Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 "Choral"

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New York's Park Avenue Chamber Symphony is an amateur group, composed of members of non-musical professions in the New York area. To take on Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, a technical challenge for the world's greatest orchestras, may seem a tall order, but if you are clear on the fact that you're not getting the Vienna Philharmonic here, you will enjoy the performance. Conductor David Bernard devises an interpretation that plays to the biggest strength of his performers: their sheer enthusiasm. The orchestra is smaller than average, and in the first three movements he takes a fast clip, favoring forward motion over individual detail. All this sets up the finale, with a massed choir (three separate choruses, including the West Point Glee Club, are involved) that's actually larger than average and hits the listener with a wallop. Bernard broadens the tempo here, and even if the soloists mispronounce a German word or two, the singers' enthusiasm for Schiller's words come through. The choirs actually do better in Beethoven's more technically brutal passages than do the soloists, who are intonationally murky at times. Sample around in the finale to determine how you'll feel about the whole, but you'll certainly find it's unlike other performances of the work the Japanese call "Big Nine."

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