BOOKLET

Recording tune of this CD

Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphonie Nr.6 in F-dur "Pastorale" op.68
PASTORAL - SINFONIE oder Erinnerung an Landleben
(mehr Ausdruck der Enphindung als Malerei)

Angenehme, heitere Enpfindungen, welche bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande im Menschen erwachen.
Allegro ma non troppo

Szene an Bach
Andante molto moto

Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute
Allegro -
Donner. Sturm
- Allegro -
Hirtengesang. Wohltätige, mit Dank an die Gottheit verbundene Gefühle nach dem Sturm.
- Allegretto

Ouvertüre
zu Johann Wolfgang von Goethes Trauerspiel "Egmont" aus op.84

- 1 -

Symphony No.6 in F major "Pastoral" Op. 68 (composed: 1808)

The motive of composing "Pastoral" Symphony is not known well. However Beethoven is known to love to visit countryside and feel nature through his life. Therefore it seems so natural for him to compose a symphony with "nature and people's life in the countryside" theme. But "Pastoral" is a very rare work among Beethoven's. First, it consists of five movements. This is not the first one in history, but the only exception among his 9 symphonies, which are basically, composed following the standard established Haydn and Mozart. Secondly it has concrete title for each movement. And finally the music itself is not "dramatic" at all as other works of his. Factors as opposition, struggle, conflict, or development almost never appear in "Pastoral" these are heard in "Eroica" (3rd), or "Fate" (5th) etc. So if you listen to "Pastoral" with the similar sense as other "Beethoven's works", it will dodge you unexpectedly. Nothing special that surprises listeners occurs from beginning through end, only time goes by slowly - you may think "it's boring as Beethoven's".

But this feature that it "is not" dramatic must be taken that it is necessary, is not a lack, and is fit to the theme positively. Because the theme "countryside" of "Pastoral" Symphony "is not" a "dramatic" world which is represented in a lot of Beethoven's works and in which people realize their own object there through opposition, struggle, or conflict, such as our urban human society. The "countryside" is another world "free" from things that force heavy tension upon people's hearts. By listening to "Pastoral", people are known that there is such "another world" (again).

To represent this "another world" in music, style of "pastorale" is used for composing symphony. "Pastorale" is music of motif of shepherd's flute that was played on the night of the Nativity of Jesus Christ. Or not be limited to only such religious context, it is an alias of music that expresses so called "pastoral scene". Concretely, rhythm swings comfortably by 6/8 (or 12/8); bass keeps long in imitation of bagpipe; same rhythm or motion repeats etc. These are musical features and moreover nature of countryside and life of people are described there, for example the murmur of a stream, voice of birds, melody of alpine horn and so on. "Pastoral" Symphony is a splendid "soundscape" that is described by using these various materials. The listeners of "Pastoral" Symphony are guided by Beethoven, leave away from noise of city, and go on a trip into "soundscape" of countryside.

By the way, the formal title of "Pastoral" Symphony has notes by the composer: mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei (more expression of the feeling than picture). It means that he wants to tell "feeling of people in visiting countryside" rather depict "landscape" itself through such sounds. Beethoven loves nature, is bathed in freedom in countryside (1st movement), admires voice of birds and "forest murmurs" that may be received by his bare hearing ears (2nd movement), enjoys seeing farmers sing and dance, shivers with enormous power of nature caught a glimpse of a storm, and in the end of a day hears shepherds play horn and offers thanks to God (3rd~5th movements). "It's really wonderful here. Don't you think so, too?" - Beethoven talks to listeners in a calm tone uncommonly.

The joy that is obtained by listening to "Pastoral" Symphony is similar to calm happiness that is obtained by listening to faint but various sounds of winds, trees, birds or insects. If you have thought that "Pastoral" is boring, I do recommend you to visit "countryside" again with feeling like "going for basking in the woods of music". Beethoven waits for you there.

Overture from the Music for J. W. von Goethe's tragedy "Egmont" Op. 84 (composed: 1809 - 1810)

"Egmont" is a tragedy of Goethe, the master writer of Germany. The scene is the latter half of 16 century in Flanders. It describes the life of Graf Egmont, people's hero killed for his resistance against oppression rule of the absolute monarchy of Spain. When this tragedy is going to be on at Vienna, Beethoven is asked to offer music for its performance. He is said to have been engrossed in composing intently, because he respected the writer and was moved by sympathy with the theme of this drama, for example freedom, peace, emancipation of the people and so on. In the overture, the basis is sound filled with dark fret. Stiff melody that has quality of saraband, classical dancing music of Spain origin, is arranged on important points as introduction and such. Through that, the outline, pure and brave hero that to be loved is ordered off to tragic death by his enemy's plot, is expressed with forceful style. But his death is not wasted. There is "Victory Symphony" in the end of the overture and it is also performed in the conclusion of the tragedy. Indeed it is exceptional to make an appearance of entirely new melodic subject in the end of the piece, but it promises victory in the future - realization of free and peace world - by the people that succeed to his aim.

(Commentated by Kanato SHIRAISHI)

- 2-4 -

Conductor's comment

I used scores of URTEXT （the original text edition）. As a matter of common sense in the present, I made an effort to meet the composer's aim as possible as I could.

But some points differ with these scores.

The first point is tempo. I have some doubt about the tempo that is written by Beethoven himself essentially. I have claimed there were problem of graduation of metronome in those days and it is fast about 10%. Therefore the tempo that suits to my thought is standard. But the most important aim of my performance is neat one of neat sound. It's no problem to be influenced by the present situation, I feel. On the whole, the tempo resulted a little slow. Especially the beginning of whole performance that was in the last session was quite slow. It goes together with politeness of performance, not to be denied, so I continued.

The second point is agogic (change of tempo). Sometimes you can hear where the original score has no agogic. These are done spontaneously in the performance.  And these are rather the results of good ensemble, so I did not revise.

The third point is trifle. I put off the start of decrescendo in the end of phrase, for example bar 6 of II movement, for one eight ♪. This is correct descriptively, but I dared to do. If the players pay attention to this, appoggiatura of the beginning of this beat may lose its effect. That is the result that I made an effort to be faithful to score （composer） as possible as I could.

This time, I thought this land is the best to record “Pastoral”. As Beethoven composed this music in a suburb of Vienna (Heiligenstadt) and noticed to introduce the country scenery. What did he take interest in? I think it was the intonation of language.

He, Beethoven was born in Bonn. That is very near by the sphere of French. Slavic is spoken in Slovak or Czech. The biggest difference is that the accent of intonation is on the first syllable in conversation. In the case of Western Europe, language has articles and then does not have as that except special case. Especially as it seems in the melody of dance in the III movement, three time in the first half is melody with auftact and two time in the latter half is without it. Also in the �T movement melodies are alike just like a carriage running but intonations are different between presentation part and development part etc. I thought this orchestra is of people that can perform that naturally. As was expected, this was good selection. I’m glad.

There are plural reasons why I chose “Egmont”for coupling. First, this year is just the 200^th year when it was composed. That does not have a big meaning. Another is expectation for sympathy of people that experienced destruction of communism, as everyone knows. Further, I heard that this revolution was not tragic as was called “velvet revolution”. If I insist that was realization of Egmont’s ideal revolution. I don’t understand how much they know about that. Further, because “Pastoral” is a very serene and peaceful scene I selected as a contrastive one.

I think it was a big virtue of introducing deep sound of strings of this orchestra by this music.
I also think it was a big success of making naive and sincere figure toward the music of this orchestra to the sound by “Pastoral”

I regret that such orchestra of good quality is not known much in my country. I am very glad to be able to introduce for this chance.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to members of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, manager Ms. Tatiana Schoeferova, Mr. Pavel Hruby, and interpreter Ms. Kinga Valent.

I would like to thank engineer Mr. Hubert Geshwandtner and producer Mr. Emil Niznansky of the Slovak Radio. I deeply thank recording engineer Mr. Teruo Murakami who has been with me from Japan. They made every effort for the recording.

I would like to give my best regards to people that support this project, Mr. Mitsuaki Kukita that is auditor of NKB and handled general office work, Ms. Hiromi Kitagawa that is manager of NKB and treats general financial affairs, puts documents into English, and negotiated with Slovak side, and Mr. Takuhide Mizuhara that is vice-chief manager and supervisor of NKB.

Noriaki Kitamura conductor

Used score：
Bärenreiter URTEXT TP906（Symphony No. 6 in F major op. 68 “Pastoral”） Breitkopf & Härtel URTEXT Nr. 14640（Overture “Egmont” op. 84）

Recording sound source：　
There are three sources this time.
１.Edited by the staff of Slovak Radio in general way （24bit sampling）
２.Whole performance directly stereo recorded to the most up-to-date model (1bit recorder of KORG Co.) and edited by Japanese engineer (Mr. Teruo Murakami)
３.Whole performance recorded to 1bit recorder through one-point microphone.

- 5-7 -

The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra

was founded in 1949. Two remarkable internationally acclaimed personalities, Václav Talich (Principal Conductor 1949 - 1952) and ?udovít Rajter (1949 - 1976, until 1961 as its Artistic Director) asisted at its birth. Other principal conductors that have played their part in the music evolution of the orchestra include Tibor Fre?o, Ladislav Slovák, Libor Pe?ek, Vladimir Verbickij, Bystrík Re?ucha, and Aldo Ceccato. From 1991 to 2001 Ondrej Lenárd was Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. In the 2003/2004 season, Ji?í B?lohlávek  acted as  Artistic Director. In 2004 Vladimír Válek became Principal Conductor. From 2007 - 2009 he was replaced by Peter Feranec and and in 2009 the French conductor Emmanuel Villaume became Principal Conductor. Simultaneously the conductor Leo? Svárovský has been the Permanent Guest Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Among the many guest conductors it is necessary to mention world-famous artists like Claudio Abbado, Hermann Abendroth, Karel An?erl, Serge Baudo, Roberto Benzi, Miltiades Caridis, Sergiu Celibidache, James Conlon,  Oskar Danon, Christoph von Dohnányi, Vladimir Fedosejev, János Ferencsik, Mariss Jansons, Neeme Järvi, James Judd, Peter Keuschnig, Dmitrij Kitajenko, Ken Ichiro Kobayashi, Kiril Kondrashin, Franz Konwitschny, Alain Lombard, Fabio Luisi, Jean Martinon, Kurt Masur, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Riccardo Muti, Václav Neumann, Antonio Pedrotti, Zoltán Peskó, Alexander Rahbari, Karl Richter, Mario Rossi, Witold Rowicki, Kurt Sanderling, Sir Malcom Sargent, Peter Schreier,  Václav Smetá?ek, Pinchas Steinberg, Otmar Suitner, Jevgenij Svetlanov, Ralf Weikert, Carlo Zecchi and others. In 1996, after a long-term successful collaboration with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Zden?k Ko?ler was awarded the title of honour of Honorary Principal Conductor in memoriam. Numerous famous composers have also conducted their own compositions with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, among others Krzysztof Penderecki and Aram Khachaturian. 

The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra regularly appears on music festivals all over Europe (Prague Spring, Prague Autumn, Bratislava Music Festival, Wiener Festwochen, Brucknerfest Linz, Carinthischer Sommer, Berliner Festtage, Festival de Strasbourg, Warszawska Jesie?, Athens Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Sagra Musicale Umbra). During its numerous international tours, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra has performed in most European countries, Cyprus, Turkey, Japan, and the United States of America. The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra has made a great variety of recordings for radio broadcasts, television and record companies including OPUS, Supraphon, Panton, Hungaroton, JVC Victor, RCA, Pacific Music, Naxos and Marco Polo.

The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra is the most significant symphony orchestra in the Slovak Republic and forms the centre of music life in the capital, Bratislava. Every season the programme includes a series of theme-orientated symphonic, vocal and symphonic, and chamber concerts and  special concert series for children and young listeners.
http://www.filharmonia.sk/

- 8 -

Noriaki KITAMURA
Japanese conductor

He was born in Kobe on December 12, 1949. His dead father was a conductor. His uncle was also a conductor in New York. Another uncle is an emeritus professor of the conductor course of Osaka College Of Music. He was born and brought up in such surroundings.

When he was 12 years old, he started to learn to play on a flute. He was admitted to Kyoto City University of Arts, and studied the flute under Professor Masao Yoshida and Professor Kouichi Itoh.After he graduated from the University, he learned to conduct under the late Kazuo Yamada who was a prince of the Japanese classic conductor's world. Since then, as he served as assistant for free to Mr. Yamada at Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, he gained experience of opera under Takashi Asahina. He acquired a large repertoire of opera as a conductor of Kansai Opera.

In 1981, he made his debut as a conductor. The repertoire was "Oedipus Rex" of Igor Stravinsky. His conducting and direction are so acclaimed. In 1991, he conducted "The Magic Flute" of W.A.Mozart. It was produced by Sanshi Katsura, one of the famous Japanese street tellers. His conducting received a favorable review that it was traditional and elegant even though the stage direction was fresh. In 1994, he was given Diploma for the best interpretation of Robert Schumann's Symphony No.4 in d-minor. It was when "The third International Masterclass For Conductors" was opened by the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra at Olomouc, Czech Republic. In 1997, he recorded Symphony No.4 and No.1 of Schumann with Moravska filharmonie Olomouc. It was the especial glory for the Diploma. The CD was well received and more than 1000 discs were sold out.He performed great services to various fields. He has judged many competitions of All Japan Band Association for years. As a conductor, he has a conductor's master class and educates youngers. As a lecturer, he has been appointed to several Universities, Kobe Yamate Women's Junior College, Kobe College Department of Music, etc. As a scholar, he wrote reports, "Performance analysis by sound spectrogram" and "Elementary Phraset：Minimum Division of a Phrase and its Importance in a Performance". Also he wrote books, "Manual of Music" "Manual of Ensemble" "Manual of musical Reading" "Manual of Performance" and "Manual of Direction".
These can be read in Japanese at URL http://homepage1.nifty.com/nma-yc/

- 9 -

About recording this time

First, we were to have only Slovakian engineer to record. The language or the custom is uncommon for us, so we had a Japanese engineer to go with us for insurance.

I asked several acquaintances and requested Mr. Murakami who is an engineer famous for rock music. He knows about 1bit high quality recording system and also Pro Tools very much. He has experienced much abroad and has achievement of being awarded the GOLDDISK prize of TOTO (American rock band).

He has achievement, but never looks at score at all (surely he cannot read?). I thought it is interesting enough as a plan to confront engineer of rock line with engineer specialized in genuine classical music. We recorded for whole two days and entrusted the work, which take to choose, where to edit, and how to make sound, to them.

I was so surprised to here the results! “How different they are.” Every take, tempo, tone, and sound that they chose was different.

In conclusion, we decided to release Murakami’s version. Because though he never looked at score he discarded pieces of not good performance and choose the take that tempo or sound is my taste and ensemble is neat.

In these days it is common manner to record by multi-track using Pro Tools also in classical scene. But this time he recorded to 2CH at one time and mixed on the spot. It’s the version of stereo direct recording to high quality 1 bit recorder.

CD records as digital data of sound every 1/44,100 second, but 1 bit recorder divides sound every 1/5,600,000 second. The speed is 128 times.

The ability of time analysis is marvelous, once I hear to be surprised at its amazement, and I was captured.

I was driven by an impulse to release as it is, but I leave it in the future. And I asked Mr. Murakami for mastering in order to push this impression as it as possible into CD of present media.

I am the conductor that knows the raw sound on the spot best, and that in the special seat, and I am so satisfied with this CD.

There is no CD but this album as such! I am becoming to want to boast of this so.

2010. June. Conductor Noriaki Kitamura

These are recording system from Japan that includes 1 bit recorder.

- 10 -

Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphonie Nr.6 in F-dur "Pastorale" op.68

I.Allegro ma non troppo ------------------------------15' 05"<
II.Andante molto moto --------------------------------13' 56"
III. Allegro - Allegro - Allegretto ----------------------22' 58"

Ouvertüre "Egmont" op.84 --------------------------- 9' 59&"

Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
Noriaki KITAMURA

Recording at Slovensky rozhlas Studio-1
Recording Date May 8 ~ May 9 2010

Stereo Direct Recording to 1bit Recorder : mu- murakami
1bit Recorder KORG MR-1000 (Recording WSD 5.6MHz)
Recording Support : Herbert Geschwandtner, Emil Niznansky
Recording Supervisor : Takuhide Mizuhara

© 2010 general association NKB

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