| Malin,
This is a great question because it's one that I have gone around about and have finally settled into an opinion.
I believe that had composers had available an instrument with the capabilities of the modern instrument they would have written for them. Brahms is a bit on exception as he had a valved instrument available but still wrote in the olden style.
HOWEVER, composers would have written differently and the Beethoven we know would have had a completely different sound along with every other classical composer. THEREFORE, I prefer hearing the octaves as written because that's what gives Beethoven his power in some of his brass writing: those unisons, strident and sure. He did his best to compensate by using the other brasses but Beethoven's sound is unique and playing the music where it is written delivers that unique quality. This is all easy to say because I'm not the second player, Bob is.
Coincidentally, Larry, I'm playing the Eroica this week as well. Osmo's back in town. We're getting it ready for the recording in a couple of weeks. It's going to be rather sensational judging from today's rehearsals.
I wanted to tell you that the next time we're in Carnegie, we're likely going to play a week with all 9 symphonies! We'll probably do it over 4 or 5 nights. Maybe '06 or early '07.
ML |