DW Festival Concert: Beethovenfest Bonn 2021

On August 20, 2021, trailblazing conductor Jordi Savall and his orchestra, Le Concert des Nations. performed their very own interpretation of Beethoven's Ninth in the opening concert of the Beethovenfest in Bonn. Savall and his ensemble are known throughout the world as specialists in historically-informed performance practice.

Jordi Savall is a phenomenon. Born in 1941 in Igualada, a small city near Barcelona, Savall's energy defies his 80 years of age. Ever since the 1970s, he's been considered one of the world's leading viola da gamba performers and early music specialists. The Catalan conductor is tirelessly on the hunt for the perfect, authentic sound – one that literally rings historically true.

The maestro became an international figure in 1991 thanks the movie, "All the Mornings of the World." The film was directed by Alain Corneau and starred the father-son team of Gérard and Guillaume Depardieu. It would have been just a nice, normal French period film if Savall hadn't been involved. He selected, composed and performed the music – and it was the music that made the film so special and brought it lasting popularity.

Farewell, Nike Wagner

In this DW Festival Concert recording, we get a little taste of the soundtrack with the "Prelude pour Monsieur Vauquelin." Savall composed the piece and performed it on his viola da gamba, a bowed cello-like instrument from the 15th century at the Beethovenfest. 

The concert was also a goodbye party for festival director Nike Wagner, great-granddaughter of the legendary composer, Richard Wagner. Her great-great-grandfather was Franz Liszt, who actually also founded the Beethovenfest in 1845.

Nike Wagner led the festival for the past seven years, incorporating dance and other performing arts into the programming. Under her tenure, the festival became more modern and more radical, but also more controversial. Her ideas were seen by some as unorthodox.

Nevertheless, when Nike Wagner looks back at her time as festival director, she's confident she acted in the spirit of Beethoven. "Once you've understood what was avant-garde about Beethoven, then you ask yourself: What are the art forms that breathe life into society today? For me, these are the performing arts, installation art and dance. I really enjoy these things. And different interpretations, different types of sounds – the festival hadn't developed this yet. So I significantly strengthened historically -informed performances. "

Savall and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

On the program was Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, in which the composer used a poem by the German poet Friedrich Schiller for the famous last movement, the choral "Ode to Joy." For Jordi Savall, the work remains powerfully symbolic and highly relevant today. 

"Beethoven had been thinking about Schiller's poem for a long time. I think the symphony is actually his musical will. It also shows how Beethoven had been inspired by revolutionary ideals, things like fraternity, liberty and equality. These ideals influenced all his compositions, but especially his symphonies. I think it expresses ideals of peace, of equality between all people, that everybody has the same rights. This is totally current stuff."

One usually hears Beethoven's Ninth Symphony performed by a large modern symphonic orchestra. The historic sound of Le Concert des Nations is something else entirely. Quite frankly, the orchestra is a sonic legend. Jordi Savall and his wife, Montserrat Figueras, founded the orchestra in 1989. The musicians are all world-class experts in the field of early music performance, and they're dedicated to a single goal: uniting historically-informed performance practice and personal artistic expression.

Jordi Savall says why this is so special: "The string instruments have strings made of intestine, a living material. The woodwinds are really made of wood. It's a different sound. In Beethoven's time the brass weren't tonally uniform! They are very different.”

But playing with old instruments means musicians of Le Concert des Nations forgo the ease and perfection of modern instruments in order to achieve their historic sound. "Going back to the source is a very important part of reaching modernity. If we don't study historical sources, we can't shape our future. That's my conclusion. It's only when we're able to learn from our history that we can build a better future," Savall says.

Beethoven's Second symphony

The next musical piece in this recording is Beethoven's second symphony. Written between 1800 and 1802, the composition is considered to express the inner emotional battle Beethoven was experiencing at the time. Early signs of encroaching deafness were now unmistakable, but the composer was still bursting with life, energy and hope of being cured – and of being loved.

And finally, to round off this Deutsche Welle Festival Concert, we're going to say goodbye to Beethoven. Having now heard two of his symphonies conducted by Jordi Savall, we'll now return to what first made Savall famous: his preeminent performances of early music. He will lead his ensemble Hespèrion XX in Ricercar quatro, or four, by Adrian Willaert. The Franco-Flemish composer was the musical director of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice in the 16th century. 

That's all for this episode of DW Festival Concert. Join us next week for a special recording of Bach's Christmas oratorio performed at this year's Bachfest in the eastern German town of Leipzig. If you have anything you'd like to share with us, drop us an email at [email protected].

Performances featured in this DW Festival Concert:

1. Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125
Allegro ma non troppo, Molto vivace, Adagio molto e cantabile, 

Finale: Presto with "Ode to Joy" chorus (text by Friedrich Schiller)

Performed by: Le Concert de Nations

Sara Gouzy, soprano

Laila Salome Fischer, mezzo-soprano

Martin Platz, tenor

Manuel Walser, baritone

Vox Bona, chamber choir

Conducted by: Jordi Savall

Recorded by West German Radio (WDR) in Bonn on August 20, 2021

2. Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 2 in D major, op. 36

Performed by: Le Concert des Nations

Conductor: Jordi Savall

DW Archive

3. Adrian Willaert, Ricercar quatro

Performed by: Hespèrion XX,

Conducted by: Jordi Savall

DW Archive

This "DW Festival Concert" was produced at Deutsche Welle with sound engineer Thomas Schmidt, producer and Russian show host Anastassia Boutsko, and host Cristina Burack. Text and production by Gaby Reucher.

Edited by: Manasi Gopalakrishnan