Recorded live in 1988, this Beethoven Ninth represents Robert Shaw’s final concert as the Atlanta Symphony’s Music Director. Back in 1985, he recorded a lousy version of the symphony for Pro Arte, and this performance is much better, but still hardly worth writing home about. It goes without saying that the chorus in the finale sings superbly; so, by and large, do the soloists. In this respect Shaw reminds me of Helmut Rilling, another choral conductor who always did well by his vocalists, but who just wasn’t terribly interesting when he wasn’t accompanying voices.
The problem with Beethoven’s Ninth, obviously, is that singing happens only about 25% of the total playing time. There’s no question that the orchestra gives Shaw what he wants. The first movement climaxes are intense, the scherzo fleet, and the Adagio songful and flowing. Nevertheless, you would be hard pressed to point to a single distinctive idea that Shaw brings to the table. Despite the committed playing, the first movement never develops any momentum, a fault of the conducting, not the orchestra. The scherzo, similarly, builds mechanically, it’s rhythmic precision coming across as effortful rather than spontaneously energetic. It all sounds too cautious.
I think it’s probably fair to say that no one expected Shaw to wow us in purely orchestral music. His discography, intelligently, focused on the choral music in which he excelled, and even there he could disappoint in big works calling for charisma beyond merely excellent singing (Mahler 8, Berlioz Requiem, Britten’s War Requiem). I don’t doubt that this decently recorded live performance realistically represents Shaw at his most compelling in this music. The problem is, unless you’re a hard-core Shaw fan, it’s just not compelling enough.
