One of the most perfect performances of anything that I ever heard live featured Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony in Mahler’s Ninth. His interpretation had poise and passion in equal measure, and it was fabulously played. That vision of the work carried over onto Ozawa’s Philips recording, an interpretation that has received little acclaim but remains one of the finest versions of the piece on disc. One of the things that made that performance so special was the conductor’s perfect pacing of the finale, at 26 minutes not too slow to induce boredom, but broad enough to counterbalance the epic first movement and give the symphony a very satisfying long-term architecture.
This new, live recording offers the same basic conception in better sound, with a touch more intensity at both the first movement’s central climax and at the end of the Rondo: Burleske. On the other hand, the finale isn’t quite so impressive despite almost identical tempos and superbly sustained string playing (the Boston winds really made something special out of their quiet interludes). Ozawa on Philips also brought marginally greater transparency and verve to the second movement. The differences, however, are very slight, and many listeners will welcome the extra physicality that so many live recordings (including this one) capture. Whichever performance you own, Ozawa’s way with this symphony really deserves to be heard, and we can only hope that Sony decides to release this recording domestically, as it did with his excellent Mahler 2. Otherwise, it’s available online from HMV Japan.
