Review: Resisting the Ninth Author(s): Richard Taruskin Reviewed ...

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Performers and Instruments Resisting the Ninth RICHARD TARUSKIN Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, op. 125, performed by Yvonne Kenny, soprano; Sarah Walker, mezzo; Patrick Power, tenor; Petteri Salomaa, bass; The Schiitz Choir of London; The London Classical Players; Roger Norrington, conductor (EMI CDC 7 49221 2). Something that used to puzzle fans who listened to the souvenir recordings of the old Hoffnung Music Festivals without having attended them was the extra roar of laughter that would swell up during the applause at the conclusion of each travesty. It was the response to a favorite sight gag: the conductor would customarily leap off the podium and bound over to shake the kettledrummer's hand instead of the concertmaster's. And that is just what I felt like doing after hearing this extraordinary recent recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Always something of a timpani concerto among symphonies-besides the famous solos in the Scherzo there is the horripilating tattoo that all but drowns out the first movement recapitulation, the confiding exchanges with the cellos and basses in the third movement coda, the shimmering roll that supports the most visionary moment in the finale, and much besidesthe Ninth is enhanced immeasurably on this occasion by the stupendous playing of Robert Howes and the superbly responsive instrument on which he deploys his sticks. 19th-CenturyMusic XII/3 (Spring 1989). ? by the Regents of the University of California. Nor is Howes the only London Classical Player one wants to single out for special thanks. There is the fourth hornist whose perfectly pitched, beautifully phrased solo in the Adagio makes one almost regret the invention of the valve-horn, whose even tone robs the famous Cb-major scale of so much of its otherworldly quality, a quality that-as Berlioz always claimed, and as one is now persuaded- Beethoven cannily planned the stopped tones to produce. (I cannot name the player because the roster lists five hornists; there must have been some subbing at the sessions.) There are the cellos and basses (in equal numbers!), led respectively by Susan Sheppard and Barry Guy, who make such an unforgettable assertion-"mais in Tempo," as Beethoven wanted it! -out of the recitatives at the beginning of the finale, and then settle down into the most happily poised, least hortatory or sentimental enunciation of the Joy-theme you'll ever want to hear. The second time around they are joined by the warm and brotherly bassoon of Felix Warnock and well seconded in the vocal exposition by a young Finnish baritone named Petteri Salomaa. Nor would it do to pass over concertmaster John Holloway and his first fiddles, who execute with such breathtaking precision the figurations in the Adagio, made more challenging than ever by the unheard of tempo. But then, all the members of this extraordinary band of sixty-five deserve to have their hands clasped and their backs slapped for their 241
19TH CENTURY contributions to this outstanding enterprise, as do the remaining vocal soloists and, certainly not least, the fifty singers in the Schiitz Choir of London. Among their names one recognizes many a familiar English Early Music chorister, but the sound here is as far as may be imagined from the cathedral-tot timbre normally associated with the various groups of Clerkes and Scholars from which they hail. (I have actually been hearing a bit of grumbling about this, which astonishes me; but never fear, those who would prefer countertenors and ephebe-impersonators in the chorus and coryphees from Count Dracula's Hofkapelle have probably only to wait until the other Early-Music Beethoven traversals currently in progress get around to the Ninth.) The singing and playing are so ardently committed, so imbued with mission and with risk, and yet withal so deucedly accomplished, as to put this recording (along with its predecessors in the series) in a class by itself, and not only among period instrument endeavors. Finally, there is the mastermind behind it all, Roger Norrington, about whom I have already written admiringly and at length ("Beethoven: The New Antiquity," in Opus, October 1987). His outstanding virtues are in evidence again, particularly what I have called his inspired literalism-meaning his conviction that Beethoven's tempi and expression markings are not something applied to the notes and rests as a mere suggestion for interpretation, but an essential aspect of the musical thought-and his gift for finding sounds to fit the signs and then molding the performance into a vividly imagined and projected Gestalt that takes shape in the ear's mind and lives thereafter in the ear's memory as a compelling representation of a masterpiece's unique sonic profile: its "true content," as Heinrich Schenker would have called it. I will give one example of this from the Ninth to stand for many. After the first great unison statement of the theme as it finally coalesces at the beginning of the first movement, there is a rising scalewise continuation from the tonic D to Bb, the pitch that will function, unconventionally, as alternate tone center for this movement (and later, as primary center for the Adagio). The notes of this ascent, all marked 242 sforzando, are notated very strangely: as dotted eighths separated by sixteenth-rests. Most performers of the piece will notice the sf marking here, and articulate the passage with strong detached accents, separated by those effective rhetorical pauses known as Luftpausen. Norrington has realized that the strange rhythmic articulation, which recurs elsewhere in the movement in other dynamic contexts, is in fact thematic, and must be given a very distinctive sound in performance. So he has the players sustain the intensity of the sf through the full written value of the notes, and then very precisely measure off the exact length of the rest. The effect is very halting and ungainly-the musical equivalent, perhaps, of a wheeze. However we choose to interpret it, though, we certainly recognize it (as in other performances we do not) on each of its returns, no matter what the local dynamic level or melodic contour, and through it we recognize that all passages so marked are related in some important way, whether we wish to call the relationship structural or affective (if, indeed, a distinction is called for). The most striking instances of this thematic recurrence are at m. 196 and again at mm. 214-17 in the development section, where they are preceded by the most exquisitely calibrated transitions in the winds from staccatos, through slurred staccatos (the latter coinciding with a rarity in Beethoven's instrumental music-an expressly marked ritard), to the "wheeze" itself. While other conductors may fairly claim to have been attentive to the subtle differences in Beethoven's markings, only Norrington so consistently comes up with such distinctive and easily recognizable sound-analogs to each notational idiosyncrasy or nuance. It is his special genius. All of which is so much more vital and important than mere historical verisimilitude-as (I would have thought) would be as obvious to Norrington as it is to me-that I find it quite confounding and disappointing to read sentences redolent of the usual earlie-musicke cant over Norrington's signature in the notes: In this series we aim to recreate these past masterpieces, not according to recent interpretative tradition, but by the traditions of the early nineteenth century. In this way, paradoxically, we are sure that they will speak to us more vividly today. In particular
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Review: Resisting the Ninth Author(s): Richard Taruskin Reviewed ...

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