Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.6 (Part 3)

Continued from: "Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.6 (Part 2)"

Gustav Mahler, Symphony No.6, H.v.Karajan / BPh DG

Karajan’s DG recording of the Sixth is his third-to-last Mahler recording and, along with the second Ninth, his best. Mahler was a composer to whom Karajan found only late in life… and ‘the later, the better’ fully applies to his Mahler recordings (the two to follow were the very special accounts of the Ninth) and this one could be in a category of its own. The approach to sound that he drilled into the Berlin Philharmonic, the insistence on absolute perfection (at least whenever in the recording studio), that polish, that well-oiled machine… it all works towards a truly spectacular Mahler experience. Surely on the clean side of the raw-genteel divide, it is probably the most propulsive of the “drool-free” versions. It is a little short on any particular Mahler-flavor but it more than makes up for that with its numerous other qualities. If you don’t have the splendid Christa Ludwig Rückert-Lieder and Kindertotenlieder from his studio recording of the 9^th, you can

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Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.6 (Part 2)

Continued from: "Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.6 (Part 1)"
Continued here: "Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.6 (Part 3)"

G.Mahler, Symphony No.6, B.Zander/Philharmonia Telarc

My preference has long been Benjamin Zander’s recording, whose ongoing cycle on Telarc (also available on SACDs) comes with a commentary disc discussing each symphony. These comments range from good and entertaining to revealing and insightful—and his commentary on the Sixth is particularly fine. The Telarc sound—here as on Yoel Levi’s recordings—is usually very good, too, and while the Sixth is not the strongest of his issues on that count, it’s still better than most contenders. Zander, who cares deeply about Mahler’s music, takes his time with the Sixth—but still gets tremendous excitement out of it and squarely falls down on the ‘raw’ side of interpretations. Everyone can program the movement order any way they wish—but Zander also offers choice when it comes to the Hammerblow ‘dilemma’. He recorded both versions (although being a firm believer in three, rather than two, such blows) on this two-disc set (plus one disc for the 80 minute commentary) that sells for the price of one. His heavy involvement in the music leaves fingerprints; there is some pulling of tempi that can strike one as self-conscious. It’s zany and neurotic and sometimes it

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Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.6 (Part 1)

Continued here: "Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.6 (Part 2)"

The Sixth Symphony is often mentioned to be Mahler’s most classical, invariably followed by the qualification: “If only in structure”. It’s an important qualification, because although cast in the sonata-form of the classical symphony (replete with repeats, Allegro first movement, inner movements in Scherzo- and slow-form, and an Allegro moderato—Allegro energico Finale), the symphony has nothing else in common with the classical predecessors. For one, its individual movements are as long or longer than any one of Haydn’s complete symphonies. The musical language is Mahler at his most romantic, too. His symphonies are generally not of the happy, cheery kind—but at least they occasionally end on a note (or the hope) of optimism. Not so the Sixth. It’s brutal, relentless, remorseless—and although it can be tamed to sound beautiful, the this symphony simply seems to demand to be ridden as hard as possible; foam at the mouth, wide-eyed, driven to the brink of the abyss. If the Sixth Symphony were a politician, it would promise nothing but

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Perchance to Stream: Isles of Greece Edition

Here is your regular (abbreviated) Sunday selection of links to online audio and online video from the week gone by. After clicking to an audio or video stream, you may need to press the "Play" button to start the broadcast. Some of these streams become unavailable after a few days.

• Soprano Camilla Nylund joins musicians of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France for music of Mahler, Zemlinsky, and Korngold. [France Musique]


• Andrea Marcon conducts La Cetra Baroque Orchestra and soloists in a performance of Vivaldi's opera Catone in Utica. [France Musique]


• Kirill Petrenko leads the Vienna Philharmonic in music of Mendelssohn and Mahler. [ORF]


• Symphonies by Franz Berward and Dvorak, with Herbert Blomstedt leading the Berlin Philharmonic, recorded in February. [ORF | Part 2]


• From the Salzburg Easter Festival, Manfred Trojahn leads the Sächsischen Staatskapelle Dresden, with soprano Juliane Banse and pianist Herbert Schuch. [ORF]


• Christian Thielemann leads the Berlin Philharmonic in music of Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms. [BBC3]


• The Nash Ensemble performs music by Mozart, Ravel, and Schubert, recorded in Reading. [BBC3]


• Charles Dutoit leads the Royal Philharmonic in music by Respighi, Dvorak, and Stravinsky. [BBC3]


• The Choir of King's College performs Handel's Brockes Passion. [BBC3]


• Myung-Whun Chung returns to the podium of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, including as piano soloist in Beethoven's Triple Concerto. [France Musique]


• The Quatuor Armida performs string quartets by Mozart and Jörg Widmann, recorded last January in the Auditorium du Louvre. [France Musique]


• Watch a performance of Le Corsaire from Vienna. [ARTE]


• Listen to a 2015 performance of Monteverdi's Orfeo with the English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner, and the Monteverdi Choir. [ORF]

À mon chevet: 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'

À mon chevet is a series of posts featuring a quote from whatever book is on my nightstand at the moment.

I.
   Oh, thou! in Hellas deem'd of heavenly birth,
   Muse! form'd or fabled at the minstrel's will!
   Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth,
   Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill:
   Yet there I've wander'd by they vaunted rill;
   Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine,
   Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still;
   Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine
To grace so plain a tale -- this lowly lay of mine.

LX.
   Oh thou, Parnassus! whom I now survey,
   not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,
   Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,
   But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,
   In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!
   What marvel if I thee essay to sing?
   The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by
   Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string,
Though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her wing.

LXI.
   Oft have I dream'd of thee! whose glorious name
   Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore:
   And now I view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame
   That I in feeblest accents must adore
   When I recount thy worshippers of yore,
   I tremble, and can only bend the knee;
   Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,
   But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy
In silent joy to think at last I look on thee!

LXII.
   Happier in this than mightiest bards have been,
   Whose fate to distant homes confined their lot,
   Shall I unmoved behold the hallow'd scene,
   Which others rave of, though they know it not?
   Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot,
   And thou, the Muses' seat, are not their grave,
   Some gentle spirit still pervades the spot,
   Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave,
And glides with glassy foot o'er yon melodious wave.

-- Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto I (selections)

Lord Byron wrote Childe Harold's Pilgrimage shortly after he returned from his travels to Greece, among other places, and it is in some sense autobiographical, although Byron protested that it was not. When Byron visited what was once Delphi, the site was occupied by a Greek village, whose residents had reused some of the stone ruins to build houses and other structures. He saw the Castalian spring, once thought to contain the sacred waters imbibed by the Pythia before she spoke with the voice of Apollo. (Again he is supposed to have inscribed his name at the ruins of the gymnasium not far from the spring, although visitors are not at present allowed to go near those places because rocks recently fell from the mountain face above.)

Many of the things that he saw, like the oracle's "cave," have been shown to be fictions by the archaeological research carried out at the site at the turn of the 20th century. If Byron were to see Delphi now, with the village removed and more of the site understood, including the many statues and other artistic works now in the nearby archaeological museum, his reaction would likely be quite different. It is hard to say which version would move him more, the forgotten traces crushed under daily life or the more historical site we see today. One thing that pictures of Delphi cannot capture is the immensity of the location, with the snow-capped peak of Mount Parnassus looming above and the nearness of the sea below, even though neither one is visible from the sanctuary itself. It is for a poet or musician a breath-taking experience to be on the side of that mountain, where the Muses themselves were born, and to stand in front of the site's famous Bronze Charioteer or the column of three dancers that inspired Debussy's Danseuses de Delphes.

Ionarts-at-Large: Daniele Gatti’s Elijah in Vienna

COMPOSERNAME, WORK_in_QUESTION, ARTISTS/ORCHESTRA LABEL

You’d think that the Musikverein’s Golden Hall would be too small for Mendelssohn’s Elijah. But if you get booked there (as the Orchestre national de France for three nights of three programs), you don’t say “no”. And the Musikverein surely wouldn’t say “can you bring something smaller scale? Elijah would work so much better suited for the Konzerthaus’ Great Hall across the street.” And in any case, if one went by what a hall is too big or small for, there’d never be any Shostakovich at the Herkulessaal in Munich or Mozart at the MET. And who knows…. maybe the Orchestre national de France under the inconsistent but at-his-best-ingenious Daniele Gatti (finally at the helm of an A-Symphonic Orchestra to work with on a regular basis and soon with the Concertgebouw!) would find a way to make it all work miraculously well?

Chance and good fortune had blown me onto a seat in the Goldener Saal, on that February 14^th, that I would not normally be assigned. I like that… it breaks the monotony of orchestra seats and it gives you a chance to really explore a hall and sound it out for strong and weak spots. I found myself on the right side balcony above the chorus, behind the violas and cellos and close enough to toss a cough drop into the tuba’s bell, had I been so inclined. The acoustic is much better than one is inclined to assume, but the violas were hard to hear (cheeky sod if you think this is a setup for a jab against violas). The strings in general are a little set back from the winds and brass and the chorus (the Vienna Singverein) turned out its bit in magnificently ear-shattering manner. All throats on deck and all out, the singers lustily indulged in Mendelssohn’s writing which seems to have been intended to specifically entertain and occupy an excellent large choir. Much of the vocal writing has a lot in common with Mendelssohn’s stupendous Second Symphony… though the beginning of Eljah seems to quote, and quite blatantly, Schubert’s Death and the Maiden.

Melodic, glorious and loud are Elijah’s three distinguishing characteristics. These were largely met, although the vocal contributions were uneven and yes, the whole thing did seem a bit senselessly loud at times and on the fast—but not necessarily exciting—side. Peter Mattei’ s passable Elijah had light trouble with the early high notes while tenor Rainer Trost (subbing for the scheduled Michael Schade) had a very good night. After a decent start, he opened up and offered declamatory beauty and security in spades. There were also moments of powerfully-lusty beauty to be had from soprano Genia Kühmeier while alto Clementine Margaine’s nicely husky, strong voice was marred a little by the occasional flat moment. The 2011 Rieger organ of the Musikverein blended nicely into the orchestral sound, perhaps surprising given that I sat less than ten feet from the (albeit purely decorative) pipes of its prospect. The French voices for the solo-quartet were decent, but included a calamitous hauler. The short of the night, however, was that I’ll be happy to be back in the stalls again, next time, and that there was precious little miraculous about this performance.

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A Survey of Beethoven Symphony Cycles: Alphabetical Index

Discographies on ionarts: Bach Organ Cycles | Beethoven Piano Sonata Cycles I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX | Beethoven Symphony Cycles Index | Beethoven String Quartet Cycles | Bruckner Symphony Cycles | Dvořák Symphony Cycles | Shostakovich Symphony Cycles | Sibelius Symphony Cycles | Mozart Keyboard Sonata Cycles

The Beethoven Symphonies
A Survey of Complete* Recordings

has moved here.

Major Scholarly Find in Rachmaninoff Studies

Fans of the symphonies and piano concertos of Sergei Rachmaninoff swoon over the many performances this music receives each season, admiring the melodic sweep, treacly harmony, and heavenly length of the Russian composer's style. A new musicological discovery may force listeners to reconsider what they think they know about their beloved idol. Dr. Ignaz Allott, professor of music at the University of South Central Florida, does not regularly concern himself with music later than the Renaissance, but the early music specialist claims he can explain an odd passage in one of the Russian composer's letters. "Writing to his friend, Mikhail Overdunsky, Rachmaninoff expressed worry that the second symphony would not be accepted by audiences," Prof. Allott explains. "He entrusted Overdunsky with informing the musicians of his intentions in the piece, indicated only by the mysterious letters 'OMA' at the beginning of his manuscript copy of the symphony."

This rare annotation, thought to be an extraneous error by the typesetter, did not make it into any of the published versions of the symphony. "It is actually a common trick used in puzzle canons in late medieval Italian manuscripts," Allott says. "It stands for Omittere misure alternative, and when you saw it, you knew that you 'solved' the puzzle by performing only every other measure of the notated music." More startling, Rachmaninoff apparently intended this instruction to be included at the top of all of his symphonies, concertos, and piano music, meaning that all of those scores should be performed with only half of the music Rachmaninoff has written down. "Instead of taking 54 minutes to perform, the second symphony should only last 27 minutes," Allott explains, laughing, "and that interminable second piano concerto should instead be a more tolerable 17 minutes long."

Considering the bloated experience created by performing these pieces without understanding Rachmaninoff's true intentions, Allott says he is surprised that no one realized the mistake earlier. "All those years of sitting through endless repetitions in Rachmaninoff's music, I am amazed that anyone could stand it," he adds with a smile. Asked about his plans for future research, Allott says he is looking into how his findings may be applicable to the symphonies of Tchaikovsky.

SVILUPPO:
With apologies to all the Rachmaninoff fans out there, as most of you realized -- poissons d'avril!