COMPOSERS: Beethoven
LABELS: EuroArts
ALBUM TITLE: Beethoven
WORKS: Symphony No. 9 (Ode to Freedom)
PERFORMER: June Anderson, Sarah Walker, Klaus König, Jan-Hendrick Rootering; Bavarian & Berlin Radio Chorus; Members of Bavarian Radio SO, Staatskapelle Dresden, Kirov, LSO, New York PO & Orchestre de Paris/Leonard Bernstein
CATALOGUE NO: 2072038
PRESENTATION: ***
Recorded live in the Schauspielhaus
on Christmas Day, 1989, this Choral
Symphony celebrated the fall of the
Berlin Wall. And it’s some of the
last work Bernstein did – he died
in November the following year. In
his short introduction, the director
Humphrey Burton explains why it’s an ‘Ode to Freedom’, rather than
the usual ‘Ode to Joy’: Bernstein
felt authorised ‘by the power of the
moment’ to change the word ‘Freude’
to ‘Freiheit’, which may be closer to
Schiller’s original intention.
So this is very much the record
of an occasion. There are a few
rough edges in ensemble, but the
performance is more than respectable.
It’s much what you might expect from
late Bernstein: the slow movement is
very slow, but there’s an affection in
the moulding of the decorated violin
melody which cuts deep. And there’s
humour and a dancing quality in the
scherzo, mirroring the conductor’s
body language. We do see quite a
lot of Bernstein, but the direction is
basically untricksy, and the sound
quality excellent. In the choral finale,
the performance really takes off,
with choirs and soloists singing at
full stretch. Rootering’s first cry of
‘Freiheit’ and the choral answer are
completely thrilling, and must have galvanised the audience in what was
still officially East Berlin. Where are
those hopes now? Martin Cotton