Peter Goldstein:

>The coda to the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth starts with a new
>theme and builds up to a tremendous climax, at which point the main theme
>comes crashing down and takes the movement to its close.  Back in 1975,
>surveying the 15-20 recordings in the WHRB library, I found that in
>approximately half of them there was a dramatic, orchestra-wide pause just
>before the main theme came in; in the other half, there was no pause at
>all, but a high note in the strings.

That passage is, I believe, at the bar 538.  The high strings note is
a D, which falls into A at the next bar (D-A-F is the d minor triad on
which the main theme is based).  There's no pause here in my edition
(Ricordi, Milano, 1981, p.81), and I don't think that such pause is at the
manuscript, because the rhytmic drawing of the strings (ostinato in 8ves.)
and winds seems very regular.  However, that pause exists at the first
appearance of the main theme (bar 12, last beat), written as a semifusa
silence in the strings.  Some conductors makes this pause much longer,
and it is possible that some others wanted to repeat it at the end of
the movement, making a little silence after the 3rd note of the strings
and playing the last note as a semifuse.

Pablo Massa
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