So it’s looks like the Bernstein take will end up being the dud of the Opus 131 picks, at least in my opinion. The problem with turning chamber pieces (the string quartet) into orchestral works is that you change the nature of the composition: chamber pieces are essentially private or personal in nature while orchestral works are far more public or universal (communal, if you will). While I love the lushness of Bernstein’s first movement arrangement the expansion in the successive movements lose the character of the original four voice arrangement. It’s no longer poignant contemplation, it’s a kind of sorrowful landscape - a pastiche, not a prayer. Although Beethoven was not overtly religious Opus 131 certainly has strong elements of supplication - even reverence. All of that is diluted on the Bernstein version, imo. It’s lush and evocative, even plaintive, but without the depth of emotion, reverence or intensity of the original four voice arrangement.
And with all due respect to the late Lenny Bernstein, I'm not listening to Beethoven to fall asleep. His appeal is in the drama of the human experience, collective and personal, not soundscapes for meditation.
Beethoven Light is somehow not right. Think Ludwig would have hated it.
