Confession

....This is not easy to make.....

I'm getting tired of Beethoven's 9th. Not revolted, just tired. Tired of the metaphysical bull that it always picks up, tired of the slow tempos at which it's performed, tired of the awful German poetry the choral movement sets, tired of the endless performances to the exclusion of every other work, tired of enormous orchestras treating it like Richard Strauss, tired of people acclaiming it as the greatest piece of music in history without hearing what else there is. In the right performance it can still be amazing, but how often do we get that?

Here's one better than most. The London Classical Players under Roger Norrington. Traditionalists still howl with outrage at this recording, but nobody did a better job at stripping the varnish off. Finally, here's a Beethoven people can relate to. This is not a Beethoven who is interested in transcendence, or synthesis, or the noumenal world. This is a Beethoven that's just interested in following the metronome mark, and he's really pissed off.



I'm pretty sure 15-year-old Evan just disowned me.