Philharmonic doesn’t lumber through the Eroica—it strides, sometimes dances. This is the sound of an orchestra transformed, leaner than in the Karajan era but no less potent. Less velvet, more sinew. The strings have shed their extravagant plush, and what emerges is revelatory: you hear into the music rather than being enveloped by it.

The first movement of Symphony no. 3 bustles with the energy of a young man—which Beethoven was, after all, barely past thirty when he completed this astonishing work. Abbado takes the music at face value, refuses to genuflect before its monumentality. The tempo feels right, urgent without being breathless, and the momentum never flags across those vast spans. Details emerge without spotlighting—the DG engineers deserve credit here—and the whole thing coheres with a sweep that had me grinning by those final terse E-flat chords.

Now, the funeral march. This will trouble some listeners. Abbado moves more freely than tradition dictates, yet he’s actually close to Beethoven’s own metronome marking—crotchet equals 80. (Norrington and the period-practice crowd have taught us to respect these markings, even when they seem counterintuitive.) But the real question isn’t about numbers on a dial. Does it work? It does. The movement grips rather than oppresses. Listen to the principal oboe’s playing—glorious tone, perfectly judged—or those low horns at around 10:16 in the second track, a detail I’d never noticed before.

The scherzo is fleet-footed, finely characterized. Nothing to quarrel with there.

But it’s the finale where Abbado truly triumphs. This movement can so easily collapse into bombast or dissolve into mere busyness. Here it neither collapses nor dissolves—it surges forward with irresistible creative energy. The humor of the opening comes through (Beethoven’s wit is often underplayed), and yes, the oboe’s first statement of the main theme suffers the customary balance problems, but that’s Beethoven’s fault, not Abbado’s. The scoring is simply awkward there. By the close I found myself letting out an involuntary whoop of pleasure—not my usual critical comportment, I’ll admit.

Symphony no. 4 in B-flat Major remains Beethoven’s most underrated, possibly his least known. It begins with one of his wickedest jokes: the darkest, softest opening of any symphony save the Ninth, followed by an explosion into the Allegro vivace that never fails to startle. Abbado captures this wonderfully, then explores the movement’s wit and eventfulness with obvious relish. The Adagio is relaxed, spacious—proof that Abbado’s brisk tempos in the Eroica aren’t dogma but musical response to what each work requires. The Third’s vast structures demand momentum; the Fourth’s more concise forms permit leisure.

I wanted more dynamism in the scherzo, more explosive energy. But Abbado’s finale wins me over completely. Most conductors take this at a scrambling Presto; Abbado remembers that Beethoven marked it “Allegro ma non troppo“—fast but not too much so, and that qualification matters. At this tempo the music breathes, expressive moments blossom, and the principal bassoon can actually articulate those semiquaver runs without dislocating his jaw. It’s a fizzing yet affectionate performance, modern in sensibility but grounded in the score’s realities.

Some will find Abbado’s Eroica lightweight. I don’t. It stands alongside Kleiber’s great Vienna recording—different in character but equally valid, equally compelling. Symphony no. 4 is less well served on disc, and this performance may well be the modern release to have. At over seventy-nine minutes, it’s remarkably generous value. More importantly, it’s music-making that reminds you why these pieces still matter, still astonish.