The Greatest C Major?

Dear Friends,

Schubert's Ninth was my first encounter with the Viennese Classics, and I have adored it for 35 years now. I was given my first LP of it for my tenth birthday, and that was the then new HMV recording of Barbiroli and the Halle Orchestra costing the procely sum of two pounds and a shilling! That was more than a premium CD now considering inflation!

In the School library we had Boult and the LPO on an old Pye mono LP, which was quite different to the my new LP, but I listened to both, not prefering either.

Over the years I have owned many recordings, and then next I got was Boult in 1934 with the BBC SO on HMV, which I taped off the radio when Boult died in 1984. It is splendid. After that I found Tennstedt with the BPO on EMI France on a brand new recording also in 1984, but this was not so fine. Far too heavy and strangely charmless. then came CDs and I got Boult's stereo HMV recording, which was disconcerting. There is a frightful edit right at the start of the main allegro in the first movement, and the effect is of a badly crashed gear on an old car. One good tug, a horrid bang and jolt, and we're off sitting back in our seeats slightly dazed! That went as did the Tennstedt. Then came what has been my favourite and just new released again now: Erich Kleiber live in Koln. [Now on Decca]. Then followed the fiery and splendid 1942 account in Berlin under Furtwangler, which I have some doubts about. It is a lop-sided view. Too much anger and not enough Viennese charm, but it is compelling in its way. Then I got the same performers from a DG studio recording from 1951 [?], which has the measure it it much better, but is less compelling, and indeed only stays because of the marvelous live performance of the Rosamunde Overture the makes up the programme.

Then came two more Furtwangler efforts and both splendid, and humaine. Berlin live in 1953, which is long breathed and patient, but never sags, and then something VERY special: VPO live in Stockholm is 1942 only a few weeks away from the War-time Birlin recording. A different place, and atmosphere. It is achingly beautiful, and so poigniant that the second movement has on occasion reduced me to tears. There is nobility and strength here and some phenomeneal playing in a reading that is as fast as Kleiber's.

Then I got the HMV Boult again last years, and played once, that went again, as the edit is obviously not repairable. Sad really as the old 78 set showed how fine Boults reading really is. The best of all in my view.

So this Saturday I found that the BBC, on its Legends Series had release a Boult Prom performance from 1969. Is it flawed? Yes, and badly, because the audience take ages to settle at the start and actually start applauding at the very begining of the final chord, but that tells its own tale. This is wonderful reading and a wonderful performance, which comes in tolerably fine sound, but most of all Boult keeps the balances so clear that inner detail is at least as audible as on any really fine studio recording. Much better than the Tennstedt in Berlin for example. This now finds poll position for me, but the other two I really love are the Stockholm (VPO) set under Furtwangler, and the marvelously luminous Koln set under Kleiber. I cannot recomend either the Boult (live BBC) or Kleiber sets too highly though I think the Furtwangler set is currently out of print (Tahra, France), which is a shame as it is uniquely splendid in the Scherzo and Trio, which fits right in with the Viennese playing style, and also there is some rather splendid, and out and out go for it, horn playing in the Allegro ma non troppo, proper, of the First movement. Surprisingly Boult is at least as flexible as Furtwangler over tempi in the First Movement, and both managed a splendid transition from the Introduction to the Allegro ma non troppo. Kleiber has another Ace up his sleeve here, as he takes the Andante Introduction at a strick and rather (too?) quick pulse that allows a completely seemless entry to the main First Subject, which is slightly slower than Boult or Furtwangler, and again retains this pulse right into the Second Subject group, where Boult and Furtwangler relax a little. What Kleiber does is about forty years before the period boys got their hands on the music, gives them a ground-plan for action! All of them have fire and charm in fine balance, but as a total conception I would put Boult at the head. I have known this for a long time though it is incredible, that ghastly edit in the EMI studio recording of Boult. The 78s, even though there is a side break at that exact moment, are actually better when assmbled in transfer, though only the live set really shows how marvelously Boult achieves this transition. It is like a great vista on emerging from the mists of the Introduction. A moment of Beethovenian power...

Tremendous, and dumbfoundingly beautiful, all of them, actually.

Sincerely, Fredrik