BEETHOVEN, van L.: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 7 (Minnesota Orchestra, Vanska)

We Say...

Review by Jayson Greene

The Minnesota Orchestra indisputably struck gold when they stumbled onto Osmo Vänskä, their music director since 2003. Nearly unknown in America before his appointment, he has since lifted the orchestra from a reliably excellent regional ensemble to one of the most prominent on the national stage. Everyone loves Osmo: critics, audiences, and musicians, and he has easily proven himself to be among the most promising conductors in the world right now. His latest feat has been recording the best and freshest-sounding Beethoven symphony cycle in years, of which this recording is just the latest example. The burden of recorded history on these pieces is crushing: as a conductor, you can hardly lift your baton without inadvertently copying some venerable master's previous interpretation. And yet Vänskä pulls off the seemingly impossible trick of making you forget about the stern hall of ghosts looming just over his shoulder: guys with imposing, carved-in-granite names like Klemperer, Kleiber, Toscanini, Furtwängler. Without seeming the least bit concerned about anyone's interpretations of these monumental works save his own, Vänskä draws fleet, light-footed playing out of the players that never feels hurried, making the first movement Second Symphony sound as bubbly and refreshing as the written music demands. They also nail Beethoven's hairpin dynamic turns, from tip-toeing, church-mouse quiet to storming the heavens in the space of a single breath, with stylishness to spare. It doesn't matter whether you've got a crate full of well-loved Beethoven symphonies on vinyl at home or whether passing curiosity got you to click here to find your first Beethoven download: this is essential stuff either way.