|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
62.44.134.162
On the strength of listening to an old LP of Mahler's 6th (Solti, CSO, 1970) at a local hi-fi shop I ordered the Decca CD. I haven't bought much classical music lately and its seems all my "alternative" pop/rock bands are going through dry periods, so I feel good about getting back on track.
Observe, before you think
Follow Ups:
Solti's Mahler and Wagner were marketed mainly on the "greatness" of the CSO brass section. Even though in the case of the Mahler Six, I once used it to demonstrate the virtuosic superiority of Cleveland's brass section.............I also find Solti's original vinyl transcriptions to "scream" when digitized. He was maybe the biggest victim of digitization of any conductor I can think of. Solti was considered a truly great conductor before the digital age, merely "good" afterwards.
Edits: 08/11/12
The hard acoustics of orchestra hall coupled with hyper spotlit Decca sound, add super stereo panning and very loud intense music and you get this cycle. The orchestra is virtuosic with some truly magic moments. The softer sections come out ok as the recording emphasizes up close sound maybe compressed that bring out nuance in phrasing etc. for more realistic sound with the cso go for Abbado 5,6,7. All fantastic.
Lots of great Mahler out there have fun!
The opinions of the acoustics of Orchestra Hall appear to be all over the map.I recall someone telling me during the Reiner era, it was one of the best halls in the world. He said the renovations destroyed the hall's acoustics, and they haven't been able to get it back.
I recall another person in recent time telling me he'd rather watch concerts at the maligned Avery Fisher Hall in New York.
A few others told me there was no other hall where the sound varied so much with seating. (One told me he moved about five rows closer after the intermission, and thought where he was originally seated was much better.) One of them claimed the best seats in the place were the top balcony, which is high above the stage. (People who have been there tell me the top balcony is higher up than any other hall they've been to.)
Edits: 08/12/12
Pick up this months American record Guide - retrospective of Mahler recordings
I don't think ARG can be bought retail anymore. One has to subscribe (you can request a sample).
The only Solti Mahler recordings that makes the cut in their overview are 1 (both LSO and CSO), 5 (1970 CSO recording) and 9 (with the LSO). His 4 gets runner up status, but they complain that Solti never relaxes here. They complain about his tempos in the 8th. Their general assessement is "brilliant, seldom subtle; Chicago recordings alternate between manic and emotionally flat."
Their general take on Abbaddo's Mahler is "very polished, but not much depth". They do recommend the 7 in Chicago and the 8 on DG.
For the 6th, I'd go for one of the Bernstein recordings.
This guy knows what he's talking about.
I would respectfully disagree with much of what I read (I didn't read the whole thing, just the entries for symphonies 1 and 9). To mention just one oddity, the writer doesn't even talk about two of the most respected Mahler interpreters among pretty much all orchestral musicians, Claudio Abbado, and going back slightly farther, Carlo Maria Giulini. Giulini's recordings of the 1st and 9th in particular are considered to be some of the very finest interpretations, and this guy doesn't even mention them??? I realize you can't list them all, but geez! Those are glaring omissions.
Tony was just one guy. He wasn't going to get to every recording that someone somewhere thought was important. And he may simply have not have had a chance to get to those recordings before he died.
I've used this site for a second opinion and an update to Duggan's Mahler. Just fill out the categories you want and off you go.
I will read this over more carefully. I do have a very good sounding hifi system, and the quality of the recording is important.
Observe, before you think
I bought a number of Solti Mahlers when they first appeared on the scene with great fanfare, to me Solti is the modern Toscanini in his approach to music and performance and I never cared for Toscanini.
Over the years as I improved my playback system the Solti/CSO recordings sounded just terrible with each improvement, with my current system they are unlistenable.
Vahe
Toscanini did not like Mahler's music.
m
v
n
It Herbie's carbon fiber, absorbing mat. Works a treat with boomy bass, excessive forwardness, etc. It's made unlistenable cds very enjoyable.
With the Solti performances. In the last few years, I have returned to both and find them to be flatly unacceptable performances.
2: the epitome of bad multimiking results in incoherence. Unlistenable I think on any good system.
6: A tepid performance that misses the music's passion and power. (The songs done with Yvonne Minton on the same release are successful, however.)
Given their manifest weaknesses, I'm not sure why anyone would seek out these recordings, give the strong competition on both the interpretive & sound engineering fronts.
n
I was just listening to a live Enigma Variations he did with the Vienna Phil that is a wonderful recording. I recommend that t you instead if you are interested in Solti's work.
Edits: 08/12/12
I like 2 and 8 from this set.
Dave
Solti and Mahler were never an ideal match, but that's not just my opinion--many critics have echoed this over the years. Perhaps because Solti never exhibited enough Weltschmerz , the way Bernstein did, for example.His early Mahler with the LSO (Syms. 1 & 2) was quite good, also the Eighth with CSO, as the other posters have mentioned. But that's about it.
If you want to hear a truly hell-for-leather, end-of-the world Mahler Sixth, I recommend Lenny's version with the VPO on DGG. The perfect embodiment of "death marching in hob-nail boots", IMO.
-
"You weren't afraid of being born--why would you be afraid of dying?" Alan Watts
Edits: 08/10/12
Though I would agree with you on Solti for the most part, I would disagree with the Bernstein recommendation - many of the tempi are just too slow, MUCH below what Mahler marks in the score, and they don't come off with the right feeling. For most musicians, the Mahler master is Claudio Abbado, hands down. It will be a very sad day when he retires. There isn't anyone else on his level right now or in the near future.
The first movement is definitely not slow--one of the fastest ones around. Scarey as hell. Lenny must have had superhuman powers when he made this recording, and the orchestra responded accordingly.I'll go along with your advocacy of Abbado's Mahler--certainly a completely different ball of wax from Bernstein, of course. Abbado's Fifth with the CSO is outstanding, although the recording quality is not the best.
-
"You weren't afraid of being born--why would you be afraid of dying?" Alan Watts
Edits: 08/11/12
Yes, I've pretty much heard every Mahler symphony recording out there, except for perhaps extremely recent ones, as in the last couple of years or so. I used to own a copy of that Bernstein 6th. Exciting? Yes. Very close to Mahler's markings (which are much more specific than just about any other composer)? Not so much. This is not to say that putting your own spin on things is necessarily wrong or bad, by the way, I'm not saying that at all. But Lenny's Mahler recordings are for the most part not my cup of tea. He gets pretty darn self-indulgent on many of them.
Solti + LSO Mahler #1 & #2 are favourites of mine. They were available together as a 2-CD set. I haven't really listened to the CSO stuff.
13DoW
I have Mahler's Symphony No. 8 w/ Solti and the Chicago Symphony and quite like it. I haven't heard a lot of other takes on the 8th, but I would recommend this if you're a Solti fan. I found it used at a Goodwill in NM shape for a couple of bucks. Can't beat that.
I'm sorry, but this exciting performance has subpar sound. Every incarnation I've heard, from the original LP to the latest remastered CD, has overload distortion. That is a deal-breaker for me.
The recording is also heavily multimiked, so that a single soloist ends up louder than the entire choir. There are plenty of well-done, better-sounding Mahler 8s to be found, such as the Wit recording on Naxos (also available in hi-def on BluRay), Michael Tilson Thomas, and Rattle's EMI recording.
Hmmm. I don't agree with all of this post. Yes, the miking of the soloists is strange, and jarring when they come in. However, prior to that point in the second movement, the recording is excellent, as were so many of the ones that were done by John Culshaw, who was not afraid to experiment, and definitely had some misses, too. I have a copy of the original LP, and there is no distortion on mine - it is in fact excellent sound, until the strange miking of the soloists you mention. I agree the CD version is terrible - in fact, I often use this recording as one of many in a convincing demonstration of the superiority of LP over CD sound.
Speaking now of Solti's Mahler in general, most musicians love these recordings not necessarily for Solti's interpretations, but for the excellent performances of the Chicago Symphony in these works, particularly the brass and woodwind sections. As far as interpretation goes, I really enjoy the ones Abbado did in the same era with the same orchestra in part of his Mahler cycle for DG; unfortunately, the sound on those is not nearly as good in general, so audiophiles almost never mention these excellent interpretations.
I'm referring to his original Mahler 5, but his re-make of that symphony with the CSO (recorded in Vienna AFAIR) is much better engineered IMHO, even though it was no doubt multi-miked too. I think multi-microphoning has improved over the years - especially in the last few years.
BTW, did you see our discussion of recent purist microphoned recordings? There aren't many, but an Exton SACD has just been released in Japan of the Mahler 1 (I know, I know - just what we need!) with Inbal and the CzPO - the booklet cover proudly proclaims it to be a "single point microphone version". That's enough to pique my interest.
I disagree with you a little about your previous comment concerning audiophiles' preferences for well recorded but mediocre performances. No doubt that's true in some cases, but I feel that, in general, a well engineered recording is rarer than a well performed recording.
Speaking of which. . . both the Wit and Chailly blu-rays (as well as the older Chailly DVD-audio) have progressed sonically from what we hear with Solti in the Mahler 8, and the performances are certainly comparable, depending on what aspect of the music is important to you.
Hi Chris - "multi-miked" needs some clarification, I think. Though there are more than two mikes used on those Solti recordings you mention, there was still nowhere near the number of mikes that are used on any digital recording made today, as the post below this one makes clear. Reference Recordings are some of the better miking jobs done on orchestras nowadays, and some of the least number of mikes used, as he says.
Yes - that's true. However, in general, the engineers IMHO have recently been doing a much better job of making their multi-miked recordings sound coherent, compared to some of those early, what I would call more primitive efforts. There's one place in the Solti Mahler Fifth (near the end) which used to drive me out of my mind where you can literally hear the gain on the horn section being twiddled.
Yes, there's a passage in the finale of the Fifth where it sounds like the levels on the brass were clumsily pulled back to avoid overload. And then, in the Eighth in the first movement, René Kollo sounds like he's been mixed in at another time, in mono. Everyone else sounds in the same space as the orchestra and chorus; Kollo comes through somewhere on the right, in mixed-in mono (yes, the reverb is in mono--it sounds like one of the stage effects in the Solti "Ring." Sticks out like a sore thumb through headphones. I still keep coming back to Solti in the Eighth for the sheer visceral excitement, though, even though I know others better explore the subtleties of this work.
I've done 2 cds on Reference Recordings, and one on Telarc (not Michael Bishop ).
17 mics were used by RR, no less for Telarc. SFS has many hanging from the Ceiling.
The only Single Point Stereo cd I heard was Pittsburg, and it was thin thin thin.
I use Single Point for Clarinet Quartet Recordings, it's fine for that. More problematical on bigger groups. You have to get increasingly further away to not clip off the edges ot the group, and you lose resolution, and it sounds distant.
That Japanese Mahler would be worth a listen, tho.
Per the discussion below, many of us were not too happy with the Water Lily recordings from St. Petersburg, even with the purist miking on those recordings. But hope springs eternal!
Re Pittsburg, were you referring to one of the Maazel/Sony recordings? I thought that was two spaced omnis. In any case, I keep pulling out the Maazel/Pittsburgh Respighi Roman Trilogy CD thinking it's going to sound better as my equipment has improved over the years - it never does! ;-)
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: