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Reviewed by:
  • Beethoven’s 9th Symphony—The Full Experience by Touch Press
  • Pamela E. Pagels
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony—The Full Experience. [London]: Touch Press, 2013. Available for Apple mobile devices through iTunes (Accessed September 2014) [Requires an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch running iOS 6 or later. Pricing: $13.99 for the iPad, $7.99 for the iPhone and iPod Touch.]

Touch Press brands itself as a maker of “inspiring apps for curious minds – apps that change the way you see and understand the world.”4 Their earliest creations include educational applications for disciplines in the sciences and the humanities. To these, Touch Press has added apps that offer innovative learning tools for in-depth examinations of important musical compositions.

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony—The Full Experience, released in May, 2013, is the second music app released by the developer. The project is a partnership with Deutsche Grammophon, utilizing four distinct audio recordings (one with video) for users to study. The app also includes two versions of the full orchestral score synchronized to each of the recordings. At this time, the app is available only for Apple devices, including the iPad, iPod Touch, and the iPhone, running iOS 6 or later. This review is based on the version of the app for the iPad.

More than a recording with score tandem, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony—The Full Experience is an app that includes an abundance of video and textual content and tools that a variety of users can use to engage more fully with Beethoven’s iconoclastic work.

Recordings

The cornerstone of the app is the four complete recordings of the symphony from the Deutsche Grammophon catalog. There are two recordings by the Berliner Philharmoniker. The earliest, from 1958, is conducted by Ferenc Fricsay and marks the first stereo recording of the work. There also is Herbert von Karajan’s recording from 1962 that became part of his first recorded Beethoven symphony cycle. Von Karajan would go on to record the complete symphonies three more times, but it is this first version that has remained the most successful Beethoven cycle ever recorded.5

Two more recordings depart from the Berlin sound offering the listener significantly different interpretations of the symphony. There is a 1979 Wiener Philharmoniker recording, led by Leonard Bernstein which includes the complete video of the concert performance. Remarkable not only for the visuals of the maestro’s inimitable podium presence, the orchestra under Bernstein is more luxurious with tempos and phrasing, creating a string sound that is noticeably warmer and richer than what is captured in the earlier recordings included in the app.

The most recent recording, from 1992, features the Orchestre Révoloutionnaire et Romantique under John Eliot Gardiner. Most immediately noticeable in this recording is that the orchestra is tuned at A430. The symphony also is performed on period instruments offering the listener the distinct timbres of gut strings, valveless brass, and wooden flutes.

Users can toggle through all of these recordings effortlessly to compare variations in tempos, instrumental balance, solo lines, vocal performances, and many other nuances of the symphonic performance. The inclusion of these particular recordings also allows listeners to consider the ever-changing sensibilities brought to bear on Beethoven interpretations and recordings over five decades. In this single app, listeners can survey the gamut of artistic realizations that encompass the clarity and precision of Fricsay, the polish and elegance of von Karajan, the romantic grandiosity of Bernstein, and the historically reconstructed sound of Gardiner.

Scores

The app includes three different options for viewing the score. There is the digitized copy of the manuscript that Beethoven sent [End Page 545] to the Royal Philharmonic Society in 18246. Currently housed in the British Library, the manuscript is the work of multiple copyists but includes corrections in Beethoven’s hand.7 This is the score used by conductor George Smart at the London premiere of the symphony in 1825. There also is a typeset score, the work of English music editor and conductor Jonathan Del Mar. Del Mar’s edition is the result of extensive research, comparing the twenty extant sources of the symphony to create a new edition that eliminates...

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