# Beethoven's Ninth - B-flat or D?!



## tempo (Nov 8, 2012)

Ok, so Mr Del Mar's 'new' Beethoven editions have been out a while now and there are a number of recordings that purport to use them.

The interesting thing is, so many of the cycles that proudly announce their use of Del Mar's findings are actually being a little misleading - because they don't.

If we take the Ninth Symphony, which is where so many of the most striking recommendations from Del Mar occur, we find that many of Del Mar's supposed followers ignore his recommendation to play the D that Beethoven specified in bar 81 (rather than the long-standing substitute note of B-flat) of the first movement and/or the ties in the French Horns 'vamp' after the Turkish March in the fourth movement immediately prior to the big entrance of "Freude, schoner Gotterfunken."

To my knowledge, only Charles Mackerras, Paavo Järvi, Jos van Immerseel, Simon Rattle and Thomas Dausgaard actually observe both these recommendations in their 'Del Mar' recordings of the Ninth.

Haitink, Vanska, Gardiner, Boyd, Norrington and Abbado either follow only one of these recommendations, or in fact neither. 

Anyway, what are your views on Del Mar's changes to the Ninth? Which modern recordings of the Ninth do you favour? 

Particularly, should the second note of bar 81 of the first movement be a D (Beethoven's score and Del Mar) or B-flat (traditional interpretation/adjustment)?


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## tempo (Nov 8, 2012)

Didn't realise that NO ONE would have an opinion on this. Thought this was a forum for classical experts.


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