Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 'Choral'
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus Sir Simon Rattle | Barbara Bonney | Birgit Remmert Kurt Streit | Thomas Hampson
Romantic | 1820-1910
Review No. 2
Few works in classical music have united commentators in near-universal praise as has Beethoven’s colossal Ninth Symphony. And few names in the world of conducting have divided critical opinion so sharply as Simon Rattle’s. Some discern fussiness in his approach where others hear clarity and detail. Whichever camp you're in, there's no denying that in this compelling live performance, Rattle brings an unreserved joy to this work’s famous choral ending.
A musical battlefield
The hushed opening of shimmering strings and sustained notes in brass and woodwind quickly gives way to a symphonic conflict that unfolds under sometimes stormy skies. Timpani pound like heavy artillery; their violence arrested occasionally by delicate string and woodwind writing, and echoes of this first movement’s brooding and dramatic introduction.
Rattle never treats this symphony’s confrontational beginning too aggressively. Nor is he tempted to let thundering timpani dominate the second movement scherzo. He presents it as a wild, galloping dance: racing strings and playful woodwind framing a hint of the joy (T2-7:10~7:50) to be gloriously revealed at the work’s climax.
Quiet reflection
The hymn-like third movement adagio takes us from restive to restful in this otherwise furious symphony – one of its beautiful melodies sounding halfway between a prayer and a lover’s lament (T3-3:05~4:34). While some will question Rattle’s choice of tempo, arguing he takes things too slowly, his carefully measured pacing here provides an effective contrast to the work’s more muscular outer movements.
With the becalming adagio passed, the orchestra revisits parts of the preceding three movements. The music gropes for closure, unsatisfied by what it finds in the material just heard. What then emerges is the well-known theme that ranks among classical music’s most memorable: the melody most know simply as the ‘Ode to Joy’.
Heaven on earth
The culmination of this work’s epic finale is truly thrilling. Beethoven’s visionary setting of Schiller’s poem – a moving and spirited rallying cry to all men to unite in universal brotherhood – is masterfully realised under Rattle’s baton. Hampson’s commanding baritone voice calls to a halt earlier symphonic searching, and with Streit, Remmert and Bonney, he leads the chorus into the beginning of an exhilarating and awe-inspiring vocal performance.
Then, unexpectedly, an extraordinary march begun by a tuba and assorted woodwinds (T5-3:40) is before long taken up by vocal soloists and the whole ensemble. This episode whips up into a heroic orchestral interlude, instruments competing against one another until all unite and settle. An explosion of choral joy ensues, leading to a cascading and intertwining of higher voices and strings (T5-8:10).
At the last, the gates to heaven are flung wide open. Rattle summons a benign celestial tempest from the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus (T5-16:00) – their joyous conviction as clear as the excited piccolo which the conductor ensures we hear even above so many human and instrumental voices. If this is fussiness, it’s worth the fuss.
