Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Leonard Bernstein, Abraham Kaplan :: Beethoven: Symphony No. 9; Fidelio Overture

Mixed success...

Shota Hanai | 05/06/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Bernstein meets with mixed success in this recording. He handles the orchestral parts of the symphony with great energy and emotion(great momentum too), but the finale doesn't sound too great here-if you're used to the beautiful voices of Jose van Dam or Placido Domingo singing Schiller's poem, you'll be quite disappointed at the mediocre solo in this recording and the way they scream their lungs out and mispronounce the German text... Audiophiles please stay away. Too bad Sony Classical didn't do a good job with the digital remastering, nor did the original performance seem to be well recorded either, with the choral parts sounding as if they were sung inside a cave. I have not yet had the pleasure of hearing Bernstein's other performances of this symphony, but people say they're a lot better than this one. Last but not least, the third movement is played too slow...gets kind of boring. Unless you're building a collection of Beethoven Ninths or Bernstein recordings, there's no reason to spend your money on this cd.As for the Fidelio overture, this is one of the best performance of it which I have heard, but after Beethoven's Ninth, who feels like an overture?"

TERRIBLE!

Shota Hanai | Torrance, CA | 03/15/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I expected a blaring, exciting performance on Beethoven's epic Ninth Symphony in this album, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic for CBS/Sony; it turned out to be the opposite.



All the other Beethoven symphonies he recorded for CBS/Sony are great, especially the Third, the Fifth (despite an intolerably sluggish first movement), and the Sixth. But the Ninth is a complete dissapointment.



Despite Bernstein's overt and fast conducting, the performance completely lacked the power Karajan had, and even the cleaniness and precision fellow conductors Szell and Ormandy had. The brass in particular wasn't as blaring as they did on the Third.



The tenor was simply awful. His timbre was one of the worst I've ever heard. As for the Julliard School chorus (and Julliard is supposed to be America's No. 1 music academy), no offense but the singers sounded immature, a far cry from the rich, clean, powerful voices professional choirs utlizes.



One word, TERRIBLE!"