Beethovens ninth Symphony is absolutely jaw dropping!!!

[SKYIO]

https://www.youtube.com/v/t3217H8JppI



1:50  - 2:05   



Which is your favorite section?

[some guy]

The section that goes from the opening notes to the final chord.

Oh, wait. That's not really a section, properly so-called. 

[Jo498]

It is hard to single out anything from this great piece.
Staying with the first movement I particularly like the fugato section (from ca. 6:25 in the recording above, and two in the coda, from 13:30 (this seems to take up the passage I just mentioned) and the very end with the "ostinato funeral march" (from 14:50). This last passage must have been almost as influential than the "primeval fog" of the movement's beginning. Mahler and Bruckner do very similar things on several occasions, sometimes coming close to copying it.

[Sergeant Rock]

Which is your favorite section?

Where he reins in the music momentarily and then closes with the prestissimo. 1:04:53 to the end in this recording.

Sarge

[Gurn Blanston]

The section that goes from the opening notes to the final chord.

Oh, wait. That's not really a section, properly so-called. 

You mean that ~70 minute long part, I guess.

  Me too, I don't have an answer for the question, I might have to listen to it again and ponder...

[Rinaldo]

It is hard to single out anything from this great piece.

That said, there's this brief, fleeting moment of sadness in the Adagio (here, right after the 30 second mark) that's been haunting me ever since I've first noticed it..

[some guy]

This kind of thing always reminds me of my own reaction to a particular tune by Prokofiev, originally used in Eugene Onegin and then again in Betrothal in a Monastery. This to me is an utterly melancholy little tune, in both pieces. Yearning and hopeless both at once.

Now, Onegin is a heartbreaking story--breaks mine, anyway--but the tune in question is from the part where Eugene is singing about how utterly bored he is with women and the whole party scene. In the comic opera, it goes along with the words about what a privilege it is to serve a beautiful woman. Neither of these, note, has anything at all to do with the heart-breaking melancholy that I hear in these pitches.

Music, and it seems to be the easiest thing in the world to forget this, is a collaboration between composer, performer, and listener. And while we can pretty easily acknowledge the differences from performer to performer (or from one performance by one performer to another performance by the same), it seems almost impossible to grasp or at least to acknowledge that the results of the collaboration will inevitably differ from listener to listener, too, and from a single listener's audition on one day to another audition by the same on another day.

[vandermolen]

I like the opening.

[Maestro267]

Even if you don't know about the choral finale (probably a very rare hypothetical situation), the very beginning lets you know you're in for an epic journey.

[knight66]

The opening under Furtwangler, where he seems to conjure the music out of nothingness. In the hands of most others it sounds efficient and lacking in that elemental mystery. I also especially like the slow movement. Don't neglect to listen to the Liszt piano transcription which is almost as full of colour and energy.

Mike

[aligreto]

For me the genius of this work lies not only in the final movement but also in the contrasting, yet glorious slow movement with its simple beauty.

[Maestro267]

For me the genius of this work lies not only in the final movement but also in the contrasting, yet glorious slow movement with its simple beauty.

And interesting changes of key for the different sections, probably groundbreaking for the time.

[aligreto]

And interesting changes of key for the different sections, probably groundbreaking for the time.

You have summed up the mark of the man there; an apparently simple piece of music with lots going on under the surface, as always.

[Jo498]

The slow movement is a variant of the "double variations" employed frequently by Haydn. Haydn almost always has minor-major, e.g. c minor/major in the Andante of the symphony #103 (but I am not sure if there might be a different key relation in a late trio or so where Haydn DOES have fairly "romantic" key relations sometimes).

Beethoven has B flat major for the main theme and variations and G and D respectively for the contrasting 3/4-andante-sections. And he breaks up the variation scheme for a lengthy "coda" that takes 30% or so of the movement.

The closest parallel in Beethoven's other works might be the "Dankgesang" from op.132 with a stronger contrast in tempo and character between the chorale and the dance-like andante.

A slow movement that was almost certainly inspired by this form is the one in Bruckner's 7th. The 3/4-Moderato (A major, I think) is almost a fusion of the tunes of the triple time contrasting sections of the two Beethoven examples. The contrast is still stronger here because Bruckner's chorale sections are in the minor mode and very somberly orchestrated.

[aligreto]

The slow movement is a variant of the "double variations" employed frequently by Haydn. Haydn almost always has minor-major, e.g. c minor/major in the Andante of the symphony #103 (but I am not sure if there might be a different key relation in a late trio or so where Haydn DOES have fairly "romantic" key relations sometimes).

Beethoven has B flat major for the main theme and variations and G and D respectively for the contrasting 3/4-andante-sections. And he breaks up the variation scheme for a lengthy "coda" that takes 30% or so of the movement.

The closest parallel in Beethoven's other works might be the "Dankgesang" from op.132 with a stronger contrast in tempo and character between the chorale and the dance-like andante.

A slow movement that was almost certainly inspired by this form is the one in Bruckner's 7th. The 3/4-Moderato (A major, I think) is almost a fusion of the tunes of the triple time contrasting sections of the two Beethoven examples. The contrast is still stronger here because Bruckner's chorale sections are in the minor mode and very somberly orchestrated.

Interesting notes; thank you. I must take down Bruckner 7 again for another listen and pay a little more attention to this detail 

[Mirror Image]

Not to deny the beauty of the 9th, but I like the 6th much more, especially when conducted by Szell:

https://www.youtube.com/v/D2cQ_SG9g-w

[aligreto]

Since this thread has started I have been trying to decide which was my favourite performance of the Beethoven 9th Symphony in my collection. I still have no answer for myself. Thinking about the criteria for even establishing grounds for such comparisons led me to two conclusions in this regard. Firstly the quality of the quartet of solo vocalists is of paramount importance, particularly the soprano as some of the recordings that I have heard have developed into a virtual hysterical shriek fest. The second important thing for me here is the performance and interpretation of the slow movement; it just happens to be one of my favourite pieces of music by any composer.
It goes without saying that the conductor and full ensemble must deliver a grand, sweeping performance on a large canvass incorporating a wide dynamic range to do justice to this magnificent work.

[jochanaan]

The Adagio molto e cantabile has been haunting my inner ears for a month or so now.  Yet every movement is utterly masterful.  As I said to a friend recently, there is nothing greater.

[lisa needs braces]

Since this thread has started I have been trying to decide which was my favourite performance of the Beethoven 9th Symphony in my collection. I still have no answer for myself. Thinking about the criteria for even establishing grounds for such comparisons led me to two conclusions in this regard. Firstly the quality of the quartet of solo vocalists is of paramount importance, particularly the soprano as some of the recordings that I have heard have developed into a virtual hysterical shriek fest. The second important thing for me here is the performance and interpretation of the slow movement; it just happens to be one of my favourite pieces of music by any composer.
It goes without saying that the conductor and full ensemble must deliver a grand, sweeping performance on a large canvass incorporating a wide dynamic range to do justice to this magnificent work.

I've been familiar with this work since 2004 (prior to that, when I was largely ignorant of classical music but interested in it as a curiosity, I thought the scherzo -- which I had downloaded as an mp3 -- was the "ninth"!). In the last year though it's become an obsession.

In the past 12 years I've been familiar with three recordings. The first I owned (from my first set of LvB symphonies) was from Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Janos Ferencsik. The 2nd: Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic 1963, and third being Cleveland Orchestra/George Szell from 1961. Of these, the Szell was my go to 9th all those years. It's a fine recording.

The reason I have gained a greater appreciation of the symphony in the past year is because I discovered the stupendous live recording by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Furtwangler a few months before his death (1954) at the Lucerne festival. This performance to me was like listening to the symphony for the first time again while getting to "see" more of the music. Furtwangler takes a radical tempo...his first movement is 18 minutes, and the third nearly 20 minutes. His dwelling makes the music better. Having gone back to some of those other recordings, the impact they now give me is the feeling of needless rush, of impacting moments inherent in the music needlessly glossed over or under-emphasized.

Consider the famous fugato section of the 1st movement, which is in a distinctive segment in the development that typically lasts around 2 minutes in standard recordings. There's a portion in that sequence -- basically its 2nd half -- that I feel most conductors either play too quietly or allow certain sections of the orchestra to drawn out the more interesting musical idea, an opinion I developed after hearing the Furtwangler. In those other three recordings, the stormy parts of the fugato are given emphasis, but in the Furtwangler the music emotionally peaks in the 2nd brighter half of the sequence because he brings the musical idea of that half to the forefront and plays it loud enough and slow enough that brighter 2nd half is a counter-weight to the earlier portion creating an emotional mini-journey from darkness to light. I link to a time-stamp cut of this wondrous section of music from this wondrous recording:

https://www.youtube.com/v/watch?v=254ksoIiU_s&start=430&end=593&version=3

[71 dB]

Not to deny the beauty of the 9th, but I like the 6th much more, especially when conducted by Szell:

https://www.youtube.com/v/D2cQ_SG9g-w

I'm also a fan of the 6th. In my opinion Beethoven's musical language works best in this type of "pastoral" orchestral work. I feel his other symphonies would have benefited from the innovations of orchestrators like Berlioz, but were written "too soon" for that. I know my opinions about Beethoven's orchestrating skills is considered crazy, but I don't care. I'm entitled to as lunatic opinions as I want.  0:)