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Beethoven,  Symphonies Nos. 1 and 9: Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz, conductor, Ute Selbig, soprano, Michèle Losier, mezzo-soprano, John Mac Master, tenor, Richard Zeller, baritone, Seattle Symphony Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 2.1.2009 (BJ)


Inelegant as it may sound, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” might stand as a good principle for Gerard Schwarz’s annual presentation of Beethoven’s Ninth. In a program that, this time around, paired Beethoven not with a Bach cantata as in recent seasons but with Beethoven, custom had clearly not staled the enthusiasm of the conductor’s approach, nor the skill and artistry of the orchestral and choral response.

Amid the overall continuity of interpretation, there were indeed one or two rewarding new emphases. Tempo in the first-movement coda was modified to eloquent effect, with a noticeable slowing-down for the sliding chromatic figure followed by a dynamic but not undignified surge of power for the closing measures. And I cannot remember ever hearing such fierce punctuation from the brass section at the very end of the symphony. But in between it was, in the healthiest way, the mixture as before, with a refreshing avoidance of too much weighty portentousness in the outer movements, a lithe and nicely detailed scherzo, and the proper differentiation between Adagio and Andante tempos–a differentiation most conductors miss–in the slow movement.

The orchestra was in fine fettle, with beautifully focused string tone and excellent work from all sections (though, if you didn’t know there were three notes in those arresting timpani interjections in the scherzo, you would probably have heard only two from the way Ronald Johnson played them), and Jeffrey Fair shaped the all-important fourth-horn solo in the finale sensitively. Joseph Crnko’s chorus, too, sang their collective hearts out, with unfailingly clear diction, sonorous tone, and a superbly sustained top A from the sopranos in the finale’s dashing double fugue.

Almost all that was lacking to make this Ninth a complete success was a really convincing solo quartet. The best of the soloists was tenor John Mac Master, who sang his marching-song lustily if not quite as disjointedly as the frequent little rests in the part require. Soprano Ute Selbig seemed to be having a bad night, her tone piercingly metallic and her intonation scatter-shot, while mezzo Michèle Losier, whom I admired as Diana in last season’s Iphigénie en Tauride at the Seattle Opera, made little impact on this occasion. And though Richard Zeller tackled the difficult bit in the bass part (the long melisma on “freudenvollere”) with splendid aplomb and sumptuous tone, his opening phrases bore only the sketchiest relation to what Beethoven actually wrote–unless it was the width of his vibrato that made it hard for the listener to distinguish precise pitches.

I say “almost all” because I could have wished Maestro Schwarz to observe a few more of the repeats in the scherzo, as also in the minuet da capo of the First. For the rest, the First Symphony was stylishly done. The Andante was given a notably sprightly reading, at exactly the tempo Beethoven suggested in the metronome marking he later added to the movement (and here Mr Johnson’s deft touching-in of the timpani part was more like his usual assured work). And the piece made an ideal curtain-raiser for a Ninth that suitably crowned the evening.

Bernard Jacobson

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