Beethoven Ninth
LSO Live
In Edinburgh over the past two weeks, Charles Mackerras has been getting pulses racing with his energetic Beethoven symphony cycle; tonight at 5.30 is its climax, with Number Nine. His performance of the Choral symphony will have many wonders, I’m sure, but could they topple from the shelf London concertgoers’ recent memories of Bernard Haitink’s cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican? Haitink’s Ninth, encountered this April, was a particularly forceful reading, with a blazing chorus, the most heartfelt entreaty from the bass soloist Gerald Finley, and enough orchestral punch to knock a listener senseless. And here it is, squeezed on to the latest concert relay on the orchestra’s own budget label, LSO Live.
Domestic listening, inevitably, is not the same as the concert experience. The label’s packaging these days may include booklets with translated texts and photographs, the accoutrements typical of full-price discs, but the recorded sound cannot be full-price. Microphones are doomed to pick up the Barbican’s usual parched acoustics, and odd quirks of balance (the strings over-prominent, woodwinds undernourished). As Haitink swings the symphony into action, explosive chords mixed with shell-shocked quiet, it would be an unusually pliant listener who would not wish for sound carrying a cushion of resonance, and greater depth.
But the ears mostly adjust. Such is this performance’s concentrated force that Haitink leaves no other option; and the dry, claustrophobic ambience certainly brings an extra kick to every blow from the timpanist, Nigel Thomas. Haitink’s iron control brings more rewards in the central adagio, mellowed and honeyed on the surface, but with enough rustlings of unease to recall the past movements’ struggles and mischief.
Advertisement
By the time the choral finale hits, even the Scrooges will have to stop griping about the sound. For we are caught in the grip of a live performance of quite uncommon fervour. Feel the warmth of Finley’s opening bass solo, marvel at the open throats of the London Symphony Chorus.
The other soloists slip behind Finley’s level – I could do without Twyla Robinson’s dive-bomber swoops. But they share in this finale’s greatest strength: a genuine sense of occasion, of a journey’s end, and — most crucially — joy.
GEOFF BROWN