THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, February 3, 1971 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, February 3, 1971 records Beethoven: 200 and still celebrating By JOHN HARVITH First of two parts This review initiates a series of articles examining recent record releases toasting the bicentenary of Beethoven's birth. To many readers this 1971 post mortem of the 1970 "Beethoven Bicentennial Year" will seem like a most perverse sort of impertinence. This reviewer, however, takes a peculiar delight in perversity, particular- ly when it runs counter to commonly established, firmly ingrained illogical customs and modes of thought. The illogical custom under consideration here is that of celebra- ting anniversaries of births or deaths of famous personages from January 1 of the year in which the blessed event or accursed demise took place, especially where, as in the case of Beethoven, the birth- day occurs in mid-December. Wild festivities accompanied by concert and commercial exploitation of Beethoven and his music began on January 1, 1970 as if Ludwig had been born on New Year's Day 1770, while the fateful night cf his conception presumably didn't come to pass until some time in March 1770, and not even the most scrupu- lously detailed Beethoven biographies give that date. All that we definitely know is the date of Beethoven's baptism, December 17, 1770, which by then current church ritual occurred 24 hours after birth. It thus seems as patently absurd to me for anyone to have celebrated Beethoven's 200th birthday on January 1, 1970 as it would have been for Ludwig's parent's to have held his first birthday party on January 1, 1771, just 16 days after he was born. Hence, I now proclaim the Harvith Anniversary Rule, according to which all anniversaries are celebrated for one year, commencing on the actual birth or death date of the honored individual. Accordingly, the Beet- hoven Bicentenary will be observed in this column until midnight December 15, 1971. Some of the most notable Beethoven releases of 1970 were re- issues of historic landmark interpretations on RCA Victrola: Tosca- nini's virtually definitive 1936 recording of the Seventh Symphony with the New York Philharmonic (VIC-1502), and Artur Schnabel's legendary 1942 traversals of the Fourth and Fifth Piano Concerti with Frederick Stock conducting the Chicago Symphony (VIC-1505 and VIC-1511, respectively). The Toscanini disc is indispensible to anyone wishing to truly understand the notoriously hot-tempered Italian maestro of the NBC Symphony. Toscanini is too often regarded today by those only fa- miliar with his NBC recordings as a super-objective time-beater, a conductor who stuck totally to a musical score without injecting his own personality into his interpretations, and a musician who, after adopting one basic tempo for a symphonic movement, never de- viated from it. In short, a myth has evolved which dogmatically in- sists that Toscanini possessed all the musical warmth, flexibility and sensitivity of an electric metronome. This attitude was manifest in a 1967 Toscanini Centenary article in Stereo Review in which Eric Salzman evaluated the Maestro's 1937 readings of Beethoven's First, Fourth, and Sixth Symphonies with the BBC Symphony, then newly reissued in Seraphim (IC-6015). Salzman flatly stated that there was no difference in interpretation between the 1937 recordings and the ones Toscanini made in the 1950's with the N.B.C. Symphony, and went on to berate Toscanini as a febrile, constricted interpreter while left-handedly praising him as a great orchestral technician. As a result, Salzman misled his readers in two important re- spects. First Toscanini's interpretive style was undergoing drastic change and second, Toscanini was never a tense, unyielding auto- moton, as Salzman would have us believe. 2$1.501 At State & Liberty Sts. DIAL 662- s . s JACK NICHOLSON "YEAR'S BEST" -N.Y. Film Critics OPEN 1 P.M. SHOWS: 1:20, 3:10, 5 P.M., 7 P.M., 9 P.M. A Fl WA A'w W; -W l' 7 a SIDE SH FRIDAY, FEB. 5, f(atrringy stranlge (oslic LOVE'S ALCH and SALMAGUN dancing ladies and s ili ADMISSION 75c FIRST FLOOR MARKLEY HALL Uni11ersity F Read and Use Daily C HALL Ow 8:30-12 InI sic EMY DI ' n/s Promotionts/Jocl Kahn , j lassifieds y. i;i, JOHN COHEN of the New Lost City Ramblers SAT. Nite late- folky-type movies shown by JOHN COHEN The University of Michigan Bands Presents a 4'POPS" CONCERT featuring PETER NERO AND HIS TRIO Tvith The University of Michigan Symphony Band Sunday, Feb.14 3.:30 P.M. HILL AUDITORIUM TICKETS: $2.00 $2.50 $3.00 MAIL ORDERS: M UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN BANDS 1024 Administration Bldg. The University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104 2 I NEXT WEEK- Andy Cohen w 0 Next came the Gounod, which sounded like a cross between Sullivan and Suppe. By the third movement his tricks had become so apparent that it was a real shock to hear something new in the Finale - syncopa- tion. The two Handel ditties were charming, although the first be- came boring through all the re- peats. One wonders why they bothered here when no repeats were taken in the first m o v e ments of either the Beethoven or the Gounod I shudder, though, to think what they must have sounded like in the ori- ginal scoring, according to the bi An unpleasant tone in the clarinet as well as numerous slips in both clarinet and oboe were as distracting as the pro- gram, which, with all its divert- menti, was not very diverting. ENDING TODAY I ;. evil' WED., FEB. 3 American Film Studies METROPO .IS dir. Fritz Lang ( 926) The height of German expres- sionism. An art-filledtale of factories in the middle of the earth, a robot and the boss's son. Silent. DIAL 8-6416 Another fine double bill GENE WILDER r- WED. 36 .504 o t and JEAN PAUL BELMONDO in "MAN FROM RIO" GET YOUR MAN WITH A WantAd Come to the CLAUDE CHABROL FESTIVAL "Chobrol was there at the very beginning of the New Wave, first as a critic for Cahiers du Cinema and 'then as the direc- tor of perhaps the first New Wave film. His Le Beau Serge (1958) pre- ceded Truffaut's The 400 Blows by a few months, and when Godard's Breathless appeared, the original triumverate of New Wave directors was established." It still reigns. -ROGER EBERT, Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 24 I. 7 & 9:05 662-8871 ARCH. AUD. 75c The Place to Meet INTERESTING People BACH CLUB presents David Lipson performing & discussing some of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. refreshments afterwards! Thu., Feb. 4-8 p.m. S. Quad W. Lounge EVERYONE WELCOME! Postively no musical knowledge needed!!! Further info, call: 764-7638, 663-2827. ATTENTION: Look for the story on the Bach Club in The Daily on pg. 2 sometime this week or next week or next month, but probably before 1973. From now on Bach Club Daily ads will gen- erally appear only on Thursday. jThursday: "FELLINI SATYRICON"_T k~ <'4:x<44<-':V~4.: .*44 'V ' '*44* V'*c V.4 K'~ N v.~ ' *' t'' 4 4't FINAL WEEK! TONIGHT at 8:00! SPECIAL STUDENT DISCOUNT! I RADICAL FILM SERIES Charlie Chaplin's f I