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Beethoven: Symphony No.9 in D minor, Op.125 (Choral)
(Also Symphony No.1 in C, Op.21)
29, 30 April 2006
Barbican Hall, London
Twyla Robinson, Karen Cargill, John McMaster and Gerald Finley. All photos used with kind permission of:
http://www.geraldine-curtis.me.uk/photoblog/
Twyla Robinson (soprano)
Karen Cargill (mezzo-soprano)
John Mac Master (tenor)
Gerald Finley (bass)
London Symphony Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra
Bernard Haitink
Click below for details of the recording
What the critics say
Douglas Cooksey for classicalsource.com
A fitting culmination to Bernard Haitink's LSO Beethoven cycle, which has also been recorded for LSO Live. With some Beethoven symphonies – one thinks of the Eroica and the 7th – it is almost impossible to fail (although the difference between an adequate and an outstanding performance is clear enough, of course). However the Choral is like one of those great Michelangelo Torsos struggling to emerge from their marble blocks – you know instinctively that it is a masterpiece but sometimes even the most celebrated performers fail to release it, which was not the case on this occasion.
The LSO is a magnificent orchestra, but it has not always been a great Beethoven ensemble, its combination of aggression and sophistication sometimes achieving better results in Mahler, Stravinsky and Bartók but less satisfactory ones in the 'classical' repertoire. However, the LSO’s response to elder-statesmen conductors has been a different matter: one thinks of Krips, Monteux, Horenstein, Szell, Böhm, Jochum and Celibidache. Under Haitink, the very antithesis of the old-style dictator-conductor but still a figure of real authority, the LSO musicians consistently give of their best, and there is a pugnacious streak to Haitink that found its perfect counterpart in this pairing of Beethoven symphonies.
The First Symphony emerged as more representative of this composer than can be the case, the three quick movements being magnificently bracing, underpinned by Nigel Thomas’s superbly eruptive timpani-playing. This was 'big-orchestra' Beethoven that was also light on its feet and which had a fine lilt in the second movement Andante, which was both cantabile and con moto as marked.
From first note to last the Ninth received a performance, minor flaws aside, of extraordinary certainty and unremitting forward drive. No questing Furtwänglerian metaphysics here, more a Szell-like focus on sustained momentum and energy allied to a deep respect for Beethoven’s intentions.
With the LSO in full cry, the first movement climax reached a quite abnormal level of power and intensity, capped once again by magnificently 'present' (but not over-assertive) timpani. The scherzo also had formidable forward thrust and energy and gave the illusion of passing in a flash. As the slow movement made clear, this was no top-line Beethoven either. All-too-frequently it can seem like an extended solo for the first violins. Here it never meandered. Textures and balances were exemplary, as was the clarity of Haitink's choice of the two base tempos, seldom better differentiated.
In the finale – with the LSO Chorus singing from memory – one might quibble at a few details of ensemble and intonation, but what wonderful energy infused the playing throughout: seldom can an orchestra's strings have dug deeper into the triplets leading up to the choir's explosion of "Freude, schöner Götterfunken". The solo quartet, rather curiously positioned to the left of the stage behind the double basses, was notably well blended if not individually the most charismatic, save Gerald Finley's imposing contribution at "O Freunde, nicht diese Töne". Above all, Haitink sustained the finale's momentum. Tension never flagged and it was a privilege to be present at a performance of the Ninth that did something like full justice to a great work.
Tom Service for The Guardian, Wednesday May 3, 2006
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/review/0,,1766722,00.html
Five out of five stars
The conclusion to Bernard Haitink's Beethoven cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra was its crowning glory: a performance of the Ninth Symphony of shattering, visionary power. At the centre of the first movement was one of the most devastating passages in music, the moment when the opening theme returns, transformed from an ambiguous minor key to a blaze of D major intensity. It was terrifyingly vivid, a lurch into a musical and emotional abyss. The whole movement revolved around this explosion, from the primordial musical murk of the opening to the funeral march of the coda.
Haitink's mastery of Beethoven's structures has never been in doubt, but what is surprising is how much he seems to have learned from the early music movement in moulding his new approach to these pieces. The second movement of the Ninth had a demonic intensity - more cosmic dance than playful scherzo - that was delivered with clarity. There was no trace of cloying romanticism in the LSO's sound, with sharp-edged woodwind playing and a string section propelled by thunderous double-basses, yet there was also a massive, sonorous depth in the climaxes. Haitink's fleet-footed tempo in the third movement was further evidence of the lessons he has learned from early music pioneers, and he and the LSO created a transcendent song of proliferating melody.
This serenity was swept aside by the violent fanfare at the start of the fourth movement, and despite a luxurious quartet of soloists, including bass Gerald Finley and mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, the London Symphony Chorus were the stars, singing from memory and with ferocious conviction. Haitink made you aware as never before of the discontinuities in this movement, veering from Turkish marches to full-scale fugues, moments when Beethoven brings the music to the brink of comprehensibility.
Yet Haitink pulled everything together in a coda of unbounded joy: the final, ecstatic D major cadence was a mirror image of the shocking D major in the first movement. This is a Beethoven cycle for our times, an ideal balance of Haitink's newfound sense of discovery in these pieces and the LSO's authority, something as obvious in a deliciously subversive performance of the First Symphony as in the epic scale of the Ninth.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 2 May 2006
Last week the Chicago Symphony Orchestra surprised the musical world by announcing Bernard Haitink as its principal conductor, starting in the autumn. This is not the ultimate position there - the orchestra's search for a music director in succession to Daniel Barenboim goes on - but it is still an important appointment and largely unexpected.
For the 77-year-old Haitink the post means a new destination late in his career. But then knowing where he is going is exactly what his Beethoven symphony cycle over the past six months at the Barbican has been all about: every performance has been marked by the innate sense of direction of a man sure of the music's goal and a master guide at getting us there.
Haitink has not slackened with age. Quite the opposite: he has taken on board the swifter speeds of the period instrument movement and some of its more invigorating sounds, too. At this last concert in the cycle his performance of the Symphony No 1 was a perfect blend of the old- style Beethoven and the new - always brisk and fiery, even if it did not sport the Haydnesque wit that brings a smile to one's face in Simon Rattle's performances.
The concluding Symphony No 9 that followed was simply tremendous. Haitink has managed to reinvigorate his Beethoven without losing any of his old authority or depth. The opening movement rose to Olympian climaxes of awesome power. The slow movement plumbed depths of emotion while keeping the melody flowing easily along.
The baritone Gerald Finley set the finale off with ringing confidence and was supported adequately by the other soloists - Twyla Robinson, Karen Cargill and John Mac Master - and more rousing involvement by the London Symphony Chorus. The LSO itself played for Haitink at the peak of its powers. To have such warmth of sound combined with clarity at every layer up and down the orchestra was a remarkable achievement. If anybody from Chicago was in the audience, they can report back that the future looks bright.
