Beethoven's 9th

[King Stephen]

I received e-mail about a new dvd recording of LvB's 9th in which the tempo is nothing short of extreme.
1st Move. 26'09"
2nd Move. 23'12"
3rd Move. 21'00
4th Move. 40'05"
You can read about this over sized version on the following sites; http://www.digitalaudioguide.com/buydvdnow/da100017.htm http://www.audiorevolution.com/music...ovendvda.shtml


[This message has been edited by King Stephen (edited 05-24-2005).]

[Michael]

I don't think I'll be buying this version (in any sense) although I do have a soft spot for Karl Bohm's recording which takes the first two movements very slowly indeed.
The conductor of this new DVD-Audio disc makes an interesting point when he says that a lot of detail is made clearer in a slower recording. I often feel that the first movement of the Ninth whizzes past at a speed which makes it difficult to take in everything.
There is another website somewhere where a 24 hour version of the Ninth Symphony can be heard. The actual notes are extended by computer to make the composition last a whole day! Mind you, I have heard performances that seem to last a week without any help from computers!

Michael

[King Stephen]

I heard excerpts of all for movements and I really believe I could fall asleep listening to this version. Not to my likeing at all. The second movement is played like a funeral march and the final lacks the punch that is so often associated with this movement. Come to think of it in the time it takes to listen to this dvd you could listen to the von Karajan version of the 9th along with a versions of your choice of the 7th and you can even throw in a couple of Beethoven overtures for good measure.
If you are interested in listening to the excerpts go to www.hodie-world.com

[lvbfanatic]

Originally posted by King Stephen:
If you are interested in listening to the excerpts go to www.hodie-world.com

Thanks for the link... even their download took a huge bite out of my life!

Maybe I've been coddled all these years .... having grown up on this work as conducted by the legendary Arturo Toscanini... who managed to compress the performance into about 67 minutes!



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A Calm Sea and A Prosperous Voyage

[Droell]

Originally posted by Michael:
The conductor of this new DVD-Audio disc makes an interesting point when he says that a lot of detail is made clearer in a slower recording. I often feel that the first movement of the Ninth whizzes past at a speed which makes it difficult to take in everything.

There is a lot in the 9th & you could spend a good part of a lifetime getting to grips with it. But if it's detail you want, get a score, clap on headphones & make yourself follow the bass line. Or any line.

Slowness will not help the 9th at all, especially the first movement. It's a rhythmic high wire act. Get the rhythms wrong, you miss the point of the movement. The mysterious trip-hammer opening was written expressly to fit the later recapitulation. What was rhythmically obscure in the opening is, in the recapitulation, transformed into body blows while you're already off-balance. It then degenerates into staggering before it simply evaporates altogether - as if the mind had snapped.

This is set up in the end of the development by a lovely passage that conductors always slow down for. Slowing down a bit makes it sound even nicer. But there is no ritard at that point in the score. The passage is meant to sound rushed. That passage, and the forte transition that starts at bar 297 is meant to set us up for the inferno of the recapitulation. This is mean, nasty, savage music. (And yes, for years I thought it was just the opening played loudly with drum.)

Originally posted by Michael:
although I do have a soft spot for Karl Bohm's recording which takes the first two movements very slowly indeed.

I've heard dozens of performances of the 9th. Bohm is the only conductor I know to have deciphered the 3rd movement: It's cloying. The 9th is a strange, strange piece of music.



[This message has been edited by Droell (edited 05-25-2005).]

[This message has been edited by Droell (edited 05-25-2005).]

[Rutradelusasa]

Originally posted by Droell:
(...)

I guess you're new here... welcome to the forum!

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"Wer ein holdes weib errungen..."

[This message has been edited by Rutradelusasa (edited 05-25-2005).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Droell:
I've heard dozens of performances of the 9th. Bohm is the only conductor I know to have deciphered the 3rd movement: It's cloying. The 9th is a strange, strange piece of music.

I had Bohm's ultra long version years ago. The adagio here is around 20 mins? I recall thinking that at times the orchestra (the VPO?) were struggling at this tempo, sometimes loosing shape. Whatever the versions I play now are around 12 mins or less, the quickest by Hogwood/AAM being under 11 and these are more in line with Beethoven's metronome indication. Bohm's 9th is too much Bohm an not enough Beethoven.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 05-25-2005).]

[King Stephen]

Here are six recordings of the Beethoven 9th and their timings;
David Zinman - Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich
Adagio 11:31 Total Time 59:36
Georg Solti - Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Adagio 19:59 T.T. 74:45
Karl Bohm - Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Adagio 18:19 T.T. 79:02
John Eliot Gardiner - ORER
Adagio 12:05 T.T. 59:53
Roy Goodman - Hanover Band
Adagio 12:15 T.T. 65:46
Benjamin Zander - Boston Philharmonic
Adagio 10:34 T.T. 57:51

The shortest adagio being Zander at 10:34 and the longest by Solti a 19:59,
a 9:25 difference
The shortest time of the compete symphony is by Zander at 57:51 and the longest by Bohm at 79:02, a difference of 21:11

I don't know which,if any,are musically correct.I do play all versions from time to time although I am patial to the Gardiner.

King

[Michael]

Originally posted by Droell:
There is a lot in the 9th & you could spend a good part of a lifetime getting to grips with it. But if it's detail you want, get a score, clap on headphones & make yourself follow the bass line. Or any line.

Great idea if you can read a score but, alas, I cannot so I have to rely on numerous recordings that bring out different details.

Michael

[Michael]

Originally posted by Michael:
Great idea if you can read a score but, alas, I cannot so I have to rely on numerous recordings that bring out different details.
I am not sure what you mean about Bohm's third movement - do you like it or not? It's my particular favourite. I know Rod would disagree but the strings of the Vienna Phil give me cold shivers.

Michael

[Michael]

Something funny has happened with my last message but the gist of it is there.

Michael

[Droell]

Originally posted by Michael:
Great idea if you can read a score but, alas, I cannot so I have to rely on numerous recordings that bring out different details.
I am not sure what you mean about Bohm's third movement - do you like it or not? It's my particular favourite.

Hello Michael,

Frankly, I didn't like Bohm's treatment of the third movement. It wasn't the tempo, it was the intonation. Bohm's reading fit what I had already worked out from the 1st & 2nd movements, eg, it helped me conceptualize the symphony as a coherent whole. So my dislike of it didn't help me.

As for reading a score, I confess that all I can do is follow a dotted line, but regardless of what you think of your abilities, if you've got more than two copies of this work in your library, get a miniature score just for the heck of it. They're not expensive.

Yeah, I'm new here. As for detail, especially in the 1st movement, I find that B always writes according to the demands of his materials. In the first movement, it is as if in many places you have two people talking past each other. A confusing cacophony is what's intended. At bar 407 (about 1-2 minutes before the end of the 1st movement), you're simply not going to hear the piano eighth note that follows immediately after the fortissimo eighth note downstroke - never mind the piano sixteenth notes in the flute & oboes that come between them. Normal hall echo always obliterates them. Just to grind it in, B then repeats the fortissimo/piano three more times.