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**** Otto Klemperer/Philharmonia

BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONY No. 9

(Testament)

This previously unreleased live recording captures a performance at London's Royal Festival Hall on November 15, 1957, with the 72-year-old Otto Klemperer leading the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus and soloists Åse Nordmo-Løvberg, Christa Ludwig, Waldemar Kmennt, and Hans Hotter. Compared with Klemperer's studio recording (which he made a few days later, with the same orchestra and singers), this performance is a little tighter, a little tougher, a little more urgent. The opening movement forgoes the brute force of Beethoven's metronome markings in favor of ominous mystery -- you can hear what inspired Anton Bruckner in the opening bars of his Ninth Symphony. The Scherzo is characteristic Klemperer: slow and obsessive, with nightmare detail in the Trio; the Adagio is braver, less wistful than the studio reading and has woodwinds to die for. The Finale moves from darkness into light, with outstanding enunciation by the Wilhelm Pitz-prepared chorus. The studio release is cheaper, but this one has lucid sound and the immediacy of a great live performance, and it's further proof that in music the tempo is always relative.

-- Jeffrey Gantz