As the Academy of Ancient Music prepares to take on the Fifth Symphony by Beethoven at the Barbican on 27 June, music director Laurence Cummings reflects on why Baroque and period ensembles are not only well-suited to Beethoven’s music, but why they can unlock fresh insights into his iconic scores – revealing the composer’s revolutionary spirit in strikingly vivid ways...
Beethoven... a provocative voice for our times
Beethoven loved to confound expectations; every note that he wrote demands that you sit up and listen. In an increasingly troubled and disordered world, Beethoven’s music presents musical conundrums that need rationalising and arguing out, guiding the natural human endeavour for mutual understanding and acceptance. He was not afraid to provoke and to question and yet always end in musical resolution. I think we should be encouraging our world leaders to listen to more Beethoven.
Baroque orchestras and Beethoven... going straight to the source
Our approach to music-making at the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) is to perform as if the ink is still wet on the page. Whether this is the Suite from Maria Theresia Ahlefeldt’s Telemaco on Calypso’s Isle, which receives a modern premiere in the first half of our programme, or Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, we like to put ourselves in the musical shoes of our historical forebears, using instruments that match the ones they played, as closely as possible. We immerse ourselves in source material from the period – essays on bowing techniques, woodwind fingering charts – and increasingly with Beethoven, we examine his musical signs for added emphasis and melodic expression.
This can be painstaking work and not all the sources agree; in fact some seem to say the exact opposite to each other! In rehearsal we discuss these differences and choices openly and (hopefully!) find a common ground, so that when it comes to performance we are not attempting to recreate something from the past, but rather allowing our shared mutual knowledge and trust to free us up for spontaneous and eloquent musical delivery.
Baroque orchestras approach the work as if it was contemporary music
When compared to a modern symphony orchestra performing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (which was premiered in 1808), the main difference is that, as an orchestra, AAM ordinarily plays music of the 17th and 18th centuries, so when we approach Beethoven, we are coming at his music chronologically.
A symphony orchestra might regard playing Beethoven as going back in time, whereas for us, his music represents an exciting new world of expressive possibilities. We can sense Beethoven pushing the limits of the instruments he was writing for in order to wring out the strongest emotional content that he can.
Did musical performance peak in the 19th century?
Fifty years ago, founder Christopher Hogwood and AAM were part of a pioneering movement that sought to reevaluate music from earlier periods and rid performances of the accretions of the 19th century. As instrument technologies advanced so did playing styles. Beethoven made full use of these exciting developments. His piano music, for example, exploits the tonal possibilities of the new pianos he encountered, such as those made by Erard, Streicher and Graf. Similarly, his woodwind writing makes use of the chromatic evenness that the new instruments could provide.
These developments continue to this day but there came a point in the late 19th century where some believed that peak perfection of musical performance had been achieved. There was a desire to preserve these playing styles and then post-date them, if you like, to earlier repertories. Indeed, the term ‘conservatoire’ arose in order for young students to retain the knowledge and experience of their forebears. I’m sure this was all done with the best of intentions, but it ignored the fact that we can only ever truly speak for ourselves and to the age in which we live.
Period and Baroque orchestras... reclaiming authentic performing styles
When Christopher Hogwood founded AAM, it was deemed necessary to strip back anachronistic performing styles. Now it seems obvious to say that you don’t have to play the music of JS Bach in the same way that you play Gustav Mahler, but when AAM was founded, this was revolutionary.
As I touched on earlier, the study and research that we undertake to rediscover historical playing style opens up new ways of interpretation. Yes, we endeavour to get as many historical details as accurate as we can, but that is not an end in itself. These nuggets from the past give us tools to aspire to the task that all the ancient treatises, going back as far as Plato, exhort us to fulfil: the duty of the musician is to move the soul of the listener.
How do you prepare to conduct Beethoven?
So, how does AAM get ready for a concert like this? Well, at the moment I’m still at the preparation stage and can’t wait to get stuck into rehearsals. Unlike our Baroque and Classical programmes I won’t be directing from the keyboard, so there’s a limit to what I can achieve on my own! I’ve been studying the scores and doing as much reading as I can, but nothing beats the moment when the players are gathered together for the first time and we play the opening bars. This has never been more true than for Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony—the most famous opening bars of any symphony!
Our rehearsals are very open and I like to encourage players to share their thoughts and wishes as we go. Following the example of AAM’s founder, Christopher Hogwood, I see my role as a chairperson in rehearsal. It’s great if all the musicians feel that their voices can be heard and then it is my job to steer the performance as a collective whole and to get us fully prepared for when we finally get to the concert platform. What you see ‘on the night’ from the conductor is really only the tip of a complex musical iceberg. The contemporary accounts of Beethoven’s conducting style are extreme, as you might imagine. He is purported to have crouched underneath the music stand to get the softest effects and was like a raging bull in the fortissimo passages. Let’s see how much I can emulate that!
Baroque orchestras playing Beethoven... as if we're hearing it for the first time
When we performed Beethoven and Mendelssohn two years ago, a member of the audience came up to me afterwards to tell me that they knew the music that we had just played so well and yet it had been as if it was the first time they had heard it. My heart sang! I hope that we can give the audience at the Barbican a similar experience.
Laurence Cummings conducts Academy of Ancient Music in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony at the Barbican on 27 June 2025.