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I could do with some help with Symphony 9. I find this quite challenging, since some of the music is un-lovely by design. I like Karajan's live recording partly because he brings in some of the decadence of Kurt Weill with the same kind of slinky feel he does so well in Sibelius's Valse Triste. I doubt that Mahler had Kurt Weill in mind at the time (he was 8 years old..) or whatever kind of music-hall music that preceded Weill.... but what do I know....
What are the different ways to approach this symphony, and what are good examples of different kinds of interpretations? Any more "slinky" decadent ones.. (I can see Mahler lovers choking on their brotchen at this point)...?
Follow Ups:
If you have not seen this you might find it interesting
Alan
Edits: 08/30/16
Which begs the question: Why no mention of MTT and San Francisco SFS?
MTT was a Lenny disciple and is a Mahler-ite in his own right, having recorded the cycle with our local band, and in SACD to boot.
and left feeling the same way.
I have about a dozen Mahler #9's in the streaming cue at this point, plus and a Bruckner #9 that somehow worked its way in, I have no idea how.
Gonna be so over-Mahlered I doubt I'll survive the week.
Both on Youtube...
. . . is that I feel the engineers (or maybe it's Gielen himself?) slight the strings in the overall balance. The two performances from his set that I (still) have are 5 and 6 - I haven't heard 9, and I don't trust uTube SQ enough to rely on it as a comprehensive representation of a performance. Maybe what I hear as the slighting of the strings in Gielen's recordings is one of the factors that gives you the impression than Gielen is not wallowing in the music? To me, Gielen is not bad, but also not revelatory either.
He's 71 and we're still waiting.
It's a air of 'superficiality' about him. He clearly knows what he's doing but he just kind of hits the high points but never goes too deep.
Some of his recording are quite good, he can produce good recordings when he wants to, but never GREAT stuff.
His West Side Story was pretty good though. ;-)
also, I think, his Tchaik 1.
Jeremy
Late at night and likely going blind but other than that I'm fine!
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This one?
Not my cup of tea!
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That one I can live with.
2nd movt just doesn't work for me.
The jackhammer like final pages are stunning live in Davies concert. Just wow.
That's SOMETHING!It's the only work by John Adams that is.
Did attend his big 70th birthday party at The Opera House earlier this year. No, that's next year. It was David Gockley's farewell bash but it featured a lot of Adams' stuff and he WAS there.
Edits: 09/01/16
16/44.1 is a bit better than YouTube, or so they say.
Maderna at $50 and not up on any of the streaming services, might have to wait.
!
"Gonna be so over-Mahlered I doubt I'll survive the week."
Could it be that you're Mahleable? .... ....... [-;
...became my #1 when it was released. A terrific, heart-felt performance in great sound. This was Gilbert's final concert in Stockholm as music director and he poured everything into it.
I can't claim to have heard them all, of course, but this is the most powerful one I know of (it's on Telarc). Absolutely magnificent, to my mind.
-Bob
Good call - I didn't know this and it's very fine. It's not heavy and ponderous like Bernstein, Haitink etc in the 4th mov. The music breathes and flows like Boulez and Gielen. Well, nobody is as good as Gielen to my ears. I'm just sampling it as a write, but I'm going to listen all through.......The more I listen the more I'm beginning to think this is one of the truly great versions of the 9th. I've heard multiple recommendations for Bernstein, Guilini, Haitink, Walter, Maazel, Barbarolli and more of the usual suspects. I just don't like any of them much.
I've also lost some of my enthusiasm for Karajan, but must give it another listen.
I'm definitely preferring Gielen, Boulez, Maderna, Inbal, and now Lopez-Cobos adds to that list. Maybe this is "cool" Mahler but to me it's the music without the histrionics and rhetoric, which is what I want.
Thank you so much for the recommendation - must see what else he's recorded.
Edits: 08/30/16
I had the recording but had to sell it because it triggered the traumatic memory of a subwoofer breaking apart during a not-too-loud playback of this piece on my Carver "Amazing" speaker. Speakers were repaired and later sold, but the trauma remains in memory.
I seem to remember a nasty break-up at some point in that movement.
BTW, I heard Cincy do this work live, but Lopez-Cobos wasn't conducting, it was Pavo Jarvi, and he took this movement so fast that the last "cap-stone" three-note ending sounded like one note. Pretty awful.
All these are good recommendations, but no Bernstein? I do come back to the Concertgebouw recording often. So many different and wonderful performances, fully deserving of this great work.
R
I just don't like his conducting, period. And watching him conduct is even worse. Not just Mahler - this extends to other composers too. The only exception |I can think of is Ravel's PC.
Strange, because I think he's a great 20th century composer just on the basis of West Side Story alone.
I agree with you about his conducting in general, but curiously find Bernstein's Haydn and Schumann performances appealing. I also enjoy his Stravinsky and Copland.
nt
His Les Noces was well received with it's illustrious pianists. I didn't like it.
What i DID like was the Pokrovsky Ensemble, which you might think is nuts, but I'm quite overwhelmed by it.
In fact I'm listening to it as I write!
I also like his Shosty 7th and Copland Rodeo. Wouldn't want to be without his Barber Violin Concerto either.
The 1985 Helicon recording of Bernstein with the Israel Philharmonic is very good. A live recording in vivid sound complete with foot stomps and vocalizations, this might be Bernsteins best Mahler 9
Alan
One that's overlooked a lot is the first stereo recording of the 9th, on Everest SDBR 3050, with Leopold Ludwig and the London Symphony. Recorded on 35mm film by Bert Whyte, at Walthamstow Town Hall in 1959. I wouldn't necessarily want it to be my only one, but it is very well played, and Ludwig's interpretation is refreshing in its clarity. A nice antidote to some of the more overwrought performances out there. The usual terrific Everest sound is a bonus. There are a couple of CD issues, however, the one that would interest me is the hi rez issue from High Definition Tape Transfers, link below. Available in all manner of download formats, and there is a 24/96 sample that can be downloaded for free. It says that it was done from a 15 ips 2 track tape, but no indication of exactly where that came from (there was no commercial 2 track issue of this). I have not heard this one, but as a rule, their work is extremely good. And it's even on sale!
I liked it so much, I almost replaced the one I have (purple and gold label), which cost me a buck and was a nice VG, with another for more money but probably in better condition, but I'm trying to cut down on LPs.
I like the Rudolf Schwarz/LSO Mahler 5 on Everest even more. They both do a good job of avoiding excessive milking of phrases and other unwanted mannerisms. IMO Mahler is best with a natural and unforced sound.
As you say, for a lot of the same reasons I like the Ludwig 9th. I have a UK pressed copy on the World Record Club label which is terrific.
"I'm trying to cut down on LPs."
A wise decision! ;-)
I just wanted to let folks know that there's another source for the Ludwig/LSO Mahler Ninth, and that's the reissue available at HD Tracks, where a German company, Countdown Media GmbH, was in charge of the re-mastering. It came out three years ago. I've heard neither this version nor the HDTT version - both are available in hi-rez incarnations which are probably overkill, considering the age of the original recording. BTW, I also agree with you about the Schwarz/LSO Mahler Fifth - a recording which was kindly provided to me by one of the members of this forum, and which I'm most grateful for.
The digital v. analog/vinyl debate doesn't much interest me, I'm fine with new technology so long as its practical, easy to use, and of course sounds good.
But in the case of these old Everests, most were made on 35mm tape that produced stunning results, but unfortunately could also deteriorate quickly. I'd be interested to hear the HD Tracks high rez digital versions, which were apparently made with special hardware and software to compensate for the tape damage.
Vinyl Phanatic has original consumer tapes that sound even better than the original LPs. It would be great to compare them to the HD Tracks reissues.
Edits: 08/30/16
This one post-dates the problems with the vinyl deterioration, which was pretty much limited to the turquoise/silver label discs. The first pressing for the Ludwig 9th is the purple mountain label, which sounds pretty damned good to me. There was a reel tape issue, but only in a 4 track. the last 2 track issue was 3042, Mozart Serenades. I have not heard the Ludwig 9th 4 track, but overall I have had little luck with Everest 4 track tapes, so I usually don't go out of my way to seek them out.
Yes - that's correct about the 35mm tape deterioration. I think Botanico posted a link to an excellent article a couple of years ago showing how badly deteriorated the Everest 35mm films were.
Regarding the Everest consumer tapes, that's what HDTT uses for their remasterings/reissues (for the most part). I guess the only way to find which is best is to obtain both the HD Tracks and the HDTT versions, but that exercise would be a little pricey - especially from HD Tracks.
It would be interesting to compare. HDTT does use consumer tapes, but almost always they are 2 track tapes. In this case, there is no 2 track commercial issue. The page says that it is done from a 15 ips 2 track tape, so it can't be a consumer tape in any case. You'd love to think that it was an actual 1st generation safety copy from Everest that he got to use on condition of keeping quiet about it, but who knows? It wouldn't surprise me if it were from one of the Russian (or other) "Safety Copy" tapes that are floating around these days (which I have a few of, and FWIW, can be damned good!).
This one sold recently on eBay. Link to another one below. These are probably copied from tapes that were distributed to radio stations. I have a couple that I bought from the same seller which are great.
I wouldn't go back to it now though......
Or did I misread you when you said you've only just recently come to appreciate Mahler and to really listen in earnest to the various recordings? Anyway, the one Amazon review (5 stars - aren't they all?) claims that the Ludwig/SkD is a pretty straightforward performance, with no wallowing. (I haven't heard it myself.)
Mahler's 4th was the only work of his I knew for years. I had the Ludwig 4th on Heliodor - a cheaper re-issue of DG.
My father was very hostile to opera or singing in general after about the Messiah, though he was a decent self-taught musician and played Bach every day. At home the radio was switched off if any kind of operatic singer came on. So I had absolutely no grounding in the vocal repertoire.
I came to opera and lieder very late - in my 50s probably. I then grew to love Wagner, Janacek, R.Strauss, Schubert. I'm still discovering a lot of stuff, like Mahler and Berg. I was classically trained and played in orchestras for a couple of years, but after that I played jazz. I'm very familiar with a lot of the repertoire, but there are some notable gaps.
My tastes in music have changed over the years - I always listened to a lot of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Falla, Ravel, Debussy and such. Much later I discovered Scriabin, R.Strauss, Janacek and now Mahler. I also dropped music that I no longer identified with. I never listen to Mozart, Haydn, Vivaldi or Handel. Just not interested and doesn't move me. I still listen to Bach and Beethoven, however. They'll never go away. They both transcended the times they lived in. Mozart, Haydn and Handel didn't, for me. Others will of course disagree.
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: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.)
"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.)
Vacuuming up rosin off the living room rug? That's vinyl territory.
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I was liking a lot about the Karajan until the 4th movement which to me sounds unexpectedly square and earthbound. I think you have to find some way of bringing this movement off without either over-simplicity, which could get bland, or over-emphasis which could sink the sustained intensity needed.
Gielen shapes this last movement really well - he's very imaginative. And Maderna is very good also. I also like Horenstein from 1953 here.
A good last movement is pretty critical here unless one wants to patch a performance up from different movements by different conductors, which is wacky but tempting...
The Dudamel/LAPO is surprisingly good, and well recorded. I have to respectfully disagree with you on the Maazel/VPO. I find the set as a whole deathly boring (sound quality isn't that good, either). His farewell cycle with the Philharmonia was better to me, but still not top drawer.
I have to say that Maazel's Fifth with the VPO sounded wonderfully engineered to my ears. IIRC, this whole cycle was recorded "quasi" minimally microphoned, i.e., they had multiple microphones available but tried mostly not to use them, according to an interview with the producer I read.
I don't remember that (maybe my negative reaction to the performances affected my perception of the sound quality). I do remember his last several recordings with Pittsburgh including a Pines of Rome, a Sibelius cycle and others were noted as minimally miked. I wrote a letter (!) to Sony thanking them for doing that but never received a response.
I think most posters (myself included) were disappointed in that recording, since the microphones seemed to be too far away and the sound lacked impact. Like you, I applaud Sony for taking the chance on the minimal microphoning, but in this case (and although I favor minimalist microphoning), I didn't feel that the results were what they could (or should) have been. I didn't hear any of the Pittsburgh Sibelius recordings with Maazel.
(BTW, if the prospect of a youth orchestra doesn't throw you off, I again recommend the recently released recording of Respighi Roman Trilogy available on the HDTT site.)
nt
Mostly in matters of tempo.
There's K's lighting-speed scherzo, (final recording upon which I imprinted), vs Giulini's slooooow pulse in Chicago. Decadence doesn't come to mind in this movt as much as astringence does, lovely central section excepted. Shostakovich picked up a lot from Mahler.
I prefer the final movt a bit slow and indulgent. Walter and esp Kubelik keep it a bit too fresh and airy for my tastes; they keep things moving along. Walter's string sound is painful. Thanks again Columbia.
Haitink's original Philips 9th got raves from Cooke but it doesn't move me.
Dick Shahinian was a huge Mahlerian, and his fave was Barbirolli Berlin 1964, now on CD for $13.
I have heard it and it is very good. There were audiophile LP reissues of this in the 1980s/1990s in Germany.
The original LP set is on offer on eBay for $726.22.
The performance is I think valuable in and of itself, but... just as the case with Colin Davis' conducting the Boston Symphony during the Ozawa years, the 1964 Barbirolli Mahler 9 provides an illuminating counterpoint to Berlin under Herbie K.
ATB,
john marks
PS: I'd also say, especially in this era of Streaming (Steinway is IMHO the best for classical music, but MR-DA!), that one should also hear Boulez and Tennstedt.
This was the first Mahler 9th that really made the music work for me
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I'll stick with my Columbia LPs.
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Slightly fuzzier, softer, more distant and indistinct.
... on Columbia reel-to-teel tape.
You might want to seek out Ben Zander's recording. The performance itself is a good one, if not in the same class with those you mention. Zander tends to the cooler side of Mahler interpretation (fine by me). But the bonus is that it includes a lengthy lecture by Zander about the symphony and how to conduct it. And it's a very, very easy recording to find on the cheap.
I agree with the Abbado/Lucerne recommendation and the Gilbert on SACD. In regular CD I really like the Giulini/Chicago on DG and the Barenboim/Staatskapelle Berlin on Warner (2006). There is also a 2009 remake with the same performers on Blu-Ray (Unitel Classica). My guilty pleasure is the Myung-Whun Chung/Seoul Philharmonic on DG because it greatly surpassed expectations. It's my "fast" version.
I don't know anything about slinky or decadent interpretations, but I can recommend some performances in good sound that I really like:
Gilbert, Stockholm Phil--I particularly like this one because the sound, while not dry, is very clear so you can hear a lot of counterpoint that is muddied on some other performances. And it's a heartfelt, well-played reading.
Haitink, RCO
Abbado, Lucerne Festival
Maazel, Vienna Phil
The Lucerne/Abbado is on YouTube, and it's touching to see the great conductor in this. It's very good, but I'm not sure it's my favourite.I've now been listening to two more YouTube versions which to my ears are amazing:
- Boulez, both with CSO and a live performance from 1976 with the NYPO.
- Maderna/BBC SO live in London 1971. This is pretty stunning from a great, great conductor, who died in 1973. It stands alongside any versions I've heard. You really must listen to it. The BBC Legends CD is uber rare, so it's good to see it available on YT.
I also want to listen more to Gielen in this, and Ancerl is also on YT.
I haven't got round to working out what approach I like for the 4th movement yet - tempi and interpretation vary a lot. Horenstein sounds good right now.
Edits: 08/29/16 08/29/16
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