Customer Reviews

Symphony 9

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The French label TAHRA consistently produces mind-boggling results from archive recordings, and this performance of the most popular symphony in the standard repertoire leads the pack. Furtwangler's reading is taut and concise, with a depth of expressing so profound one can imagine him weeping while conducting. The visceral impact of the timpani is worth the price of the cd. Even after repeated listenings, the exhiliration of the fourth movement never wanes. The sound quality is so clear that, despite being a mono recording, you would swear the performance took place yesterday. Perhaps the most exciting and "alive" recording of the work to date.

Each of the three Furtwangler recordings of the Beethoven 9th are outstanding documents, and I am always hard-pressed to decide which one I like the best. The wartime recording has a certain ferocity that I find fascinating; the 1951 Bayreuth is perhaps the most emotion-laden, in spite of frequent complaints about some clams in the third-horn (NOT first-horn, check the score) solo in the third movement; the tension between audience and performers in the finale is palpable, as the frenzied applause attests. The present recording from the Lucerne Festival is perhaps the most sonically satisfying of the three,and I can't imagine that it was unavailable for so many years (especially since EMI's Walter Legge was not the type to NOT release recordings by the Philharmonia Orchestra. Is it possible Mme. Legge --Schwarzkopf--didn't like her performance? I can't imagine why.) It is also interesting to hear Furtwangler's brief spoken introduction. Arguably the third movement recorded here is the best ever done, by Furtwangler or (so it must follow) anybody else.

Since I first purchased the 1951 recording (the original Angel GROC release) back in 1968, I knew that there was no other Beethoven conductor like Furtwangler. Two more performances of this great work are now available--and every one of them presents another facet of this great symphony. It would be wise to own all three.

Beethoven's Ninth has attracted many superlatives as a piece of Music that to a great extent we have become numb to it's incredible power as we all think we know this music-that is until you hear this recording!Furtwangler's credentials in this repertoire are of course well known but when you hear this you know why-there is an incredible erupting,molten lava like feel to the whole thing as if this music is just bursting the bounds and exploding in our heads-and yet the centre of the symphony is the most sublime adagio you're ever likely to hear.It's also interesting that Furtwangler elicited this sound not from the Berlin or Vienna Philharmonics but from the Lucerne Festival Orchestra-a tribute to his incredible conducting ability.Furtwangler also died shortly after this performance so it also serves as an incredible valedictory.There is absolutely no excuse for not owning this CD!

The most beautiful version of this symphony ever...truly other-wordly and indescribably moving. The final movement is achingly lovely. The Tahra recording is a godsend. Together with the furious 1942 version (which to me is the most remarkable musical document), Furtwangler has etched his name in the ether forever.

When the master conducted his last performance of Beethoven's Ninth, Salzburg August, 22 1954, most of people was he was ill but what they never imagined, the end was so close and less still, he just had 113 days to live.

A true and strange experience comes to our soul and spirit every time we listen this peculiar performance. It possesses the grandness of his previous performances but loaded of Brucknerian breadth, if I may. Its strong utterance comes is a progressive outburst that emerges from the soul toward the infinite. Watch the percussion in dramatic and beating crescendos (when you are in 10:12 running).

What it really impress me is the absolute commitment and the presence of a serene conviction of someone who has achieved a cosmic wisdom.

For some (and keeping in mind the profound love of the conductor for the Op. 125) this electrifying performance is a dramatic and unsaid farewell, even there are some who consider it the most philosophical, reflexive and illuminating of all his previous Ninths. The final code in the first movement is really revealing when the timpanist seemed to lessen the sonorous impact.

All the performance is loaded of that incorporeal atmosphere of mythic aura, that confers it of a indescribable magic.

Along his lifetime, the Maestro always insisted the conductor had to reinvent himself every time he conducted determined work, because of the fact the boredom and the routine are the main enemies of any interpretation.

This is - undeniably - a legendary and unique testimonial, among the annals of the music.

So, for all those who love the music far beyond a simple entertainment, this is a true musical legacy, of first order importance. The sound was improved to unexpected levels.

And the rest is silence( (25/01/86 - 30/11/54).

Beethoven's Ninth has attracted many superlatives as a piece of Music that to a great extent we have become numb to it's incredible power as we all think we know this music-that is until you hear this recording!Furtwangler's credentials in this repertoire are of course well known but when you hear this you know why-there is an incredible erupting,molten lava like feel to the whole thing as if this music is just bursting the bounds and exploding in our heads-and yet the centre of the symphony is the most sublime adagio you're ever likely to hear.It's also interesting that Furtwangler elicited this sound not from the Berlin or Vienna Philharmonics but from the Lucerne Festival Orchestra-a tribute to his incredible conducting ability.Furtwangler also died shortly after this performance so it also serves as an incredible valedictory.There is absolutely no excuse for not owning this CD!

It is a beautiful experience .

Such inspired artistry never again

I don't think that there are any other similar performance which can compare with it.