Jul 8, 2018

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (CD review)

Also, a discussion of the work by the conductor. Rebecca Evans, Patricia Bardon, Robert Murray, Derek Welton, Philharmonia Chorus; Benjamin Zander, Philharmonia Orchestra. Brattle Media 2018 (3-CD set).

First, let me one thing clear: I don't think any conductor purposely sets out to produce a bad performance. Some of our greatest conductors have been criticized for their idiosyncrasies: Stokowski, Klemperer, Karajan, Toscanini. Yet the record catalogues are filled with conductors who do the opposite and take the safe route, creating bland recordings that sound like almost everyone else's. I say this because Maestro Benjamin Zander had his fair share of criticism some years ago when he first recorded the Beethoven Ninth using Beethoven's own, rather zippy metronome tempos, and I have no doubt he'll come in for more such criticism for this second such realization. Whether you like the interpretation or hate it, however, know that Maestro Zander is giving it his best shot at providing what he considers a fresh and refreshing approach to the subject matter.

OK, so if you'll recall, when Philips and Sony developed the compact disc back in the early Eighties, they decided on a storage limit of about seventy-five minutes because that was the average length of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony. Well, Zander's New Philharmonia performance, using Beethoven's own metronome markings, clocks in at just over fifty-eight minutes. Of course, not everyone agrees that Beethoven's own metronome was entirely accurate or that Beethoven actually knew how to use it, but fifty-eight minutes? That's faster than most conductors take the score even when they're following the tempo markings precisely. For instance, Roger Norrington in his period-instruments reading comes in almost four minutes longer than Zander.

The thing is, as I said, Maestro Zander had already used this approach with the Beethoven Ninth. In his IMP Masters recording with the Boston Philharmonic twenty-odd years earlier, he did almost the same thing, his performance clocking in at just slightly under fifty-eight minutes, no more than a few seconds different from here. Frankly, I'm not sure what the point is in adhering slavishly to Beethoven's tempo markings in the first place, and I'm not sure why Zander felt it necessary to do it all over again in a second recording. In any case, we have what we have.

Benjamin Zander
Interestingly, it was just last year that I reviewed a similarly peppy reading of the Ninth with David Bernard and his Park Avenue Chamber Symphony on the Recursive Classics label. Bernard also claimed to follow Beethoven's original tempos, but his rendition seems less rushed than Zander's (and, in fact, is slower by some seven minutes). Zander, on the other hand, appears hell-bent-for-leather almost throughout, perhaps hoping to gain a measure of notoriety by being the fastest Ninth on record. I don't know.

Anyway, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Symphony No. 9 in D minor between 1822 and 1824, and it would be his final completed symphony. Its most prominent feature, of course, is the use of a vocal movement--soloists and chorus--for the finale (and, thus, its nickname "The Choral Symphony"). It's a monumental work, the choral finale preceded by an Allegro, Scherzo, and Adagio.

Under Zander the first movement Allegro ma non troppo is robust in the extreme and flashes by in a hurry. Perhaps it's a matter of the metronome marking and the tempo designation being somewhat in conflict. The second movement Scherzo is, if anything, the most normal part of Zander's proceedings. I found his pace for it satisfying, though not particularly imaginative. Next, we have the third movement Adagio, which I'm sure Beethoven meant to be lyrical and sensitive. Instead it seems rather lacking in such qualities because of Mr. Zander's insistence upon rushing through it. He, of course, claims he is doing things exactly as Beethoven intended and that it is only long-standing tradition that has given us lengthier, more-solemn interpretations. Fair enough, but where's the beauty in that?

Then we come to the concluding choral movement (the familiar "Ode to Joy"), the moment we've all been waiting for. Here again we get Maestro Zander fairly racing through the pages, only this time the singers have to keep up. Even though they mostly do, they sound a bit breathless at times, too. Although there is no question Zander's realization has its thrilling moments, they tend to overshadow the composer's objective here, for the music to be above all joyous.

So there you have it: a Ninth Symphony for people in a hurry. Maestro Zander seems so sincere and so dedicated to his tempo proposition that it's hard not to like the product. But that is, indeed, my case. I found it only intermittently interesting, but mostly just fast and fussy. The conductor appears to spend the bulk of his time adhering to the letter of the score while missing much of its spirit. While it can be exciting, to be sure, it appears to lack heart, feeling, affection. OK, I know that Mr. Zander would say it is his love of the work that has driven him to stick so closely to the printed page; however, that may not help the listener to like the reading any better.

In addition to the symphony, Maestro Zander includes a two-and-a-half hour discussion of the music, along with musical examples, which takes up two bonus discs. If you remember Zander's discussions of the Mahler symphonies for Telarc, you'll get the idea. Some listeners will no doubt find his extensive commentary enlightening and instructional, while others, like myself, may find it more than a bit long-winded. His primary objective appears to be to convince his audience that his interpretation is not only valid but revelatory and imperative and far more accurate than any others. The discussion, a lecture really, seems to me a little too didactic to be entirely satisfying or engaging.

Producers Elaine Marton and David St. George and engineer Robert Friedrich recorded the symphony at Watford Colosseum, London, in March 2017. The sound is appropriately dynamic, a tad soft but well imaged. Bass and treble extensions seem pretty good, while midrange definition is only average. Solo voices are clear and distinct; choral voices are slightly less sharp and frequently a tad bright and forward.

The CD will be available to purchase on July 16th (the release date) on Amazon, iTunes/Apple Music, and Spotify.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

2 comments:

  1. I've, obviously, never heard Zander's recording, I am reminded, however, of one critic's reaction to Norrington's similarly-intended traversal of Beethoven's symphonies: "the metronome is not a musical instrument."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for this. I heard Mr. Zander only once in performance, though have listened to his recordings more often. In his pre-performance lecture in Jordan Hall, Boston, he made his upcoming rendition of the Mahler 3 more delightful than it actually turned out to be. A wonderful speaker, then, but somewhat less impressive as a conductor.

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Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For nearly 30 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2024 Honda CRV Sport L Hybrid, I stream music from my phone through its adequate but hardly outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through a Roku Streambar Pro system (soundbar plus four surround speakers and a 10" sealed subwoofer) that has surprisingly nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence and reasonable price. Finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker and a pair of Google Pro Earbuds for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technologies that enable us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa