Beethoven: Military Band Bits 'n Bobs

 

For this week's Bits 'n Bobs segment, I look at the militant side of Beethoven. No, not everything I cover here will actually be played military band, but the idea is carried through all of these pieces.

Marches


Accompanying Beethoven's incidental music to Egmont and Wellington's Victory are seven marches for military band. The fact that Herbert von Karajan programmed these small potboilers is amazing to me, for they are not meaty works, nor do they feature strings in any way. However, I think it is a neat programming idea, for... what other occasion would pair with these marches so well?

While this is not great music, or rather singular music, there are a few standouts. Some of the marches, such as WoO 21, is actually a three-quarter time Polonaise, evoking a folksy Oktoberfest sound rather than a strict march. WoO 29 is actually written for just a few winds, not a band, so it lays more on the chamber music side than anything to march to.

I actually find these marches from Karajan a bit on the bright side sonically, with very little oomph on the lower end of the audio spectrum, but great clarity and detail in the middle. The winds and brass from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra are not be shamed though, with some lovely ensemble work.

Of course, having Karajan's Egmont and Wellington's Victory is the way to go regardless.

Wellington's Victory

Beethoven's Battle Symphony is a notorious work from the famous Classical Era composer. It is music which makes a terribly clangorous noise, using drum cadences, fanfares, Rule Britannia, the Marlborough folk song (which sounds like The Bear went over the Mountain), and God Save the King as its focus.

At least in the recordings I know of Wellington's Victory, cannon and gunfire are utilized alongside the music of the first portion. For this entry of my Bits 'n Bobs series, I chose perhaps the most ruckus-laden recording from Antal Doráti and the London Symphony Orchestra. As you can tell from the cover art above, the producers went above and beyond to find authentic sounds to overlay the music with. As with Karajan's recording at the very top of this post, the stereo spread of these noises move around, so listening can be great fun depending on how you listen.

I might prefer the playing of the Berlin Philharmonic in the recording above, but the London Symphony Orchestra certainly have stakes in this music as well. In a different release than pictured above, Doráti's Wellington's Victory is paired with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, allowing more spectacle of sound to be displayed. I would recommend that program over this one, although an all Beethoven program is nothing to sniff at.

For those interested, a track is afforded to Deems Taylor, who gives a spoken history of the use of weapons in Beethoven's piece, as well as how they were recorded for this particular performance. He does the same for the 1812 Overture on that recording too, pictured at the very bottom of this post.

Bits 'n Bobs

Wellington's Victory, op. 91
  London Symphony Orchestra
  Antal Doráti, conductor
  Mercury; 1960, 2007
  (14.03)

Marches, WoO 18-22, 24, 29
  Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
  Herbert von Karajan, conductor
  DGG; 1969, 1987

Find more Beethoven recordings HERE!