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Honeck’s Narcissistic Beethoven Ninth (Video Review)

David Hurwitz

Artistic Quality:

  • 6

Sound Quality:

  • 9

I wanted to love this. Honeck is a brilliant conductor who has given us great Beethoven. There are fantastic things in the first two movements especially, but this performance is disfigured by a desperate need to be different, important, and epic. The result is mannered, unnatural, and ultimately, less expressively intense that it should be. What a pity!

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Recording Details:

Reference Recording: Wand (RCA); Blomstedt/Dresden (Brilliant Classics); Fricsay (DG)

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