Christoph von Dohnányi, The Cleveland Orchestra - Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (1985)

Dohnanyi leads a Beethoven Ninth distinguished by its forward focus, visceral energy, and most certainly the Cleveland Orchestra’s exquisitely polished and boldly projected playing. The first movement and scherzo proceed at relatively swift tempos, with sharply delineated rhythms that give the music real punch. The recording was made before publication of the new Barenreiter editions, but Dohnanyi offers his own textural revelations, such as the violins’ suspended D beginning at bar 515 of the scherzo (at the close of the trio). After a flowing and chastely beautiful adagio, Dohnanyi launches the finale with a burst of blaring, wonderfully discordant energy. But the middle of the movement goes somewhat soft, bogged down by “traditionally” slow tempos–especially at “Seid umschlungen, Millionen!” Still, the solo and choral contributions are uniformly excellent.

Telarc’s recording is noticeably brighter than others in this series, but it has plenty of dynamic impact and balances the various performing forces quite believably. In many ways Dohnanyi’s approach is similar to that of his predecessor in Cleveland, George Szell, whose recording, a miracle of musical alchemy, is rightly regarded as a classic. Dohnanyi’s doesn’t always sustain quite that level of achievement but his is a compelling performance in its own right, and certainly merits serious consideration.