Conductor Manfred Honeck and his Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra recorded this live reading of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, in 2019. The marketplace was not exactly crying out for a new Beethoven's Ninth, even considering Honeck's strong track record in Classical-era repertory and Reference Recordings' increasingly fine results in Pittsburgh's Heinz Hall. However, it is absolutely worth experiencing Honeck's accomplishment here. The reading is distinctive and justified at length in a booklet essay by Honeck. His reading is fast, blazing, kinetic, with moments of high contrast, such as the ethereal third movement in its entirety, giving the listener breathing space. The first movement is quick, but Honeck relaxes the tempo just slightly as things proceed, making room for the brass to give their stentorian statements. The scherzo is very fast throughout, which has the effect of not stealing the delicate discourse from the slow movement, and the finale, though also fast, is never rushed. There is a certain logic in playing the work this way, inasmuch as the impossible-to-sing passages in the solos become just a bit less impossible at these speeds. Most impressive is that Honeck holds the musicians and the singers together at his blazing speeds; his 22:30 timing for the finale comes in more than two minutes faster than, say, Fritz Reiner's classic Chicago Symphony recording, and Honeck would have been even faster had he not offered a rather deliberate reading of the movement's recitative introduction. The soloists shine, and they deliver in a difficult reading that, at its best, feels like the cry of exultation Beethoven envisioned. The slightly American accent of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh is somehow not a detriment but an inducement here; there is real energy running through the performance and real joy. Reference Recordings has once again produced audiophile-quality sound whose depth and transparency are awesome even on everyday equipment. © TiVo

Beethoven's nine symphonies -- what can one say? The greatest body of orchestral works ever composed? Probably. The most performed body of orchestral works ever composed? Certainly. The most recorded body of orchestral works ever composed? Absolutely. Not only has virtually every conductor recorded a Beethoven cycle, some of them have gotten to record it multiple times: Abbado, Bernstein, Solti, Karajan, and Haitink, among others. What does this proliferation tell us? Usually nothing about the music that hasn't been heard before, but sometimes something about what the conductor thinks about the music. These performances with the London Symphony Orchestra recorded in 2005 and 2006 tell what Bernard Haitink thinks about the greatest body of orchestral works ever composed. And what does Haitink think? Pretty much nothing that hasn't been thought before. His tempos are neither too fast nor too slow, but straight down the moderato. His dynamics are neither too loud nor too quiet, but right in the mezzo. His textures are clear and lucid. His colors are blended and smooth. His interpretations are solid and sincere. But what does Haitink tell us about what he thinks about Beethoven's symphonies? Pretty much nothing except that he is an experienced conductor with a superb baton technique who keeps his opinions to himself. The London Symphony's playing is enthusiastic but too often ragged around the edges for comfort. LSO Live's recording is transparent but the perspective seems to shift from work to work -- sometimes the strings are too far away, other times the brass are too close.© TiVo

Over the course of his 65-year conducting career, Bernard Haitink has recorded Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, "Choral" on several occasions, and this solid performance with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra joins the admirable recordings he has made with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Of these, the LSO's 2006 release offers the best sound quality, with direct stream digital reproduction that captures everything in the score, and it is recommended for audiophiles who require its transparency and spacious audio reproduction. For most listeners' purposes, though, Haitink has recorded a similar interpretation with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and despite the absence of multichannel technology, this release has decent sound that most listeners will find satisfactory and a highly detailed performance that is quite comparable to the others. Haitink's great virtue is consistency, and this regularity over multiple recordings throughout his career has made him one of the most dependable conductors of standard symphonic repertoire. Add to this the exceptional quartet of soprano Sally Matthews, alto Gerhild Romberger, tenor Mark Padmore, and bass Gerald Finley, and the robust singing from the Bavarian Radio Chorus, and the total effect of the symphony, particularly the "Ode to Joy," is impressive and thrilling.© TiVo

The Haydn series continues with the Paris Symphony No. 87. Julien Chauvin and his orchestra keep shaking us up with historical instruments listening to Haydn’s works and several other forgotten scores from the same period. All of them were commissioned for the Concert de la Loge Olympique - ancestor and model for Julien Chauvin and his musicians – and all of them sank into oblivion during the 19th century, except for Haydn’s symphonies. The record offers an opportunity to experience some rare works of Grétry, Lemoyne and Ragué, and to revive the success that they once knew. © Aparté

Because the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra is a modern orchestra that on first sight wouldn't be mistaken for a period ensemble, it might come as a surprise that its recordings of Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonies with conductor Jan Willem de Vriend sound quite a bit like fully fledged period performances. To the extent this group produces Classical sonorities, albeit on modern instruments (except in the case of the original 18th and 19th century brass they use), and borrows authentic practices from historical scholarship, a random excerpt test could fool any expert. This isn't to say that the tempos are necessarily faster than they are traditionally played in the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, "Choral," or that the approach to Beethoven's music has become fussy or rarefied in their hands. But de Vriend, a musicologist who also leads the early music ensemble Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, gives this work robust energy, sharp attacks, crisp rhythms, and some tone colors that are simply remarkable. The horns have a marvelous brusqueness, the timpani are startling with the hard mallets, and the strings frequently shine with the silvery tone that comes from playing senza vibrato. The singing of Schiller's German text in the finale, "An die Freude," is shaded with Dutch pronunciation, though in other regards it is conventional and offers no period surprises. These world-class performances were brilliantly recorded in the SACD surround sound format, so the music is captured in its wide dynamic range and spacious acoustics. © TiVo

Issued complete for the first time, a new recording of Franz Liszt’s iconic piano transcriptions of the nine Beethoven symphonies. As the Italian pianist Giovanni Bellucci remarks in an extensive booklet introduction, this album is the fruit of study over the past 20 years and more, into the worlds of both Beethoven and Liszt and their meeting point in these transcriptions where the Hungarian composer sought to honour his forebear as the original leader of an artistic movement we now think of as Romanticism, where the composer places himself at the front and centre of his works. Liszt’s transcriptions diverged from the ready-made arrangements which publishers rapidly produced and reprinted to meet the demands of amateur and domestic audiences. Here, the symphonic world of Beethoven is not merely experienced as a distant echo but translated into the idiom of the virtuoso piano which swept across Europe during the latter half of the 19th century, led by Liszt and Clara Schumann. Thus in these performances, Bellucci seeks a kind of fidelity to the Romantic age of the transcriptions rather than the Classical age of the original works. Taking broad tempi and probing deeply into textures which, after all, condense the soundworld of an entire orchestra into the span of ten fingers, Bellucci presents an individual and compelling new vision of works which renew themselves at the hands of each new generation’s interpreters. The cycle reaches its climax with the Ninth, recorded live at the 2014 Lisztomania Festival in France, with the participation of the Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno and soloists Hana Škarková, Lucie Hilscherová, Michal Lehotský and Martin Gurbal. Other studio sessions have taken place in the famous Salle de Musique at La Chaux de Fonds in Switzerland, between 2018 and 2021. "In completing the project", Bellucci remarks, "I would like to borrow Franz Liszt’s words and make them mine, albeit just for a moment: "The piano is, for me, what the frigate is for the sailor, indeed, perhaps even more, because the piano is my word, is my life". In transcribing the 9 Beethoven Symphonies for piano solo Franz Liszt (1811-1886) not only made these symphonic masterworks available for domestic use but also demonstrated his immense creativity, insight, knowledge and pianistic resources. The work of a true genius, these transcriptions reveal the essential language and message of Beethoven, written down in pianism of the highest quality and difficulty, in this sense still valuable today. It takes a pianist of near superhuman powers and virtuosity to do justice to these scores. Giovanni Bellucci is such a pianist. Not only he "plays all the notes" but he is able to recreate the grandeur, drama, lyricism and intimacy of the original, presenting a monument made up of countless details. © Brilliant Classics