In the context of Günter Wand’s familiar and truly incandescent 1987 Beethoven Ninth recording, Testament’s reissue of the conductor’s relatively obscure mono traversal from 1956 may hold fascination for specialist collectors. Wand takes the mysterious string triplets at the opening movement’s outset and elsewhere slightly slower than the basic tempo he sets when the unison tuttis kick in, and he takes special trouble to characterize slurred and staccato phrasings. In contrast to the fervent, headlong scherzo (first repeat only), the slow movement sounds relatively pallid and static. Here the string section’s lack of body and the less-than-world-class woodwind solos yield to the conductor’s infinitely more accomplished and vibrant NDR forces.
The vocal quartet in the finale is miked too closely in relation to the chorus, yet you can still make out the choral texts clearly without a libretto in hand. Wand’s tightly-knit transitions and cumulative sweep hold your attention, as they do to even more satisfying effect in the aforementioned 1987 recording, which is better engineered, better played, better sung, and actually cheaper than Testament’s full-price reissue. Indeed, even among studio-recorded mono Ninths of the 1950s, Wand faced formidable competition from Böhm, Kleiber, Schuricht, and Toscanini. He still does.
