Search - Johannes Brahms, Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Adrian Boult :: Schubert: Symphony No. 9 'Great C Major'

A Schubertian Schubert Ninth

Wayne A. | Belfast, Northern Ireland | 07/28/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"[I'm focusing on this Ninth--the Brahms pieces are available in a more recently released Brahms two-for. They're every bit as good as others claim]



The tendency seems to be to divide Schubert's symphonic output into the pre-pubescent years (1 through 6) and the cut-short-at-the-edge-of-epic-greatness days consisting of 8 and 9. [I'm ignoring Ten for the moment] Subsequently the early batch tend to be performed like cousins of Bizet's Symphony in C and the last two like lost middle-period Beethoven. The bias is not helped by the size of 9, the absence of a linking and context-setting 7, and the unfinished state of 8 whose rarified deep moodiness lacks lighter balancing movements. Add in the wrong-headed tendency to treat Ninths (after our experience of Beethoven) like great valedictory summing-ups and you've got "Great" Problems of Expectations. Oh, and the fact that this one has been dubbed the "Great," which is a poetic mistranslation of the German word (Grosse) for merely "big" (to distinguish from an earlier and shorter symphony in the same key). Karajan's been kicked around for saying the Schubert 9th was not particularly great (in the critical sense) and I think this is what he was aiming at. It's not the Eroica.



With that heresy revealed I'll say Boult here seems to lighten this symphony up a bit--too much for some people--causing it to fit more naturally into the flow of Schubert's lifetime creative output. I like big dramatic psycho blow-hard Schubert Ninths (Furtwangler's being the most extreme example)--it's fun to hear Schubert sound like Bruckner, or-um-Furtwangler. However, performances like this, which focus on melody and warmth. bring one back to the fragile fellow who wrote with a much lighter touch, a guy who was not at all trying to be the next Beethoven.



Now, the performing versions of the unfinished #10 seem disappointing, a regression even, but only if one thinks the Schubert Ninth is supposed to be the equivalent of Beethoven's last symphony, or the self-conscious Brahms's First.



This was an unplanned purchase (sale bin) and I'm very glad I jumped at it. Now I can throw on the Schubert Ninth and enjoy its Schubert-ness without feeling it has to be for some special occasion, like a coronation or moon launch. Boult, I'm learning, was a conductor remarkable for a restraint dictated by taste and tremendous musical perspective. His sense of form, shaping, and attention to detail are astonishing. This may not be a hi-fi sonic blockbuster 9th but it's got Schubertian soul galore, and the bad taste that some find in other punchier recordings (that's wrongly attributed to Schubert) is totally missing. Note that this is the same conductor who famously made The Planets into an emotionally satisfying experience. Just as he understood Schubert was not Beethoven, Brahms, or Bruckner, Boult knew darn well Holst was not Strauss.



For earlier Schubert conversely/perversely conducted like early Beethoven see Muti's largely ignored set (now on Brilliant). I like that approach too as it's great fun."