Review: Honeck's Narcissistic Beethoven Ninth 

And here I thought David's videos only COST me money. Thanks for saving me money on this one! You really took one for the team!

A Pittsburgh Symphony fan, here. I am so glad I have my treasured Steinberg recordings of Beethoven.

David. I was worried by Honeck's timings and your review just confirmed it. Thanks.

Love the tie clip!

David: long-time Brian Society subscriber here (my first compositions are up on the site) and yes, I was at the 2011 Gothic. Pleasure to discover your RU-vid channel...so much out there, and so little time. Thanks for the most excellent review. I'll be back.

If Honeck wants to know what Beethoven thought about extra musical matters , he should read some of LvB's notebook entries , like "In everything but music I am an ass", or in reference to Napoleon "Even with that bastard I made a mistake" and then there is the mess with his nephew Karl.

There are a lot of Honeck recordings I didn't like and every time I ended up listening to his Dvorak 8th instead.

Go Dave!! Spot on!!! One of if not your clearest explanations of performance problems interfacing art yet! Enjoyed this more even than your ‘exposes’ of the usually (commonly) untouchable uncrticizeable (is that a word¿) ‘god’ Furtwangler. Drinking one’s own koolaid is always disastrous…

Thanks, Dave. I agree on your rational comments on the Adagio, but also feel that for psychological reasons, it can never be rushed. That Adagio is needed to cast aside all the thunderclouds. It is a peaceful evening after a stormy day and before a new and bright dawn. A revolution has happened (and you are right, it has no place in the last movement), and now we are entering some sort of new era. Run through it, and the listener just is not ready for that finale.

Your description, in places, reminds me of the ridiculous David Zinman recording in which he takes the march in the last movement so fast it could be a can-can, and his adagio is also shorter than the scherzo.

Blomstedt's adagio with the Gewandhaus is (slightly) shorter than the scherzo and I have to say it flows well and it is nicely cantabile - not so much 'adagio molto', but it works!

I actually listened to this yesterday and I definitely agree on the tempi. A real shame. I thought the same on the hurriedness during the tenor's solo in the 4th movement. No space for the singer to showcase his chops. I'm always a fan of Maestro Honeck's use of brass and percussion and general pacing and I think he's one of the best out there. I more so enjoy the recording than dislike it, but it is so so fast at times which takes away from its quality.

Glad to hear you call out Ben Zander for HIS narcissism (and windbag-ism) as well. My introduction to Zander was a talk on why nobody besides himself gets the Danse sacrale from the Rite of Spring tempo right. EVERYONE is too slow and orchestras of the past couldn’t play it at the correct tempo. His evidence? Stravinsky’s piano roll via an lp release of it. Yep, a piano roll, where nobody knows exactly what speed it should be played back at, and where there is no change of pitch to signal the speed is incorrect! I gave him my opinion on that and I think he probably would have murdered me on the spot if he could have. I agree about Honeck’s fantastic Eroica....too bad about this one. I must admit I’d like to hear it now, to find my own compass, but I do feel he’s been headed in this direction. The Bruckner 9th was awfully fussy as well.

Your critique reminds me of many Leinsdorf-Boston Symphony performances when he was Music Director, especially of standard rep. The script (notes) was there, but often the spirit that inspired the notes was diluted, if not missing: didactic exercises-- albeit at a high level of musical knowledge and performance technique.

Actually David, your review has moved me to purchase this recording. I have eight recordings of this symphony (😲) and they are all pretty much alike in taking the conventional approach regarding tempi etc. So these days for me to buy a recording I have to be picky: it has to bring something new to the table for me. We can speculate ad infinitum what composers intended. Who is to say what Beethoven might think about this take on his music? I look forward to it.

Classy

I'm still looking forward to Honeck's Pastoral, if only to see if the recording engineers were ever able to get rid of the high-pitched whine that made the conductor halt the performance in the middle of the first movement and ask the Heinz Hall audience to please turn off their hearing aids as they were all the microphones could pick up.

Agree. It's always bad not see the forest for the trees, that's a very frequent phenonemon. But what's the point of recording it still over and over again? Is there a lack of great Beethoven 9?

I confess that, for me, the ninth is the least favorable among Beethoven's symphonies. I find it a flawed realization of a monumental, visionary concept. Therefore, I've been seeking an interpretation that will bring the realization as close as possible to Beethoven's ideal (to my ears, of course). I listened to many attempts - all failed to "do it for me" (including some HIP and Original Instrument readings). And then I found Fricsay's "classic" recording. That one finally enabled me to imbibe at least a portion of the ninth's sublime nectar :).

When I saw the timings for each movement on Presto Classical, I was wondering how it would fare next to Mackerras on Hyperion (which has similar timings in all 4 movements). Judging from your review, I guess I'm better off sticking with Mackerras. Out of Honeck's previous Beethoven for this series, I agree that the Eroica and the 5th are stunning, but his 7th struck me as being rather mannered too (he also happens to repeat both Kleibers' mistake of adding pizzicato strings at the end).

The Szell/Cleveland recording of the Ninth is the one that I grew up with, and it still remains one of my very favorites. I'm also a Bernstein fan, so his Vienna Ninth is a sentimental favorite, mainly because it was recorded in the year that I was born. :) BTW, as for the Eroica, Honeck's is one of the finest since Szell AND Bernstein, IMHO. ;)

Many thanks David for this review, I was looking forward to this recording as ''something new and different'' but it seems just same old same old of conductors trying to do their thing instead of Beethoven's. You've saved me a few quid. Any chance of doing the Beethoven Violin Concerto one day ?

Oh boy wait until you hear Honeck's latest Brahms 4th recording with Pittsburgh....Looking forward to your review of that.

Dave I really like Honeck, and I would appreciate it if you could review his Bruckner and Mahler symphonies

Thank you for adding a word to my cranial dictionary. I thought you said "concagnation", so I had to look up the meaning. I see....it`s "concatenation": "a group of things linked together or occurring together in a way that produces a particular result"--evidently a result, in this case, you did not particularly relish. Sometimes, however, a rendition is so incredibly unusual that one may find it fascinating just on that level alone, like the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra version of the 9th I heard on the radio on Beethoven`s birthday last year. (I will draw the line, however, at using a tuba as Mahler did in his adaptation. Slatkin did that version with the NSO once. It was kinda weird.)

I was really looking forward to this release! What a shame...

The fast revolutionary march idea isn't even original. This was Gardiner's (bad) idea.

I’ve never heard a better tympani roll at the deceptive cadence into F major at steht voir Gott! But you’re right about the adagio it sounds like he was possessed by Norrington.

Dave, you have saved me from an unnecessary expenditure, and not for the first time. I would have gladly bought this recording, having been impressed by Honeck's devastating account of the Bruckner 9--my first encounter with this conductor on record. However, any version of Beethoven's Ninth that races through the adagio will never find a place on my already too-crowded shelf. I don't mind an interventionist interpretation if the interventions genuinely illuminate the music, but from your description Honeck's interventions distort the music. Too bad, since the Pittsburgh Symphony is such an amazing orchestra these days.

“The general sense is lost in a morass of senseless detail.” That poetic turn of phrase, David, is a memorable one for the ages. Do you have that one written down somewhere in one of your reviews? It can apply to many recordings that are trying too hard to be different and “revolutionary.” This is one of the problems often found in ostensibly “historically informed” approaches, despite some other important contributions and insights they sometimes have.

This is Honeck trying to be different just for the sake of being different, which, usually, means there was nothing new to say about the work.

What is described in the video to the best of my knowledge happened yesterday in Leipzig. I have been listening to the end of year Beethovens 9th for the past 19 years here, many with Chailly others with Blomstedt and Nelson but this one was strange. Honeck directed yesterday with the Gewandhausorchester and I did not feel the Alle Menschen werden Brüder sentiment that I get for the end of the year, which is the entire purpose of playing this symphony every year since 1918, to promote peace on earth. To me the timpanis were too loud at certain point (like the fifth offbeat timpani in the second movement) and the final bars of the fourth movement the strings felt like a loud stutter. The turkish march felt like they were being hurried, which brought me back to when I used to do that and my teacher would ask me if I was being chased by anyone. So FOR ME, it felt strange, like a bizarro version of the 9th. Given the state of the world with authoritarianism growing in popularity perhaps it is an appropriate renditiin of the times? In our day in age I must sadly also make it clear what I am not saying. Not saying it was bad, and not saying that Honeck cant direct. It is my experience which is subjective and deeply amateur having only studied music for a year.

I spotted this needy fiddling/highlighting and disruptive phrasing in his Bruckner 9 - I have no time for it when it’s not adding to the piece. It is sad though he was never a favourite of mine - he was reliably adventurous in Europe. The playing and recordings they are getting in Pittsburgh are divine. Shame it all being compromised.

I can’t say I was surprised. As great a conductor as Honeck likely is as witnessed with his work in Pittsburgh, I have found his mannerisms and futzing with the scores more than annoying. One reason that I don’t like his recording of the Dvorak Violin Concerto. As you say, maybe he will learn to leave well enough alone when he returns to some of these masterpieces.

So on a previous episode of "Manfred Explains it All," I heard that he/PSO played a version of Mahler 6 a couple years ago that had FIVE (5) hammer blows. Does anyone have any information on this? What was his source? Believe me, I'm one of those vulgarists who thinks Mahler 6 is better with 3 than 2, and I'll take 18 hammer blows if someone can justify them, but I've been unable to search or find any more information about these performances? Thanks, anyone; and David -- superb review!

It's simply the height of hubris for any conductor-Honeck, Currentzis, Norrington, etc., take your pick-to think that he has anything "new" to say about Beethoven's 9th-or Tchaikovsky's 6th, Mahler's 5th, etc.-in the year 2019 or 2020 or 2021. You read some of these booklet notes, and you would think that they've been asleep since the 1980s, when the period instrument crew started making such silly gnostic claims.

I don't think I've ever been as sad about agreeing with you on something. Although I will say I was very relieved when he slowed down enough for the last "freude schöner götterfunken"--at least it ended on an interpretive high.

Thank you for saving me $18.

I preordered the CD a couple of days ago...What a pitty.😂

I guess if the review is so-so, you wear a shirt and tie, but if it's good, you wear a tux.

Honestly I'm very tired of this piece, do we really need another Beethoven 9th? That being said, I see a lot of comments here on the timings which kind of surprises me. Just from the timings alone Honeck doesn't seem like he's particularly fast. More or less the norm these days, isn't it? Of course, timings only tell part of a story. Since you brought him up -- and mentioned how fast Honeck's Adagio was -- have you heard Zander's recent recording, David? It's about a minute and a half quicker.

I heartily agree! I, too, thought this would be another great Honeck/Pittsburgh collaboration, but frenzy and hysteria are NOT viable where Godlike majesty is required. I will never buy another Honeck performance again without checking here first. I hope he gets over this manic phase as soon as possible. How could he be so oblivious to what he was hearing?

Again, when you revile a recording, I know that it will be enlightening, thought provoking and well worth checking out, so thanks. I never pay attention to what a performer or conductor says anyway, it's usually not worth bothering about.

Holy Cow you referenced Ben Zander LMAO🤣 Let's just listen to Szell's Beethoven 👍

Beethoven's 9th tie!!!

How very disappointing. Great maestro, great orchestra, couldn’t resist the temptation to try to stand out in the crowd. Sounds like instead this stands out in the wrong way. Very snazzy tie and shirt combo anyway Dave.

I haven’t seen Honeck live, but his recordings on RU-vid are typically poorly balanced with several of those inappropriate mannerisms you mention. When I read people rave about his talent, I just don’t hear it for myself.

His Dvorak was great but his Beethoven 5th, to me at least was self indulgent and boring. His notes for that disk were also self serving. So will not be buying the 9th.. BTW, did not like his Eroica at all.