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In Reply to: RE: New Mahler Symphony No.9? posted by mrjdub33@aol.com on July 15, 2015 at 22:21:01
. . . I meant to mention that I did obtain and listen to this album about a week and a half ago.
As I was listening, I blurted out to my wife in the adjoining room, "Jared has really outdone himself this time!". Madeline has 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 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 Landler/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 work 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.
Follow Ups:
I'm with you on the sound quality, but I can't get excited about the interpretation. As I've mentioned before, the performance seems too planned which robs it of passion and emotion especially in the first and last movements. Maybe the sense of glossiness is because of how good it sounds. No rough edges; too beautiful. Just my two cents....
. . . and beauty at all costs. It's possible that we may be after different things in this music - I did give it only 4 stars for performance however, so perhaps we're not so far apart in our reactions.
Chris, in AA terms this is an old thread, but by chance can you tell me which 9th you think is the out and out 5+ star combination of performance AND sound quality?
I'm not Chris, but I want to jump in: I find the Gilbert performance tops in sound quality, heartfelt, beautifully played. The Fischer performance in surround sound has a more distant reproduction of the orchestra that I find tends to obscure a lot of the detail, in contrast to the Gilbert, which has plenty of detailed without sounding excessively multi-miked.
To me, the Fischer performance was like a well-played runthrough. Luckily, I borrowed it from a library and didn't have to pay for it.
Going down a few notches in sound quality, the Haitink/ACO live performance from the OOP Kerstmatinees box set is phenomenal, and with better sound than the Phillips commercial recording. I know it was issued on DVD as well--never ran across that.
Chris I echo your assessment of Fisher's Mahler's 9th, its dead on! I've listened to it three times and each time I came to the same conclusion which was simply "he pulled it off" aware of what some said about the faster tempo and while yes, it was faster it seemed correct. The recording? I could simply gush for days about it! I consider (subjectively of course) the 1st & 2nd some of the best recordings known to man. What I found on the 9th is it possess (finesse and sheer power) the best of those mentioned above with a noted ability at the same time to convey so many stable layers in a recording, just impeccable .
Yes! its state of the art level indeed.
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