Audiophile Audition‘s Gary Lemco has published a five-star review for Manfred Honeck and Pittsburgh Symphony’s GRAMMY®-nominated Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 recording:
“This performance does indeed balance its multifarious adjustments to Beethoven’s dynamic requirements with a spacious warmth in the realization that does not suffer lags and sags in the musical line. … We should acknowledge immediately the contribution of acting principal timpanist Christopher Allen in the Scherzo, given the constant immediacy of his presence. This often wild folk dance requires Allen to attend to the third, and later, the fourth measure in the measures after 195 to realize the jest of the shifting ff indication. Honeck retains the quick tempo, urging the Presto trio to move briskly without sacrificing its lyrical quality. The Pittsburgh trumpets and bassoons sound especially alert, as do the French horn, oboe and trombones. The soft dynamic Honeck applies in the trio’s second part imparts a feeling of withdrawal, kind of farewell. Honeck takes all of this movement’s repeats, giving this Molto vivace movement a decided, kinetic breadth. … The last movement Finale opens furioso and chaotic, and it then proceeds to the intimate recitative (the first of six) in tempo that will soon review the former course of the symphony’s history. … Honeck treats the tenor section, the janissary march, like a French Revolutionary military air, faster than a Prussian version of the march. The ensuing fugato proves especially brisk, leading to the ff statement of the Ode’s declaration of human cooperation. The Seid umschlungen Millionen episode projects deep and devotional ethos, almost a reverent whisper with sudden rushes of panic. The tension between worldly and spiritual ambitions becomes colossal, realized musically as a double fugue. The frenetic Presto Honeck imposes on the last pages can be nothing else but a rush to Judgment. The punishing tessitura for the voices likely embodies the human resistance to the acceptance of Beethoven’s plea for universal tolerance and brotherhood, a message that could not be more emphatic in our troubled times.”
—Gary Lemco, Audiophile Audition