Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Welser-Möst, Cleveland Orchestra :: Symphony 9

Monochrome is right

Ryan Richards | Midland, MI United States | 10/10/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Amen to the reviewer who labeled this CD "monochrome." This is, technically, an extremely competent recording of Beethoven's Ninth (and of course, from the Cleveland Orchestra, I expected no less). But all that artistry goes for naught, because it doesn't *say* anything. George Szell ripped the hell out of this symphony with the same orchestra on his rightly famous recording, and even Dohnányi's Cleveland recording of the mid-'80s had his distinctive "iron fist in a velvet glove" sound. In contrast, Welser-Möst gives us a well-performed, absolutely anonymous run-through of a great symphony, with nothing to separate it from the hordes of other Beethoven Ninth recordings that fit that description. He certainly doesn't do anything wrong, and this is an utterly safe recording to give to someone who's just learning about this symphony, but I can think of a half-dozen other recordings off the top of my head (Szell, Karajan 1962, Solti 1972, Wand, Dohnányi, Leinsdorf) that, for whatever quirks or idiosyncrasies they might contain, are still more committed, more considered, more individual, and ultimately much more involving than this one. A disappointment coming from my favorite orchestra."

The Szell Sound is Gone......

Todd Krieger | United States | 10/17/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"It's been a while since the Cleveland Orchestra has released a new recording, and with great anticipation, Franz Welser Möst's first CD release, the monumental Beethoven Ninth Symphony. An opportunity to finally hear the new conductor performing in the renovated Severance Hall.



But almost an hour later, the anticipation became depression.



Gone was the Szell sound. The energy, the "snap", the phrasing, the dynamics, the execution, that made the Cleveland Orchestra one of the greatest symphony orchestras ever assembled. Lorin Maazel sustained it, but he was not the interpretational genius that Szell was. Christoph von Dohnanyi may have been more palatable with interpretation, but things softened-up a bit.



But under Franz Welser Möst, after listening to this work (and Bruckner's Fifth Symphony on DVD), I'm almost afraid that the Cleveland Orchestra sound can be described as "anemic." With the Beethoven Ninth, it almost sounds like Claude Debussy re-orchestrated it.



The performance to me was so boring, I really cannot think of any real high points. The opening movement was kind of glossed over. There is none of the sinewy manic-depressive character that normally casts the mood for the remainder of the work. The second movement, maybe the strongest, still lacked the intensity when called for. The third movement had none of the riveting depth, and is just a boring exercise in slow music. The final movement, seemingly directionless, is well played, but that's it. (Although the wind players have no projection, maybe the most-striking change from the Szell/Maazel/Dohnanyi years.) The explosiveness and spontaneity are a distant memory.



After I played the performance, I played part of the Szell, and I was too depressed to think about how great the Cleveland Orchestra once was. Whether the problem is Möst himself or the institution becoming unable to attract top performers remains to be seen."

A conductor or a metronome?

Damir Janigro | Cleveland Hts., OH USA | 11/02/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"We all know what the Cleveland Orchestra, Szell or no Szell, is capable of. We admired for years the absolute devotion to intonation, phrasing, precision, and, why not, adventurous progressions in Bruckner, Beethoven, Mahler. Even the occasional "bad" note was welcome. Now we are left with a great orchestra with a great metronome, as the one that often frustrated our piano practice, with insistence that only a 6am alarm clock reproduces. This is Beethoven without a soul, without a story or history."