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I don't share your enthusiasm for the live Karajan performance

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on August 29, 2016 at 09:49:55

In Reply to: Mahler Symphony 9 - recommendations? posted by andy evans on August 29, 2016 at 02:45:19:

So perhaps you'll have the right to be suspicious of my recommendations. Of the ones mentioned so far, I agree that Walter and Giulini are very fine on CD. I also very much like all of the three Vaclav Neumann performances (one with the LGO, the Denon/Supraphon production with the CzPO, and, for best sound quality, the Canyon Classics performance with the CzPO - this last one also having been reissued in Japan on various hi-rez platforms on the Exton label.)

For something in higher rez (and in multi-channel), I'd go for the Chailly/LGO blu-ray rather than the Abbado/Lucerne (something about that Abbado recording just seems too processed, although I still like it). Also, if the quick speeds don't bother you, there's the Fischer/BFO recording on Channel Classics. I'm taking the liberty of reprinting my review, originally posted here (and now on Amazon), of that Fischer recording:

I've had this album for about a week and a half, and, during one of my listening sessions, I blurted out to my wife in the adjoining room, "Jared has really outdone himself this time!". ("Jared" is Jared Sacks, the producer and chief engineer for Channel Classics.) She's been clued-in as to who Jared is for quite a while, so she knew what I was referring to, but she replied with a skeptical focus on other aspects of my remark:

"Your voice is shaking!. . . Your lips are quivering!. . . You're getting all teary-eyed - and all this because of SOUND QUALITY??? You can't be serious!"

I cannot tell a lie - she had me nailed! The irony! I, who viewed with contempt the guy who came up to Haitink after a performance of the Resurrection Symphony and bragged that he had been weeping, was now reduced to the same maudlin emotionality myself! And she was right - it WAS because of the sound quality! I just can't describe how wonderful it was - the sheer stability of the orchestral image, the evocation of the exact size and tone quality of the wind instruments, the resinous quality of the bowing, the extension and natural balance of the bass, the ratio of direct to reflected sound, the uncongested openness of the orchestral textures. It was all so. . . moving!

Since I was so choked up by the sound quality, perhaps there might be some (legitimate!) skepticism concerning my remarks about the performance. But too bad - here goes: much of the discussion thus far (and I mean the wider discussion beyond what we have here on Amazon) has centered on the speed and timing of Fischer's interpretation - everyone agrees he's on the quicker side of the ledger. Folks seemed initially worried about the last movement in particular: that it was an andante instead of a held-back adagio. But the consensus of the reviews so far is that Fischer does indeed pull off his faster tempo while still conveying the music's profound evocation of peace and resignation - something that Mahler did so well, but nowhere better than in this last movement of the Ninth. BTW, I concur with this consensus, and I do not at all feel as if I'm being hustled along.

I was actually more anxious about the inner movements as far as speed was concerned: the Ländler/Waltz second movement is definitely a part of the symphony where I don't want any hustling going on, and Fischer is definitely tilting towards my limit, at least in places. But he gets such great articulation from his players, that I became convinced by his approach. It's certainly not the way I'd want to hear it all the time, but in the context of an overall performance as well structured as this one, I can deal with it!

The third movement, Rondo-Burleske, is another movement where I tend not to like interpretations where the tempos are too fast for the players to articulate cleanly. (You hear that, Herbie?) I haven't checked actual timings here, but, subjectively, it seems to me that Fischer, while on the fast side of things, is not TOO fast for his players to articulate their notes expressively, and moreover, to get some sneering and sarcasm into some of those motives which become transformed into profound utterances in the last movement. Again, Fischer's approach to the third movement would not necessarily be my preference for most of my listening to this work, but he does carry it off very convincingly.

In some ways, I like Fischer's interpretation of the first movement the best - his flowing tempo avoids undue emphasis on that "heart murmur" motive (oodle-oodle-oodle oodle-oodle-oodle - jeez, I hate that Ben Zander lecture on his Telarc album of this work!), and, to my ears at least, his fluent approach lends greater coherency to the movement than we often encounter.

So, overall, I like the performance a lot, but I wouldn't rate it quite as highly as I do the sound quality, which IMHO is at a state-of-the-art level. (The five stars rating is for the sound quality - I listen in multi-channel, and have not heard the stereo tracks. I'd give four stars for the performance.)

A few that I haven't heard, which seem as if they might be interesting, are the Dudamel/LAPO (would he get some of that slinkiness you want?), the Gergiev/LSO, and the Maazel/Philharmonia. (I like what I've heard from the Maazel/VPO set, but I haven't heard the Ninth from that set either.)

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