New Yorker Staats-Zeitung
May 21 - June 1, 2001

Beethoven's Ninth: Elegant and Noble
David Randolph, The St. Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra
by Egon Stadelman

There are sufficiently frequent reviews of concerts in which this masterpiece of the giant from Bonn is performed by great orchestras, prominent conductors and popular soloists. The Ninth is a work that belongs to the world. It is called "this kiss to the whole world" in Schiller's text. Beethoven, himself, believed it to be music of the whole world. It was also understood this way by humanity and recognized as the most moving symphonic work of art. It is extolled wherever it is performed.

And the Ninth is performed everywhere and always – in concert halls, over the radio, in live performances over TV. And from time to time, some experts feel compelled to review it over and over. Nevertheless, it is not superfluous to report critically about the work once more.

Our attention is directed to a group which in the "great" musical world is practically unnoticed, even though it has been in existence since 1906 and has been led for 35 years by David Randolph, who is faithful to the classical interpretation of music.

Maestro Randolph was born in New York, son of American parents. When he appears on the podium, one has the reassuring feeling that one sees a helmsman one can readily trust. Randolph is a musician who vibrates with intensity, but is not overheated (like so many of his international colleagues, who, especially in front of a camera, confuse the podium with a vaudeville stage.)

David Randolph prepares his music quietly and thoroughly; like an anatomist, he works according to a defined plan in a restrained spirit.

Recently, he brought Beethoven's Ninth to Carnegie Hall with his St. Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra. I have heard the Ninth in Berlin in my youth, in England (to which I emigrated), at Glyndebourne, and here, whenever it was performed. Everywhere, it was a moving and enjoyable experience for me.

However, only twice was I deeply affected and moved. The first was in December, 1989, when Leonard Bernstein performed the work with orchestra and chorus members from four nations and the children's choir of the Gendarmenmarkt Church – when tens of thousands of Berliners experienced the concert, standing devoutly in bitter cold in the great square in front of the Church.

Bernstein, who came to Berlin in celebration of the fall of the Wall, had replaced the word "Freude" (joy) with the word "Friede" (peace) for this occasion. It does not require much to imagine what effect the change of this single word had on the Berliners in this finally united city in a re-united Germany. A storm of applause broke out that confirmed the deeply moving effect of this music, this text, and this performance.

It was the same on the evening of May 12, 2001, in Carnegie Hall in New York when David Randolph finished the Ninth. An ovation filled the house such as Carnegie Hall has rarely experienced. It was meant for the conductor, David Randolph; it was meant for the orchestra and the soloists; and it was intended, above all, for the chorus – which, while it is considered an "amateur" chorus (no singer is a professional musician), can compete with any professional chorus (probably surpassing it) and yet is practically unnoticed in the so-called great music world.

How can amateurs create such an outstanding performance? "Simple", says Maestro Randolph in an interview. "I work with the chorus members. Twice a year we have auditions to find the best voices. Then I explain the essentials of the work we're to perform, as we rehearse it." When one is in charge of a dedicated group for 35 years, one has the confidence of the newcomers.

Randolph has studied the urtext score of the work. Nevertheless, his interpretation differs from those of his colleagues. "Starting with the first five bars, I see the opening as majestic and perform it more slowly", he explains. "And when one studies the four movements, one constantly discovers something new – the luminosity, grace, passion, nobility and feeling of the music.

Maestro Randolph also speaks of the rehearsals of the orchestra, soloists, and chorus, and of the attention he pays, in the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth, specifically to the many transitions and to the relationships of one tempo to another. The success of the performance depends on the definition of these transitions. He means not only the precarious passages of Beethoven's Ninth, but those in every work he and his St. Cecilia Chorus bring to Carnegie Hall.

Does Randolph, the director of the organization, select the program? "Not autocratically," he answers. "We are a democratic group, and we have a Music Committee, elected by the membership. Several times a year we get together, examine the extensive repertoire, and, after much deliberation, decide what we wish to perform."

For this coming season, the Committee chose Bach's Christmas Oratorio for the Carnegie Hall concert on December 23, 2001; Michael Haydn's little-known Requiem and Joseph Haydn's Schöpfungsmesse for the March 3, 2002 concert at the Church of the Heavenly Rest; and, for the concert in Carnegie Hall on April 27, 2002, Orff's Carmina Burana and the seldom-heard The Bells, which Rachmaninov regarded as his favorite among his own works.

(Translated from the German by Sibyl Karn)