Another Beethoven Ninth, and one that i listened to for the first time today, i love to get a different perspective on things, and the Dutch Conductor Haitink is very good, he's had a long tenure with this Dutch Orchestra, this is a live recording, and of course there's slight noise from the audience, i'm still amazed at how much i can listen to the same work often, and still absorb a high level of enjoyment out of it, and also it's amazing to still hear new things i've never noticed before, music is a wonderful journey.
Bernard Haitink is now 83, he was born in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and he was with the Concertgebouw for nearly 30 years, he made this live recording in 1980, the front cover is of a bust of Beethoven, looks like in pewter, i think it's a good idea for a front cover.
The movement i loved was the third, the Adagio Cantabile, i don't know why, but i got the feeling it was played quite fast, maybe too fast, but on giving it a listen again, now i feel that he plays it too slow, he takes 16 minutes, he starts off slow, but speeds up slightly as he gets into it, it's a nicely paced reading, and i think it pays dividends to treat the opening with hushed reverence, but if you keep that same pace up, then it gets bogged down, the first 3 minutes are a sort of long dialogue between the violins and the woodwinds [0:00-2:54], and then a darker version of the strings [i guess including violas] comes in, and there another dialogue, this time with the violins against the violas and muted woodwinds, and i now notice the speed is up a notch, and the music is slightly more complicated, i love the flow of the whole thing, it's like a lazy river [2:55-6:27], it's wonderful to hear how Beethoven builds the whole thing, like a loose bunch of variations, the best bit comes just over halfway through, where the violins sing high and sweet [9:13+], it's glorious, and befitting of its Cantabile title, three quarters of the way through, there's just a couple of little noisy rain clouds in the blue sky [11:25 & 12:32], nearer the end there's a beautiful passage on the strings, as a wonderful sweet lull [13:37+] is accompanied by the bleating oboes in a dialogue [13:52+], it's a breathtaking thing of beauty, i love Haitink's rendition of it.
Here's the third movement Adagio Cantabile being played on YouTube, Riccardo Chailly conducting.
