Sym 9

ABOUT THE CONDUCTOR: George Solti is an artist/conductor, a British genius with a fine ear for classical music, especially interested in bringing out the dramatic and well-rounded variety in orchestral music. He has conducted all of Beethoven's 9th, the Missa Solemnis, his opera Fidelio, as well as Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung and other operas. George Solti has ambition, strength and dymanics. Some thought he was too ambitious, that he was a tyrannical perfectionist in the lines of Arturo Toscanini. But if he were not this way, the majestic scale and precision of his conducting would not find its way to the audience. He touches his conducting with powerful masculinity and passionate drive, he has the credit of being the most recorded conductor of the twentieth century.

ABOUT BEETHOVEN'S 9TH: The famous interpretations of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra brought popularity and fame to the city in America's heartland in the 70's. George Solti weaves magic and magnitude in Beethoven's 9th, making it the best, even if others disagree.

The first two movements, allegro and scherzo, begin with low, anticipating strings suddenly erupt into an explosion of power, a majestic theme that is repeated. Deconstructing the movement musically, we all know it's in the key of D minor, which denotes a serious, dramatic theme. To confidently assert that we know what Beethoven was thinking when he wrote the 9th is impossible. There is a mystery to the work, a profound, spiritual, necessary darkness that triumphantly concludes with a happy ending, a transition from chaos and violence to blissful union and universal brotherhood/sisterhood and peace. Is'nt it strange how this was Beethoven's last symphony and it is written, in my personal opinion, almost as if he knew his time was up, a Requiem and uplifting anthem of world peace in one symphony. The deepest spiritual values were inflected in the musical lines, the loftiest humanitarian ideals in the score.

The third and fourth movements are the best in all the symphonic bodies ever constructed, the last movement featuring vocals and chorus that was innovative at the time, profoundly influencing such composers as Gustav Mahler and Richard Wagner. The third mvt is labeled, adagio molto cantabile, which literally means very slow, in the style of a song. The orchestra is hushed, the strings are barely whispers in the first passages, and there is a silence that reigns as if Beethoven has taken us into the dark depths of outer space. But then, the orchestra picks up energy and begins a melancholy, unbearably emotional theme that echoes, and floats as if it were all the souls of everyone who has ever lived. The strings are dancing gently in ethereal heights, there is a romance and eternity to the slow movement, its quiet peace only interrupted by a bombastic fanfare of trumpets. It is the most spiritual piece of music ever composed, and the most introspective Beethoven ever wrote. We must take in mind that he was completely deaf by the time he conducted the premiere of the 9th in Vienna. What I think Beethoven was trying to say in the third movement is that before peace and universal tolerance of every individual is active on earth, the heavens themselves predict the future state of happiness, it is a musical foreshadowing of pleasant things to come.

Finally the fourth movement begins with an ominous motif, which quickly dissipates when the Ode To Joy theme emerges, slowly at first and then triumphantly. The vocals begin when the bass (Martti Talvela) sings in purely operatic, masculine timbre of the promise of peace and joy with the abandonment of harsh sounds. He is accompanied by the chorus and orchestra that skips gleefully in the passionate theme that grows and grows. Pilar Lorengar and Ivonne Minton are the soprano and mezzo who sing lines in a duet that resembles a serenade that would have fitted perfectly in a Mozart opera. Tenor Stuart Burrows ( a lesser known tenor of the 70's but still one of my favorites) sings the solo that directly plunges into the celebrated Ode To Joy theme with the full chorus. The chorus continues for some time, at times sounding somber and elegiac, at times bouncing with an enlightened bliss, concluding with a fanfare that snaps the symphony to its end.

When most listeners think of this masterwork, they focus on the last movement. What sets this recording apart from other great performances are the first three movements. Solti's specialty was the German Romantic orchestral literature, which shows in his interpretation of the Ninth. Solti's Ninth is a very romantic but powerful and masculine symphony. At his disposal was the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the best American orchestra of its era (1970s). Solti combines perfect tempi, strong contrasts in dynamics, and an emphasis on the rhythms to highlight the tensions and drama in the first two movements. In Solti's hands the second movement is the definitive Scherzo.

In the third movement, Solti uses his feeling for Wagner to play this movement, essentially the transcript of a string quartet Adagio, as a Wagnerian idyll. Again, Solti captures a pivotal moment in music history as Beethoven is showing his fellow composers the way forward. No interpretation captures the contrast of the dramatic tension of the first two movements with the serenity of the third movement better than this recording does.

I highly recommend this recording to both expert and casual listeners of classical music.