Three performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (Choral) in collaboration with the Melbourne Symphony Chorus and the Auslan Choir concluded the MSO’s cycle of all nine symphonies by Beethoven; I attended the final performance, a Saturday matinee. The MSO’s chief conductor Jaime Martín preceded the concert by offering a tribute to the highly respected violinist Isy Wasserman, who gave his final performance with the orchestra that day after 50 years’ service.
Before the Ninth the MSO performed Sir James MacMillan’s Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by The London Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with the MSO and four other orchestras. MacMillan’s programme note explains that the work is subtitled “Ghosts” and draws on references to Beethoven’s Ghost Trio, the Trio for flute, viola and harp by Debussy, folk dance, an Eastern European hymn and Scottish traditional music.
The work brings to a new level the Baroque concept of a concerto for many solo instruments as MacMillan explores unusual combinations of solo instruments, including a trio for cor anglais bass clarinet and vibraphone, and virtuosity throughout the orchestra. Composed in four sections and performed as one continuous movement, it is scored for large symphonic forces including bells, vibraphone, cymbals, a variety of drums, timpani, 2 cor anglais, 2 bass clarinets, double bassoon, harp, symphonic strings, woodwind and brass. Light transparent sparkling textures pervade the entire work, contrasting with the dense Germanic orchestral textures common to Brahms and Bruckner. Rather than centring on emotional content, like Beethoven does, MacMillan uses rhythmic and contrapuntal techniques to portray the spectral aspects of orchestral hues. While the development in the first section is riveting, some of this rhythmic momentum is lost due to excessive repetition and left the impression of rhythmic stagnation that may have compromised the drive in the closing section.
The first movement of the Ninth Symphony continues an experimental aspect of Beethoven’s earlier symphonies where he develops multiple short motifs rather than fostering large paragraphs of extended themes. This creates a constantly evolving tension between many disparate motifs. A tense and expectant reiteration of the interval of a fifth played by strings in tremolo stirs a tenuous indeterminant harmonic sense at the movement’s opening. Strings and woodwind gradually build a crescendo to a theme that welds together the opening motifs into a D minor arpeggio played fortissimo by the full orchestra, foreshadowed by a similar passage in the opening to Symphony No. 2. Throughout the movement numerous short motifs are brought into conflict with each other in an inexorable discourse marked by extreme changes of dynamic and persistent dotted rhythms. The MSO maintained this hyper-charged intensity without allowing the brief moments of cantabile to disrupt an unremitting intensity.
In the second movement, Scherzo, Martín’s precise and emphatic direction drew out an electric energy, enabling a natural seamless flow between Beethoven’s marked phrase alterations from three bars to four bars. Martín’s slightly satirical gesturing to the audience to listen to the four timpani solos in the Scherzo’s second section was unobtrusively instructive.
Two remarkable slow movements are features of the Ninth Symphony and Hammerklavier Sonata. The Ninth’s Adagio, 157 bars, is the longest of Beethoven’s symphonic slow movements, while the Adagio of the Hammerklavier Sonata, 187 bars, makes it the longest slow movement of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. Both these works include four movements where the third movement in each work is an Adagio set in in a remote key a third lower than the other movements – a rare key relationship in Beethoven’s compositional idiom. Much more has been written about the Adagio of the Hammerklavier than of the Ninth’s Adagio. Therefore study of the Hammerklavier Adagio might provide further insight to the significance and phrasing in the Adagio of the Ninth symphony. When Beethoven was considering the structure of a choral symphony one of his 1818 diary entries states that the symphony could use voices in the finale and the Adagio movements, implying that the phrasing in the Ninth symphony’s slow movement shadows speech-like rhythm. The MSO certainly brought out this speech-like character in the Adagio theme through the sensitive inflections of the strings delicately echoed by the woodwind. In a compelling performance of the theme’s elaboration the first violins subtly conveyed Beethoven’s fastidiously annotated dynamic shadings with 12 dynamic changes and 10 accentuations over 16 bars, similar to the Adagio of the Hammerklavier where the theme is elaborated with 30 dynamic changes over 22 bars. Furthermore, the sonorous timbre of the MSO’s second violins and violas enhanced the lilting espressivo of the second theme.
The Schreckensfanfare (terror fanfare) shatters the final hushed moments of the Adagio as the first two movement’s D minor tonality and the third movement’s B-flat major combine into a clashing ostinato played by brass, woodwind and timpani. Beethoven consistently annotates this passage with staccato markings, which in his instrumental music usually indicates combining two articulations: detached playing and strong accentuation. This passage would have benefited from more forceful accentuation to achieve its full shocking effect in the transformation of the Adagio’s mood of resignation to exultation of the finale.
The cacophonous Schreckensfanfare is crushed through six sweeping recitative passages that span the length of the cello and double bass registers; their resonant sonority and non-percussive attack highlighted the orchestra’s capacity for impassioned expressive drama. They conjured the momentum of a gradually approaching procession, before intoning the Ode to Joy theme in a lush, unusually muted roundness.
Bass-baritone Shenyang and mezzo-soprano Margaret Plummer performed at short notice. Shenyang sang Beethoven’s own words he prefaced to Schiller’s poem: “O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!” (O friends no more of these sounds!), with admirable confidence, assurance and rhythmic precision while Margaret Plummer’s darkly-veiled tone fitted the text of her solo lines. The soprano soloist Lauren Fagan shared no fear of Beethoven’s demanding writing, delivering her solo in the Poco adagio cadenza leading to the movement’s final climax with an unusual tonal purity as she surged to a top B.
Stuart Skelton, the tenor soloist, sang the tenor solos from memory and relished Beethoven’s embellishments in Schiller’s text “Freude, trinken alle Wesen an den Brüsten der Natur” (All creatures drink of joy at nature’s breast).
C.P.E. Bach states that well-considered gestures play an important role in conveying the emotional content of music. The tenor soloist’s facial gesturing was distracting and diminished the profundity of the music during the orchestral Turkish March, preceding the text “Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen” (Gladly, like the heavenly bodies which He sent on their courses). Barry Cooper the Beethoven scholar, points out that this March is “representative of the non-Western world, to incorporate the whole of humanity”. The tenor soloist’s humorous lip and head gestures to garner attention during the orchestral March could be construed as disrespectful to the orchestra and more suited to an operatic drinking song!
The MSO Chorus, trained by their director Warren Trevelyan-Jones, also performed their part from memory, singing with meticulousness and conviction. They exulted persuasively in the double fugal setting of the Ode to Joy theme led with tremendous vigour by the chorus altos. Overall however, the soloists and chorus seemed understandably tired, after their performances of the Ninth on the previous two evenings, finding it difficult to maintain the resonance needed for Beethoven’s exacting writing. Perhaps a day’s rest between performances might have allowed them to replenish their energy. Most singers find Beethoven’s vocal writing extremely stressful and some sopranos refuse to sing the Ninth because of its arduous range and sustained power. While Verdi admired the first movement he considered Beethoven’s vocal writing extremely taxing for the voice.
The Auslan choir, prepared by Karen Kyriakou and Rachelle Stevens, joined the MSO chorus in a signed performance of the text. Their exceptionally disciplined gesticulations and hand gestures convincingly conveyed the work’s depth and elation.
The MSO’s performance of the Ninth was highly memorable and brought the MSO’s cycle of Beethoven symphonies performed over twelve days to a close. Melbourne should be justly proud of the MSO’s journey through probably the most demanding of all orchestral repertoire. Perhaps Beethoven concertos might be featured for the next Beethoven Festival.
Photo credit: Laura Manariti
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Anthony Halliday reviewed “Ryman Healthcare Spring Gala: Beethoven’s Ninth”, presented by the as part of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Beethoven Festival at Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall on November 30, 2024.
