This was broadcast on Radio 3 at the end of January – I think it’s also on Youtube. The I-Player link is BBC Radio 3 – Radio 3 in Concert, To the memory of an angel. I was interested to hear this as, had the pandemic allowed, I was supposed to see this concert at the Barbican on 7 January at 3.30pm. In the event I cut out the Berg Violin Concerto, interesting and moving work though this is, and just listened to the Schubert.
It’s years since I listened attentively to Schubert 9. I bought the LSO/Josef Krips recording when I was about 13, and remember in the 1970’s wonderful live performances (on several occasions) by Sir Adrian Boult (who, I’ve just discovered can also be found on Youtube conducting the work – (263) Franz Schubert “Symphony No 9” Sir Adrian Boult – YouTube), and also a memorable concert with the LSO and Karl Bohm, his first concert in London c1971 since …?before the war/ever? I remember the grandeur of the ending of the first movement in Bohm’s reading, making it sound like Bruckner (my brother who was at the same concert – Mozart 29, Strauss Don Juan and the Schubert – compared Bohm’s reading favourably to Bruno Walter’s recording from the 1950’s), and I seem also, thinking back, to recollect the spring and the bounce of rhythms which Boult’s slightly slow pacing generated. I also remember some intensive listening maybe a little later in the 80’s to a Furtwangler performance on record but in terms of live performances since the 70’s I don’t think I’ve ever heard it again and sat all the way through it.
This of course was a recording but it felt ‘live’ – I suppose partly because, without the pandemic, it would have been so and I would have gone to it, and also partly because it felt very ‘live’ in several senses of the word as a performance. It was recorded in LSO St Lukes, and, while occasionally there were some smudges, these seemed to make it more of a live occasion. I guess because of the acoustic of St Lukes, the woodwind sounded very forward, the strings quite backward (that may also be because there were less of them than usual). I found lots of interpretative nuances in the performance and things to enjoy – particularly a real Viennese swing in the waltzy bits of the third movement . The first movement prelude started off very fast and I wondered whether that was right, but Rattle and the LSO persuaded me it was fine, and the transition to the first movement proper worked well. I was blown away by the second melody of the slow movement – beautifully played, and it took me back to when i played my Krips/LSO record in 1967 and reflected, as I listened to that movement, on the school journey I had just been on to France (Grenoble), on how liberating that had felt and how dismal it felt coming back to Hackney! Right at the end Rattle and the LSO were sprightly, and didn’t give the full weight a Furtwangler would have done to the Don Giovanni / Commendatore 4 knocks on the door – but after all, this is still a young man’s work, for goodness sake, and the LSO brought out all the energy, bite, passion and nuance you could want. I really enjoyed this!
Picture of Karl Bohm below for the memory.
John's musical journey 