Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Donald Runnicles, Elizabeth Bishop :: Beethoven: Symphony No. 9

Turn up the volume on this one

Trevor Gillespie | San Jose, California United States | 10/11/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I don't know what Telarc has been up to the past couple of years but with their recent releases, you have to crank up the volume higher and higher to hear the music. Literally, I had the volume to its max in my car to hear the more quiet passages in this symphony. Don't be worried, the loud passages were not intolerably loud. It's crazy how low the recording level is on this CD. However, if you get over the fact that you have to really crank up the volume to hear the music, you'll find a very pleasing performance. The chorus is excellent, although not extremely present in the recording. As a whole the chorus sounds big but distant. The soloists are fine and fairly balanced in the recording. So beyond that, the real question is how is the performance? Well it's very good. It's not "knock your socks off" good, but it is very good. I prefer a little more punch in the final movement and I just don't get it from this recording, but it is very satisfying nonetheless. Just remember, turn up that volume to hear the details. If you don't, you'll wonder if the strings were even recorded!"

A fat, weighty Beethoven Ninth in fat, wieghty sound

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 02/16/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"It's rare for a major orchestra to record the Beethoven Ninth nowadays. It's a golden opportunity for any conductor. Donald Runnicles has worked tirelesssly on the fringes of fame for a long time, like David Ziman, Robert Spano, Marin Alsop, and a few others who have been tapped by record labels for highly visible projects. Zinman borke through with his ultra-steamlined, million-selling Beethoven from Zurich; Alsop broke through with a high-profile arrival on the Naxos label. And Runnicles?



I wish this Ninth were a triumph for him, but to me it sounds like an old-fashioned, weighty performance with middle-of-the-road instincts. Telarc has given it fat sonics, almost tubby. There's a warm wash of sound coming out of the speakers all the time, making it hard to distinguish any specific texture or dramatic moment. The music sounds weighty all the time. Runnicles isn't defeated by this kind of osund, since his is a warm but eventless Beethoven Ninth.



The 68 min. timing puts Runnicles squarely in the middle, too, without a hint of the current preference for faster speeds in keeping with Beethoven's (alarming) metronome markings. If you are going to dress this symphony in the same guise as Karajan, Bernstein, Stokowski, Klemperer, and other traditionalists, you'd better be as great as they were. Runnicles isn't. The slow movement in particular lacks eloquence; the raucous transition to the choral finale is too polite.



I'd more or less lost interest by the time the finale arrived. The solo quartet, like the rest of the reading, is pleasant and competent. Bass Alistair Miles sings in markedly bad German (why didn't he practice?, but tenor Stephen Gould holds up well in his fiendish solo. Most shocking of all, the famed Atlanta chorus sounds distant and dim, with not a single syllable being intelligible. They are lost in a tubby acoustic.



In all, I feel generous giving this safe and sane reading three stars. A masterpiece deserves better."

Wonderful Performance and Recording

T. Burton | Nashville, TN USA | 10/16/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Though the third movement lacks initiative, the rest of the performance is incredible. Another reviewer complains of the lack of volume, but unless you have personally heard the Atlanta group, particularly the Chorus, then you have no idea how quietly they can actually play and sing. Telarc is committed to accurate, clean recordings. ("Everything you hear is true.") I have read criticism of the Mahler 8 recording that the chorus was too closely miked. Well, there were 540 people in that chorus and nearly 700 people on the stage of a hall that seats 1700! You'd have to put the choral mikes in Augusta to have the opportunity to get a balanced recording. Now -- criticism that the chorus is not miked closely enough. Either way, the orchestra is at top form, and the chorus should be considered a national treasure -- an instrument as classic and important as any Strad or Guarnieri. What Shaw created, MacKenzie has stoked. Good luck finding a better symphonic chorus on the planet. Their interpretation of the fourth movement is spectacular. Arturo, and even RS would envy the accomplishments made by this group. (OK -- RS is not envious. He is merely looking down to them with a wide grin.) The way each section (particularly the Sopranos and Tenors, because they are more obvious) can pull impossible notes out of thin air and make it seem effortless is why the Atlanta Journal and Constitution review stated that the choral effort is "a music all it's own." 'Something not to be missed, folks. If you happen to be singing this in, or teaching this piece to a chorus, this is your benchmark."