Here’s yet another reissue of Kurt Masur’s 1973 Beethoven Ninth, this time as a single budget-priced disc. It’s nothing special. For starters, the Allegro ma non troppo lacks mystery, drama, and drive, save for the climax beginning at measure 300, where the string tremolos cut through with uncommon clarity. The winds are too recessed in the mix for my taste, but at least the first-chair oboist’s snake charmer vibrato will draw attention away from Masur’s workaday conception. The scherzo’s ferocity and humor are underplayed, and for once the inclusion of both repeats seems pedantic instead of necessary. Much of the Adagio moves in lovely, sustained lines, although the orchestra’s relative lack of tonal allure and occasional sour intonation suffer in comparison with the ravishingly executed slow movements of Solti’s 1987 Chicago remake and Giulini’s Berlin Philharmonic recording.
Masur’s pacing of the Finale’s introduction is keenly timed and well played, but once past Theo Adam’s slightly laggard solo, the movement’s remaining episodes are either too notey (the heavy-handed double fugue following Peter Schreier’s gorgeous rendition of the tenor solo) or wanting in lightness and forward momentum. Masur, for instance, takes the Allegro ma non tanto at an ideal, perky clip, but with little crispness and character. The fact is that a good number of Ninths from the 1970s alone surpass Masur (Böhm, Bernstein, Kubelik, to name a few), and indeed Masur himself via his digital remakes. Too bad Universal didn’t avail itself of other, more reissue-worthy Beethoven Ninths among its holdings: the underrated Ozawa/New Philharmonia version (long unavailable on CD in the West), or Dorati’s Royal Philharmonic traversal, which has yet to appear on CD. And if Eloquence’s European A&R folks had emulated their Australian counterparts, I’d be reviewing Karl Böhm’s superlative 1970 Vienna Philharmonic recording right now. In sum, an inexpensive Ninth, but no bargain.
