Late Beethoven seems to have been something of a preoccupation recently with Daniel Barenboim: the Missa solemnis, musically alive and spiritually aware, to judge by JBS's June review; a trenchant and finely imagined account of the Diabelli Variations (by some distance, the finest of Barenboim's various recordings of the Diabelli—to be reviewed next month); and now this new Ninth.
It is an important recording in that it re-establishes—in its own way and with a telling eloquence that is specially its own—that the Ninth is a work of the new romanticism, a prophetic work that cannot be adequately dealt with by so-called 'authenticists' desirous of tethering it either to the letter of the written text or to performance practice in Beethoven's own lifetime. The literalists and authenticists have had some powerful advocates on record—Toscanini, not easily gainsaid, and, for the authenticists, Norrington. But there have been failures, too: most recently, Frans Bruggen's recording on Philips (10/93).
Barenboim's Ninth starts deep in the Urwald, far away, wreathed in the mists of time. Not since Giulini (HMV, 2/73—nla) has a conductor given the first movement so much space in which to breathe and evolve. Yet it is a measure of Barenboim's mastery that the reading never appears to meander or hold fire. On the contrary, the development and recapitulation blaze quietly, from within.
I say 'quietly' because the Erato recording, made in Berlin's Jesus-Christus Kirche, is rather soft-grained. Important solo voicings, human or instrumental, are neither obscured nor specifically 'lit'. Where Bruggen unaccountably confines to the lumber room the oboe's unexpected plaint towards the end of the first movement (bar 470), with Barenboim it is not highlighted nor wilfully obscured. In the finale, words sound clearly enough whilst at the same time being part of the performance's general euphony.
The extreme inwardness of Barenboim's reading at key points—the symphony's opening bars, most of the slow movement, the very slow molto pianissimo start of the first instrumental statement of the ''Joy'' theme—is complemented by considerable ebullience in the Scherzo and in the later stages of the finale. Not wishing, perhaps, to play twice the Scherzo's thrilling moment of recapitulation, Barenboim omits the second half repeat. And there is pragmatism elsewhere: Wagner trumpets in the finale's Schreckensfanfare, wonderfully free and expressive playing of the cellos and basses in the finale's instrumental recitatives.
The soloists are generally reliable, the choir first-rate, the orchestra more than adequate to the considerable task in hand. (I could have done with less self-effacing solo wind playing in the Trio section of the second movement.)
Admirers of the late Fritz Reiner will no doubt be gratified by a further appearance on CD of his 1961 Chicago Ninth. The performance has an astonishing clarity and beauty of sound that the RCA engineers have managed to capture and preserve with an almost insolent ease. If nowadays one despairs of hearing so well recorded a Ninth it must be down to the fact that we no longer have conductors around like Reiner.
Interpretatively, this is 'school of Toscanini' though a good deal more temperate than Toscanini was inclined to be in his old age, tied as he was to his own private wheel of Ixion. Unfortunately, Reiner's tempos don't always make good or consistent internal musical sense. Frailty or haphazard editing? It is difficult to tell. The end result is disjunct; where the Barenboim is both personal and organically whole.'