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In Reply to: Mahler Symphony #2- Fischer-Brief Comments posted by Robert C. Lang on December 15, 2006 at 22:37:22:
The Fischer is a truly great performance and recording of this work. I loved his Mahler 6th (which I believe you also own), and this new 2nd is every bit as good. I hope Channel has plans to record him and his superlative orchestra in the rest of the Mahler symphonies. I had previously thought the Kaplan recording on DG SACD was the best-sounding recording of this work, and while it is still very impressive in many ways, the Fischer trumps it in terms of naturalness of timbres and overall smoothness. And Fischer also wins in interpretation.As you mentioned, it's too bad that Channel decided to put the disc break after the second movement. Mahler had expressed that there be a long pause between the first and second movements, and that's how most record companies split the discs (when the recording has to take up 2 discs, of course).
Follow Ups:
On SA-CD.net, Jared Sachs, Channel Classics producer, wrote that Ivan Fischer does not like to record complete sets. See his December 5, 2006 post (his moniker is "channel").
It would have been good to have Fischer's thoughts on the other symphonies, as his 2 recordings so far are standouts in a hugely overcrowded field. I do hope we'll get a least a couple more. Thanks for the info, though.
I do understand his apparent reasoning as presented. That is, there may be some Mahler symphonies that Fisher just does not want to do (he may not "feel" them as much). And/or there may other works that he *really* wants to tackle. I'm glad that Fischer added to the SACD inventory an interpretation of Bartok's "BlueBeard Castle", a Hungarian composition that he probably really wanted to do but may not have had time to do if he was doing all Mahler. See my comments of my impressions at SA-CD.net.(Just as a fleeting thought, has San Francisco had other releases other than Mahler since they began that cycle? I don't know).
In any event, Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra seem to be really on a roll. And the recording engineers at Channel Classics and Philips have caught up with Fischer's outstanding performances.
Robert C. Lang
But I'm surprised how many recordings put the break between the 2nd and 3rd movements, instead of between 1&2, where Mahler wanted it (and where it's needed). The only reasons I can think of are a combination of cluelessness and a vestige of the LP era, when companies tried to equalize side lengths for sonic reasons.
Thanks for the correction on this issue down below. I agree if the perfomance *had* to be broken up that it be done between the 1st and 2nd movements. It looks like this performance is right at 80 minutes. So, perhaps it was possible to put the CD/SACD layers on a single disc. But perhaps it would have been too much of a squeeze.
Robert C. Lang
80 minutes is certainly possible. I have a recording, RBCD only, with Mehta conducting the VSO, which runs 81:11.
Dear Mahler 2nd listeners,Since this thread has to do with how and why of putting the break between the 2nd and the third movement I would like to put my bit into this.
SACD does not work the same way as a pcm. PCM is indeed the sum of total time that can be put onto a disc. SACD is a DVD technology. That said we can only put on a total amount of data. This is 4.75 gigabits minus some extra metadata. (pq codes and text.
Actually the complete dat for stereo and multichannel can be around 1 gigabits. But the last phase for the authoring is putting the two projects through a sort of 'winzip' which brings the data down to under 4.75.
I was able to get the Mahler 6 to one cd. The Mahler 2nd was just not going to work whatever I did. Especially with the dynamics involved.
I have brought out recordings that are indeed 78 minutes because it was a mozart sonata that just had even dynamics.I agree that I could very easily have put a extra track in the last movement so that one could easily get to the choral section. Sorry! I too get frustrated with the slow 'fast forward' on sacd players....
There have been some comments about why we did not fill up the cd with more music. Do these people realize the amount of work, energy, money, etc. just to get the 2nd on to disc and then still ask for more because there is room on the disc???
It has been satisfying to see the positive remarks to the performace of the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer. He has been working with 'his' orchestra for the last 20 years and has truly built this up to be one of the top orchestra today. It has been an honour for me to work with them.
Greetings
Jared Sacks
Thank you so much for your comments on the Mahler 2. Please see my comments of Fischer performances of Mahler and Bartok on SA-CD.net at link below.
Robert C. Lang
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