As with Rafael Kubelik's deservedly admired Ma vlast—the high point of the momentous 1990 Prague Spring—this is a recording of a remarkable event: a celebration of the triumphant ending of Czechoslovakia's 'Velvet Revolution' and a thanks offering to Civic Forum, the political focus of the revolutionary movement and the basis of the new Czech government. Some words from Vaclav Neumann and from the then very new Czech President, Vaclav Havel (with delightfully characteristic Supraphon translations), testify to the immense emotional significance of this concert.
But as anyone who has sampled more than the odd handful of live recordings will know, there are times when the spirit of a great occasion simply refuses to transmit itself on disc. Apart from its historical value (not, I'd have thought, a particularly strong selling point), the Kubelik Ma vlast (Supraphon, 9/91) is a magnificent recorded performance that brings over-exposed music back to abundant life and bears repetition surprisingly well. Stripped of its associations, Neumann's Ninth is a more or less solid, old-fashioned sort of performance, based on the old corrupt text (high octave doublings, added horns in the Scherzo second subject and so on), deliberate and portentous in the first two movements, suave and stately in the Adagio, and then...
No, with the finale my patience really does run out. The cello/bass recitatives are ponderous and the theme, when it arrives, similarly has trouble getting moving—it isn't helped by what sounds like someone noisily sifting through the contents of a wicker waste-paper basket. The chorus are forceful enough, but the solo quartet soon gets out of step, and the huge climactic ''vor Gott'' is stretched into absurdity. Sour intonation completely spoils the magical B major/minor-D major move at the end of the final quartet, and Neumann manages to out-Furtwangler Furtwangler with his huge, grotesque allargando at the chorus's final ''Tochter aus Elysium!''
I'm not trying to say that Messrs Neumann and Havel were wrong and that this wasn't a joyous affair for all involved. In all probability I'd have been caught up in it too if I'd been lucky enough to have been there. But the question that matters here is, how does this Beethoven Ninth compare with the top contenders in the current catalogue? And I'm afraid the answer is, not at all.'