Prom 61: Chineke! performs Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (2.09.22)

[oddoneout]

Please enlighten us!

I looked this up yesterday and this was all I could find at the time. https://slippedisc.com/2022/09/chine...estra-manager/
Going through the comments suggests that there have been "differences of opinion" perhaps.

[bluestateprommer]

I must catch up with this. I watched the TV broadcast of the first two movements yesterday, and was quite impressed. Despite the hectic tempo, the players seemed to be on top of things. So maybe things deteriorated towards the end?

The one "deterioration" that I noticed in the finale was what sounded like a mass word-change from the chorus upon their re-entry to start the coda to the finish, after the calm of the solo quartet. I've no idea what the "new words" from the chorus were, as it seems to have been a group inspiration./ meltdown / improvisation, but the standard words got back on track soon enough. Georgia Mann did mention that the chorus sang off-book. I need to archive in the Forum Calendar the full list of the additional singers from the 7 (!) additional choirs that GM mentioned after the performance.

Going back to the start of LvB 9, KJE's interpretation definitely sounded in the "lean, mean fighting machine" HIPP-inspired mold. The first movement particularly felt a bit overly hard-driven, at least to me. However, in keeping with EA's comment, the Chineke! players did sound on the edge of their seats with the hectic pacing in the 1st two movements, although KJE seems to relax the hectic-ness a bit in the Scherzo. The slow movement, by contrast, was definitely more relaxed and cantabile in flow, but not at all stodgy. I recall the phrase "refined, flowing account" in the old Penguin Guide description of the slow movement of Klemperer's Philharmonia HMV recording, and that description fit KJE's reading here.

On George Walker's Lilacs, Nicole Cabell did a fine job in this Proms performance, as she did earlier this year when she stepped in as a substitute for Latonia Moore with FW-M and the Cleveland Orchestra (I traveled to Cleveland for a few days, on a multi-city trip, and attended this concert - program for anyone who wants to read the pdf).

FWIW, this concert turned out to be the 8th and final Prom selected by the US public radio program SymphonyCast for their annual selection of Proms.