Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 'Choral'

"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. 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... Yet Haitink pulled everything together in a coda of unbounded joy … 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" The Guardian

“…the slow third movement… moves along at a pace few conductors would have employed fifty years ago. Yet it never sounds hurried, and the dramatic brass interruptions towards its close have an appropriately apocalyptic ring. The extraordinarily vivid recording, in which the basses are caught to stupendous effect - especially in their passages of recitative as they reject the first three movements at the opening of the fourth before welcoming the 'Joy' theme - adds hugely to the effect.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2006 ****

"The Proms, the 'Choral' and Tennstedt - A truly overwhelming combination." Gramophone

Recorded at the re-opening of Bayreuth after the war: incandescent playing and singing that powerfully conveys the occasion's sense of spiritual renewal - James Jolly, Gramophone 1000th issue

“…Otto Klemperer's energy and momentum come not from his tempos but from the way the rhythms are articulated. In the first movement and Scherzo the heroic, teeth-gritted determination are physically gripping, In this Ninth combined urgency with masterly control and spellbinding authority, and a dignity all his own.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2010

“This is a revelatory live recording by EMI's engineers of Klemperer's performance of the Ninth Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall, immediately before his 1957 EMI recording. Where the studio recording gives us a frontal, ground-level view of the players spread out across the spaces of the Kingsway Hall, this live Festival Hall recording offers us that special Klemperer balance which gave particular prominence to the winds and the timpani. Strings, and in the finale the chorus, are nicely focused; but from where we sit, somewhere above the first oboe, it's winds and timpani that are the centre of interest. No one would have dared balance a studio recording this way, yet this is far closer to what a Klemperer performance really sounded like.
There are a couple of oddities in the finale. In the preliminary orchestral statement of the 'joy' theme, the bassoon descant drowns out the violas and cellos; then, later on, we get a less than clear view of the tenor. (A blessed relief, perhaps, given Kmentt's thin, dried-out sound here.) Interpretatively, the two performances are identical, though the live performance is just that bit more intense. The first movement does not benefit greatly but the Scherzo is transformed; what rather lumbers in the studio is here a thrilling dance of the Titans. The finale is wonderfully performed, thrillingly articulated by the newly founded Philharmonia Chorus and the Philharmonia players. Detail after detail shines out, etched into the imagination by the playing and the persistently enquiring recording.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010