My office this morning is Baker Book House, perhaps the largest Christian bookstore in the Midwest. The Used section, alone, is larger than most bookstores. Baker is one of the largest repositories of theological books around.
It’s a great place to get coffee, study, and listening to great music.
I wish I was doing all three this morning.
Alas.
This morning, I didn’t get coffee. I’m not studying. And I’m listening to Austrian conductor Karl Bohm (1894-1981), the Wiener Philharominiker, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor.
Regarding the last bit I wrote, two out of three ain’t bad.
I first encountered Maestro Bohm four times previous to this morning, on…
Day 5. Rating: “Meh!”
Day 23. Rating: “Huzzah!”
Day 41. Rating: “Huzzah!”
Day 59. “Meh!”
Two and two. Not a bad average. But not great if one wishes to buy an entire CD box set of symphonies. So far, the ratings don’t justify the cost.
Let’s see what today brings.
Beethoven wrote his symphonies in four parts (except for the Sixth, which is in five). The time breakdown of this particular one (Symphony No. 5 in C minor), from this particular conductor (Bohm, at age 76) and this particular orchestra (Wiener Philharmoniker), at this particular time in history (April, 1970) on this particular record label (Deutsche Grammophon) is as follows:
I. Allegro con brio (C minor)………………………………………………………8:33
II. Andante con moto (A♭ major)…………………………………………..9:45
III. Scherzo: Allegro (C minor)……………………………………………………6:17
IV. Allegro (C major)………………………………………………………………..9:19
Total running time: 33:14
My Rating:
Recording quality: 5 (crystal clear, totally up to DG’s high standards)
Overall musicianship: 4 (competent)
CD liner notes: 3 (short essay about Beethoven, lyrics in French, German, English, but nothing about Bohm or the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra)
How does this make me feel: 3 (seemed listless, tentative, safe, lacking magic – “Meh!”)
I kept waiting for the magic, for the spark, for something to grab me and shake me.
Nothing in this symphony did.
I listened through twice. Both times, thinking, “This is really good musicianship. But something is missing. It doesn’t move me.”
In fact, I’m bored listening to this – which is the worst criticism a symphony could receive.
I can only give this a “Meh!” rating.
NOTE: Unfortunately, Karl Bohm will always be associated with Nazism and labeled a Nazi sympathizer. That’s a terrible label to wear one’s whole life. And one can argue whether one should wear such a label one’s whole life. But his feelings about the Nazis followed him until he died – and even beyond.
In 2015 the Salzburg Festival announced that it would affix a plaque in its Karl Böhm refreshment lobby (Karl-Böhm-Saal) acknowledging the conductor’s complicity with Nazi Germany: “Böhm was a beneficiary of the Third Reich and used its system to advance his career. His ascent was facilitated by the expulsion of Jewish and politically out-of-favor colleagues”.