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Why Do We Need Another Recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony? - Symphony No. 9 Benjamin Zander Discusses Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - Rebecca Evans sop, Patricia Bardon mezzo-sop, Robert Murray ten, Derek Welton bass-bar Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra, Stefan Bevier chorus master, Benjamin Zander cond. Brattle Media 610877733781 3 CDs: 58 minutes [music] + 159 minutes [discussion] Notes and discussion in English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2020

Marten Noorduin
Marten Noorduin*
Affiliation:
University of Oxfordmarten.noorduin@music.ox.ac.uk
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Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , December 2021 , pp. 601 - 609
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2020

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References

1 Benjamin Zander, cond., Boston Philharmonic, Chorus Pro Musica, Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, Op. 125, IMP Masters, 28094812, 1992.

2 The recording, including Zander's discussion, can be found on Youtube, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEPmY38gewc&list=OLAK5uy_mI5prpNqxXcUgUN_tg1UgOwYyhRhv9k90.

3 Roger Norrington, cond., London Classical Players, Beethoven: Symphonies 1–9, Overtures, EMI, 0724356194328, 1999 (reissue of recordings between 1987 and 1989); Jos van Immerseel, cond. Anima Eterna, Beethoven: Symphonies / Overtures, Zig Zag, B0014WSWTY, 2008; Riccardo Chailly, cond. Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Beethoven: The Symphonies, Decca, 478 2721, 2009. Incidentally, Zander replaces the published metronome marks in the CD booklet by a page from Beethoven's conversation books, where the metronome marks were first written down. See Beck, Dagmar, ed., Ludwig van Beethoven's Konversationshefte, 11 vols, vol. 10 Hefte 114–127 (Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1993): 243–5Google Scholar.

4 For a comparison of Norrington's reading with earlier recordings, see Taruskin, Richard, ‘Resisting the Ninth’, in Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 235–61Google Scholar, specifically at 239–42.

5 René Leibowitz, cond., Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Beecham Choral Society, Beethoven: The 9 Symphonies, Urania Records, 2014 (reissue of recordings released in 1961).

6 See MacArdle, Donald W., ed., Beethoven as I Knew Him: A Biography by Anton Schindler, trans. S., Constance Jolly (London: Faber and Faber, 1966), 423–6Google Scholar. Many of these claims were already contradicted by in, Gustav Nottebohm Beethoveniana (Leipzig: J. Rieter-Biedermann, 1872), 126–37Google Scholar.

7 ‘Musical Disruptor: Conductor Benjamin Zander Challenges Orthodoxy in Recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. London's Philharmonia Orchestra and The Philharmonia Chorus Realize the Composer's True Intentions’, www.benjaminzander.org/press-release-the-story-of-the-project/ (accessed 6 June 2019).

8 The classic example here is Wimsatt, William K. and Beardsley, Monroe C., ‘The Intentional Fallacy’, Sewanee Review 54 (1946): 468–88Google Scholar.

9 Taruskin, Text and Act, 97.

10 For a rather pointed formulation of this, see Taruskin, Text and Act, specifically at 212.

11 Corrected copy of the Cantata op. 112, Beethoven-Haus Bonn, BH 85.

12 ‘Wien’, Wiener Zeitung (6 January 1816): 21. Like many others, Zander overlooks these early markings, and places Beethoven's first use of the metronome two years later.

13 ‘Specification of the Patent granted to John Maelzel …’, The Repertory of Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture …, 2nd series, vol. 33 (London: J. Wyatt, 1818): 7–13.

14 See Cooper, Barry, ‘Declining Productivity (1815–1817)’, in Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008): 254–79Google Scholar.

15 ‘Die Tempo's sämmtlicher Sätze aller Symphonien des Hrn L. v. Beethoven, vom Verf. selbst nach Maelzels Metronom bestimmt’, [Leipziger] Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung 19 (1817): 873–4.

16 Bestimmung des musikalischen Zeitmasses nach Mälzel's Metronom, Zweite Lieferung. Sämmtliche Quartetten von dem Author selbst bezeichnet (Vienna: S.A. Steiner, c. 1818). A copy of this document survives in the New York Public Library, Drexel 3613.

17 This includes the Missa solemnis (Briefwechsel, vol. 6, Letter 2244), the Piano Sonatas opp. 109, 110 and 111 (vol. 4, Letter 1476), the String Quartet op. 127 (vol. 6, Letter 2110), and various other works. See also Noorduin, Marten, ‘Re-examining Czerny's and Moscheles's Metronome Marks for Beethoven's Piano Sonatas’, Nineteenth-Century Music Review 15/2 (2018): 209–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 210.

18 In the case of those for the Ninth Symphony, there is clear evidence for this in the conversation books. See Beck, Konversationshefte, vol. 10: 243–5.

19 Kolisch, Rudolf, ‘Tempo and Character in Beethoven's Music’, trans. Mendel, Arthur, The Musical Quarterly 29/2–3 (1943): 169–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 291–312.

20 See amongst others Rosenblum, Sandra P., Performance Practices in Classic Piano Music: Their Principles and Applications (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988)Google Scholar and Brown, Clive, Classical and Romantic Performance Practice 1750–1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Marten Noorduin, Beethoven's Tempo Indications (PhD dissertation, University of Manchester, 2016).

22 Noorduin, Beethoven's Tempo Indications, 220.

23 Beethoven Werke, vol. 12, Lühning, Helga, ed., Lieder und Gesänge mit Klavierbegeleitung (Munich: G. Henle, 1990)Google Scholar, kritischer bericht, 74.

24 See the annotated first edition in the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, BH 96.

25 Noonan, Frederick, trans., Remembering Beethoven: The Biographical Notes of Franz Wegeler and Ferdinand Ries (London: Deutsch, 1988): 94Google Scholar.

26 See for instance von Seyfried, Ignaz, Ludwig van Beethoven's Studien (Leipzig: Schuberth, 1853)Google Scholar: Anhang, 18. Carl Czerny's piano school is often cited as an important source here, specifically the Complete Theoretical and Practical Piano Forte School … op.500, 3 vols, trans. J.A. Hamilton (London: R. Cocks, 1839), vol. 3, 33–4. Nevertheless, the extent to which these descriptions can be said to describe Beethoven's practice is questionable, considering Czerny's own statements in vol. 4, as well as his general attitude towards older playing styles. See Noorduin, ‘Re-examining Czerny's and Moscheles's Metronome Marks’, 224–5, and Parakilas, James, ‘Playing Beethoven His Way’, in Beyond “The Art of Finger Dexterity”: Reassessing Carl Czerny, ed. Gramit, David (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2008): 117–23Google Scholar.

27 Moscheles, Ignaz, ed. and trans., Life of Beethoven, 2 vols, vol. 2 (London: Henry Colburn, 1841): 141Google Scholar.

28 See Noorduin, ‘Re-examining Czerny's and Moscheles's Metronome Marks’, 224–6.

29 The passage referred to begins at https://youtu.be/EEPmY38gewc?t=191.

30 See bars 23–24, 63–64, 123, etc.

31 See Stadlen, Peter, ‘Beethoven and the Metronome’, Music & Letters 48/4 (1967): 330–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Brown, Clive, ‘Historical Performance, Metronome Marks and Tempo in Beethoven's Symphonies’, Early Music 19/2 (May 1991): 247–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 256–8.

32 See Stewart Young, A Reappraisal of Tempo, Character, and their Relationship, with Particular Respect to the Music of Beethoven and Schumann (PhD diss., University of Cape Town, 1979), 2 vols, vol. 2, section 5.4.78 and following.

33 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 26–27 (1 July 1824): 437–42, at 440.

34 Noorduin, Beethoven's Tempo Indications, 151.

35 Cooper, Beethoven (Oxford, 2008), 371–2, and Mar, Jonathan Del, ed., Beethoven: Symphonie nr. 9 in d-moll / Symphony no. 9 in D minor op. 125 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1996)Google Scholar. Critical commentary: 38.

36 For instance, the final Presto of the Septet op. 20, the Prestissimo final movement of op. 2 no. 1 (which Czerny and Moscheles gave editorial speeds between ° = 104 and 112), and even the final Prestissimo from the Ninth Symphony, which Beethoven marked ° = 132.

37 Hermann Beck, ‘Bemerkungen zu Beethoven's Tempi’, in Beethoven-Jahrbuch, 3rd series, ii (1955–1956): 24–54.

38 Schmidt, Thomas, ‘Preventive and Cautionary Dynamics in the Symphonies of Mendelssohn and his Time’, The Journal of Musicology 31/1 (Winter 2014): 43–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 55–6.

39 Schmidt, ‘Preventive and Cautionary Dynamics’, 57–60.

40 See https://youtu.be/a1if-qr2XyA?t=493 for the relevant passage.

41 Autograph copy of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for the Philharmonic Society, British Library, RPS MS 5, 226.

42 Del Mar, Symphony no. 9, critical commentary, 57–8. There are nevertheless some small differences between Zander's recording and Del Mar's text that suggest that the soloists may have used a different edition: in bar 767, 777 and 779, the soloists sing ‘Freude’, the reading in most editions, rather than ‘Tochter’, which Del Mar advocates. Symphony no. 9, critical commentary, 67.

43 Biba, , ‘Zur Uraufführung von Beethovens 9. Symphonie’, in Münchener Beethoven Studien, ed. Fischer, Johannes (Munich: Katzbichler, 1992): 57–69Google Scholar, at 64–66.

44 Biba, ‘Zur Uraufführung’, 64.

45 The minute book of the directors of the Philharmonic Society show that the size of the choir was discussed on 5 April 1837 in advance of a performance of the symphony later that season. The directors resolved to engage ‘10 tenors, 12 Basses, and 14 Women for the Chorus’, as well as eight boys, so the London choir probably had a comparable size to that in Vienna. British Library, RPS MS 280, 165r.

46 For a wider discussion of the problems of ‘authenticity’, see in particular the contributions by Taruskin ‘The Authenticity Movement Can Become a Positivistic Purgatory, Literalistic and Dehumanizing’ and Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel, ‘What We Are Doing with Early Music Is Genuinely Authentic to Such a Small Degree That the Word Loses Most of Its Intended Meaning’ Early Music 12/1 (1984): 3–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 13–16, respectively.