Word: leinsdorf
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...hard for a piece preceding the Ninth not to sound like a curtain-raiser: Everybody comes to hear what follows, but has to sit through the opening number anyway. Since Leinsdorf decided to preface the Ninth with something, Siegfried Idyll was a good choice. Unfortunately for those, like myself, for whom it is Wagner's only approachable composition, Leinsdorf's treatment of it was disappointing...
...section of the BSO standing on Mrs. Wagner's steps, you will get some idea of how Tuesday's performance sounded. No one loves the depth and richness of a large subdued string section better than I do; but the winds sounded puny in all those strings, even when Leinsdorf held them back. This situation, plus Leinsdorf's apparent desire not to spoil the Beethoven by making the Wagner too exciting, yielded a performance that was competent, well-played, and dull: The work deserves better treatment...
...well. The fact that the opening fifth of the first movement was noticeably out of tune was soon forgotten; for the rest of the movement, which I remembered as a sleepy and amorphous prelude to the Scherzo, was exciting to listen to. The orchestra was on its toes, and Leinsdorf was in control as he should have been-though he tended to make too much of certain of the important cello passages...
...third movement was as lovely as the first, and the winds were back in form. Leinsdorf's annoying flair for the unnecessarily dramatic got the better of his judgement at the end of it, however, and he went into the fourth movement without a pause. The audience was visibly disconcerted (we jumped), and Leinsdorf compounded his error by having the chorus stand on cue when this opening motive returned, an effect comparable to having them arrive in a burst of lightning...
Aside from these silly indulgences, the Finale was superlative. The orchestra was of course too loud for the soloists, who projected nothing but interference patterns in the ensembles, and for the chorus, which it covered up ever so often; but Leinsdorf never quiets his players: he simply asks for more from the singers...