Mahler 7

[Nick Armstrong]

We've never had a thread about Mahler 7 and its various interpretations, I think (there have been a couple about specific broadcast performances, and one about TV adverts...)

Last week I caught up with the CD Review from 3rd August when AMcG considered and played extracts from these two new discs:

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 7
Performer: Berlin Philharmonic. Performer: Michael Gielen.
TESTAMENT SBT 1480 TK 3

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 7
Performer: Gürzenich-Orchester Köln. Performer: Markus Stenz.
OEHMS CLASSICS OC 652 TK 5

I've long had a fondness for the 7th and its colour, glamour and - I think - irony (it sometimes seems like Mahler writing a parody of his own work, to me).

Both those two new discs grabbed me and I've acquired both, and used a peaceful weekend to listen to them.

Not sure I shall hang on to the Stenz. Maybe it's the SA-CD format, but on my CD system the sound is rather recessed and nasal. What got me on the radio was the final movement, played in headlong and exhilarating manner... but as AMcG said, the earlier movements are less remarkable.

On the other hand, the Gielen 'live' performance is fabulous. He stepped in to replace an ailing Tennstedt, and it's something special - and a wonderful rich but precise recording.

I heard Klaus Tennstedt conduct Mahler 7 once, and it was the only concert by him I was very disapponted with - he let it sprawl it seemed to me, all tugging and no structure.

Gielen doen't take it briskly but he maintains a focus and a pulse. Some terrific playing, and nice precise timps I think you can hear the 'modern music' specialist in the way he makes the music sound, right from the outset - the accompaniment figure under the tenor horn solo usually sounds as a sort of low, husky shimmer - Gielen makes it throb and shudder, much more distinctly.

This reading is a keeper!

I learnt this piece from Abbado's classic Chicago reading which I still love - it seems to balance the exotic with the formal, as so often with that conductor, in ideal manner. I also have both Bernsteins, Rattle, Svetlanov and the Kubelik DG recording.

I remember pricking up my ears a few years back at extracts on CD Review of a new version by Zdenek Macal and the Czech Philharmonic, which sounded stunning. But the price (it stretches to two discs) always put me off and I never got round to hearing it. Does anyone have this?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Symphony-No-7-Gustav/dp/B001MF0EDU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376255812&sr=8-1&keywords=exton+czech+mahler+7

(Actually the pricing of that disc is very odd... Having seen the above on sale for £19.42, I noticed yesterday that it was apparently due for re-release on 13 August at a more sensible price - £12 I think... but on looking again, the given price has changed upwards... markedly

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphony-No-...mahler+7+macal )


Anyway - views on the piece, preferred recordings and performances attended, most welcome.

[pastoralguy]

This was the first Mahler symphony I ever played and it's probably my favourite. For me, the end of the first movement is one of the most exciting things in music - ever!

[Nick Armstrong]

This was the first Mahler symphony I ever played and it's probably my favourite. For me, the end of the first movement is one of the most exciting things in music - ever!

[Petrushka]

I have the Gielen disc on my wish list and your comments are making it hard to resist clicking on the 'add to basket' option. May have to wait a bit, unfortunately.

I got to know the 7th from the CSO/Solti recording and it still sounds fabulous over 40 years on but in generally available recordings it's largely Bernstein in either of his two NYPO who does the business here. Lenny plays the controversial finale for all it's worth and succeeds handsomely. All question marks over the finale are swept aside.

Performance-wise, I've not heard that many. Haitink (twice), Rattle (also twice), Andrew Davis and Chailly. Simon Rattle gave a tremendous Prom performance with the CBSO in 1989 and I asked him afterwards when they were recording it. He told me they were taking it into the studio the next day. Nothing ever appeared and it wasn't until after the live Aldburgh disc came out that I learnt that Rattle hadn't been satisfied with the studio account. There is, or should be, an unissued CBSO/Rattle recording in the EMI vaults though considering the current EMI/Warner situation it's anybody's guess what will happen to it.

My favourite recording, by the way, is Haitink and the Concertgebouw recorded live on Christmas Day in 1987 but also up there is a live 1979 Concertgebouw/Kondrashin performance on Tahra.

[richardfinegold]

I first learned this from Bernstein on lp. The sound was horrible --the orchestra sounds like it has been crammed in to a broom closet--and it put me offthe piece for a long time. When the remastered Bernstein/Mahler recordings came out a few years ago, it was a revelation.
My next encounter was Horenstein, via a bootleg of a concert performance. It made me appreciate the piece but the playing and recording leave a lot to be desired.
The previously cited Abbado/Chicago became my standard for years, until Abbado /Lucerne. I also like the Barenboim/Berlin Staatkapele. I also have Boulez/Amsterdam on Blu Ray, but I'm not a fan. MTT/SFSO is another spectacularly recorded very good performance that just can't quite compete with Bernstein or the two by Abbado.

[BBMmk2]

It was the Chicago SO/Abbado, that I bought, that introduced me to this work but Cali's recommendation, of the Gielen has, also made me click o0n that recording as well! I hav'nt any Gielen recordings in my collection at all, at the moment. his Mahler does seem rather good though.

[gurnemanz]

I came quite late to this one. I never had an LP version and got to know it through the oft-recommended Abbado/Chicago on CD. A major concert highlight was the Chailly/Gewandhaus performance at the Barbican in 2006. I got the Bernstein Symphony Edition Box last year and his version of the Seventh is marvellous with great sound from 1965.

[umslopogaas]

Interesting to hear that for some, this was their introduction to Mahler's music. For me, it is the symphony I heard last, and know least well: my introduction was the famous 2 LP Decca set of the second, conducted by Solti: a real hi-fi spectacular at the time.

I have only three versions of the seventh: an ancient mono LP of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, cond. Hermann Scherchen (Westminster), New Philharmonia cond. Klemperer (EMI) and Chicago SO cond. Solti. I'm a great fan of Solti, though I know he's not everybody's favourite.

[Richard Tarleton]

Anyway - views on the piece, preferred recordings and performances attended, most welcome.

It has a guitar and mandolin in it, so can't be bad! I think it's taken me longer than the others to get to know - only two performances attended, Solti/LPO, RFH 1972 (a packed house) and the Orchestre National de Lyon with Alan Gilbert in a half-empty St David's Hall in 2005 - sad, that. Only one CD - Abbado/CSO - which I love.

[PJPJ]

I'm a great fan of Solti, though I know he's not everybody's favourite.

So am I and I think his Mahler 7 was the first I heard. I got the Gielen off-air from a German broadcast before it appeared on Testament, a performance I'm not surprised at all has been released commercially. It is really rather good, and I ought to upgrade to the CD for the improved sound quality. Like many here, I seem to have collected rather a lot of Mahler, but were I to be left with the Gielen only I'd be almost completely satisfied. It must have been a wonderful evening in the Philharmonie.

I'd also have to plea to keep a second, another live performance, Eduard van Beinum from the Concertgebouw, released for the first time fairly recently. The energy gives me a real high, another great concert. One caveat, though, the sound is pretty primitive - for all my enthusiasm for the best sound on SACD or other high resolution formats, blah blah.... blah. And a third? Haitink on Christmas Day.

After all these years I am beginning to get on Klemperer's wavelength, too - his recording is available as a 24 bit download quite newly remastered by EMI. Whether this will appear locally after the Warner acquisition is anyone's guess.

http://www.e-onkyo.com/music/album/emi0756/

(There's a hefty premium to pay for the greater sound quality.) :emoticonofyourchoice:

[Oliver]

My introduction to this piece came from an ancient Rosbaud performance that I bought for less than £1 at Oxford in the late 60s. Even then, the sound seemed atrocious. I heard Rattle conduct it at the Proms and was impressed but his CD performance gathers dust on my shelves; it never seems to catch fire and the sound (it was recorded live at Snape) is lacking in bloom.
I tried it again a couple of months ago ( I was running in some new speakers) and my opinion was confirmed.
I heard an excerpt from a Barenboim performance a few years ago and it sounded interesting; would it be worth buying?

[pilamenon]

[COLOR="#0000FF"] Not sure I shall hang on to the Stenz. Maybe it's the SA-CD format, but on my CD system the sound is rather recessed and nasal. What got me on the radio was the final movement, played in headlong and exhilarating manner

Interesting that you single that out, as it's the finale that always puts me off this work - it feels histrionic, overblown and out of kilter with the mood of the rest of the piece. I have Abbado/CSO and Haitink live on Christmas Day with the Concertgebouw, but wonder if there is a recording that can convince doubters like me in that finale.

[johnb]

Interesting that you single that out, as it's the finale that always puts me off this work - it feels histrionic, overblown and out of kilter with the mood of the rest of the piece.

I think Mahler often uses vulgarity as an essential element in his music - best just to accept the finale and enjoy the ride. (Mind you I've always thought the 7th as a rather quirky work.)

[pastoralguy]

The recording I had back in the 80's was Tennstedt with the LPO which was, I think, a live performance (EMI) since there were a few fluffs that simply seemed to add to the excitement! I'm not sure if he re- recorded in the studio but that old tape was pretty much worn out over a few years.

I did get the Abbado version on cd (bought from my Safeway Christmas and New year money for circa. £26 in '87). But I always thought it was a little tame compared to the Tennstedt version.

[Karafan]

Can anyone with the Testament and Haenssler Gielen M7's comment on them in comparison with one another please? I have the rather expensive Haenssler box but wondered if the BPO take added something fresh?

K.