Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6 with Paavo Järvi and the German Chamber Philharmonic Bremen

In December we featured the Beethoven Third and Eighth Symphonies from this series of the complete Beethoven symphonies by the German Chamber Philharmonic and Paavo Järvi.  With this recording of the Sixth and Second, the series is complete.

Maestro Järvi, in addressing his relationship with the orchestra (he’s officially the Artistic Director), emphasizes the importance of collegial teamwork, saying that he is more a member of the team than a director.

“I really feel they have a sense of ownership that I have seen in very few other orchestras in the world. It started from youth orchestra roots, like the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; the players decided to play together after their time in the youth orchestra was finished. Similarly, the ‘graduates’ of this youth orchestra formed the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and the Ensemble Modern. So the energy and involvement that you hear with these orchestras has a great youth orchestra link. They have the vitality of a youth orchestra, an incredible enthusiasm and love of what they do, and a sense of ownership, which is not usual for an orchestra these days.”

As with the other recordings, this one has an especially clear, clean sound, partly because the orchestra’s size is about what Beethoven himself would have been familiar with.  And, they use techniques that they feel are particularly suited to the music.  “The musicians are very familiar with what we call “HIPP”, in other words “Historically Informed Performance Practice”. And “hip” is how each of us is, too,” says Järvi.

“I’m much less interested in what’s right and what’s wrong as time goes by and more interested in what kind of experience and human condition does this piece describe,” Järvi says of his Beethoven recordings.  The freshness and vitality of these performances brings the Beethoven series by Järvi and the German Chamber Philharmonic to a satisfying close, maintaining the quality that earned the first installment its awards and high praise.