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Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Konzertsaal at the Lucerne Festival
Gerald Finley
Sally Matthews - soprano
Christianne Stotijn - mezzo-soprano
Steve Davislim - tenor
The Chamber Orchestra of
Europe
Bernard Haitink - conductor
Ludwig van Beethoven:
Symphony No. 1
Symphony No. 9
What the critics say
Hilary Finch, The Times, 10 April 2009
Rating: Four out of Five stars
As an 80th birthday treat, Bernard Haitink has chosen to make the celebratory grand finale of his now completed Beethoven cycle with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Lucerne Easter Festival. He ended with the first and with the last, in a starrily cast and truly festive performance of the Ninth Symphony.
Haitink remained seated on the podium throughout. A back injury that was clearly causing him considerable pain seemed to have the effect of redoubling his players’ energy and will. And the clarity, achieved by minimum vibrato and translucent textures in the slow movement, created real momentum for the finale.
Schiller’s great Ode to Joy was approached more with robust reason than with rhetoric: the cellos and basses declaimed their message with firm determination, and Gerald Finley exhorted his friends to joy with the gentle wisdom of a mentor. The Australian tenor Steve Davislim inspired the tenors of the excellent Swiss Chamber Choir to sing with a ringing muscularity seldom heard among their English counterparts. And the partnership of Sally Matthews and Christianne Stotijn was refreshingly and exuberantly effortless.