Michael Gielen's Mahler

[Bryn]

Thanks for that, John. I have not previously been tempted by Spotify, but the opportunity to hear Gielen's Das Leid von der Erde (which I have on order in CD format), 6 Pieces (Webern), etc. is too good to miss.

[johnb]

Bryn,

Make sure the you switch off volume normalization (Edit/Preferences "Set the same volume level for all tracks")

Oh, and if you are tempted by the 320 kbps bit rate of the Premium subscription - only a small minority of albums are encoded at 320 kbps, despite the impression (verging on fraudulent) that Spotify likes to give. (Most users will be unable to tell whether an album is encoded at 320kbps and we all know that our perceptions are influenced by what we expect to hear.)

Having said that - Spotify is a very handy resource for sampling composers/works/recordings.

[arcades]

Some of the individual issues of the Mahler Symphonies have interesting couplings, e.g. the Berg Seven Early Songs.

PS Thinking back to the old CD Masters days - I remember Rob or Jonathan playing a *very* nice Gielen recording of Brahms 2.

I have the individual issues, and the couplings are certainly interesting :) (the Berg Seven Early Songs aren't there ... they would work well, though)

1 has Ives' Central Park in the Dark and The Unanswered Question; 2 has Kurtág's Stele and Schönberg's Kol Nidre; 3 has extracts from Schubert's Rosamunde music intermixed with Webern's op. 6 orchestral pieces; 4 has Schreker's Prelude to a Drama; 6 has Berg's 3 Pieces for orchestra; 8 has Schönberg's Die Jakobsleiter; and 9 has Boulez's Rituel: In Memoriam Bruno Maderna and Notations I - IV and VII.

The Brahms symphonies on Hänssler are excellent. There's also a Beethoven symphony set for EMI Electrola which is very worth knowing, if copies are available. Attentive to Beethoven's metronome marks. I can't think of any other recent conductor who has been so deeply and consistently involved in the performance of contemporary music who has conducted the 'mainstream' as well as Gielen. Contemporary music being central to his work - rather than something he also does (in that sense the Mahler couplings are themselves mainstream, of course).

[Bryn]

There's also a Beethoven symphonies survey from Gielen (recorded between 1997 and 2000) on three Euroarts DVDs. The audio option are LPCM (48/16) 2 channel stereo, 5.1 DTS and 5.1 Dolby Digital. He's not quite as attentive to Beethoven's tempi as, say, Norrington (with the Stuttgarters), but far, far more so than that Tielemann fellow.

[johnb]

arcades,

Apologies - I must have been thinking about the Three Pieces for Orchestra and got muddled up.

[Dave2002]

Yes, I noticed this as well. £130+ on Amazon whereas you can get Bertini for around £30.

I bought Bertini's set recently for around £22 from Amazom. I think currently it's £21.99.

[mathias broucek]

"Gielen's is an excellent set, well played and well recorded. Like Bertini he gives us Mahler without over-interpreting."

Quite agree. I managed to get the whole set for 12.99 as a 320kb download from Tesco(!) Wouldn't pay more than about £25-£30 for any Mahler cycle given the bargains about

He's an interesting conductor - there's some good recent Schubert and a rather fine Bruckner 8 (like the Mahler with an unusual filler). The orchestra is pretty good if not as good as (say) the Bavarian radio orchestra.

[Dave2002]

"Gielen's is an excellent set, well played and well recorded. Like Bertini he gives us Mahler without over-interpreting."

Quite agree. I managed to get the whole set for 12.99 as a 320kb download from Tesco(!) Wouldn't pay more than about £25-£30 for any Mahler cycle given the bargains about

You seem to have been lucky there then. Currently Tesco prices seem much higher than that, with some individual symphonies themselves being quite pricey.

[Dave2002]

Just ordered the Sony Mahler 8 for under £4 from Amazon market place. Will sample the other Gielen symphonies on Spotify and/or Napster.

Also found the last movement of Brahms 3 on Napster. Starts well, then slows down fractionally. I like parts of this symphony white hot - but hardly anyone plays it that way!
This gets close at times though. There is a balance to be struck between reflectiveness and forward movement.
Some conductors emphasise the reflective nature of this work too much IMO.
The SWR orchestra is pushed hard at times, but copes. Gielen does seem to be a conductor worth hearing.

[PaulT]

I recall Rob Cowan playing all the Mahler symphonies on CD Masters a few years ago and commenting that Gielen's cycle was the one to have. I duly bought it at around 35 Euro from a Fnac store in Paris. One of the best buys I have ever made.

[mathias broucek]

"I like parts of this symphony white hot"

Dave - try to sample Celi's SWR Stuttgart Brahms (DG) which is very exciting. His Munich versions are also wonderful but more for texture than heat!

[arcades]

He's an interesting conductor - there's some good recent Schubert and a rather fine Bruckner 8 (like the Mahler with an unusual filler). The orchestra is pretty good if not as good as (say) the Bavarian radio orchestra.

The only Schubert I know of are the Rosamunde pieces and the 'Great' C Major from the late 90s/early 2000s. Very exciting performance of the symphony (not unlike Norrington's Stuttgart recording, which is even more exciting). There's a recent CD of Schumann 2 and 3.

He's much more than an interesting conductor if his work with contemporary (generally Central European) music is included in the picture. Wikipedia gives some sort of an idea, though a very partial one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gielen.

[edit: from a brief Google I see he conducted the UK premiere of Nono's Il canto sospeso with the BBCSO in 1970 (Festival Hall). The likelihood of something like that happening today is vanishingly small, I suspect]

[hedgehog]

I have yet to hear his Das Lied von der Erde, but will resolve that situation a.s.a.p.

I'm very interested in what people's opinions are on this recording.
I have heard this recording online and liked a lot of it. I was puzzled though by this "recent release" with Siegfried Jerusalem. It seems that his parts were recorded in 1992 and the rest with Cornelia Kallisch in 2002. Well it flows all beautifully for me, I like the whole interpretation, Jeresalem's voice is darker/heavier than most but works well I think, but I'm not sure whether Kallisch quite carries it off. The best of her singing is gorgeous - a liquid golden voice - but there are parts which are a little strained. Going back to Haitink/Baker (I won't go back further) and relistening I hear Baker at other places straining a bit too, but she carries off the climaxes well. I'm wondering now if I'm carrying an ideal of this work around in my head, gleaned from many performances, which I will never hear!

[Dave2002]

"I like parts of this symphony white hot"

Dave - try to sample Celi's SWR Stuttgart Brahms (DG) which is very exciting. His Munich versions are also wonderful but more for texture than heat!

Interesting. I have the Munich set (EMI) - didn't realise there's another by him. I only once tried to get into one of his concerts, in Bucharest, and failed. I think I should have been more assertive and waived loads of dollars around, maybe!

[FrankieP23]

Have you heard the Barshai?

Personally I really enjoyed Gielen's 5th :)
However, I find myself comparing every M5 recording I hear to Barshai's 1999 recording, which is just stunning. I find it far more exciting and fresh than any other I've heard, Gielen's included.
If you haven't heard it, I would very very highly recommend it: it's only about £4.85 - definitely the best value CD I've ever bought. I listen to it frequently and never tire of it: the first and second movements in particular are astonishing :)
Sadly he didn't record many of the others - 9 is again brilliant, with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orch (my favourite alongside Abbado's), and he did his own completion of the 10th which is available too. (I prefer the Cooke completion, I think it's more subtle).

I hope Barshai's Mahler becomes more known - he is so underappreciated!