Turned to, I had imagined, as something of a postscript, I found Chailly’s Leipzig Gewandhaus 1851 4th in the Mahler Edition pretty sensational.
You have the fascination of the lighter, more revealing and varied orchestration (which is subtly and faithfully done - at times you wouldn't even know...) but Mahler also adds instruments (e.g sometimes increasing the number of horns in a passage, or adding violins to violas) to clarify lines and sharpen impact. His adjustments to dynamics also intensifies musical contrast. Add in Chailly’s fast tempi, crisp pseudo-HIPPs phrasing, rapid-response, exposed brasses in zooming crescendi, and you create an effect that’s not for the fainthearted!
But this is the Leipzig Gewandhaus playing at their virtuosic, open-textured best, so as long as you can take Schumann at this degree of sonic intensity, you can’t lose. Yet the Romanze, at a flowing pace, is unusually and touchingly hesitant, feather-light, freshly expressive (bringing the 3rd movement of the Rhenish to mind); the scherzo surprises you again with its weight and truculence, the violins really cutting through overhead. The finale intro is very powerful, widely dynamic, but never once reminds you of Bruckner!
Mahler dispenses with the outer-movement repeats, which, as with the leavened textures, aligns 1851 more closely with 1841, adding another layer of interest.
But what the listener retains afterward is the sheer physical impact of the Decca recording, the devastating music directness of Chailly’s conception. I almost said “drama” again, but it isn’t that, not really. No emotional excess at all; just the music, in Mahler’s remarkably subtle, insightful arrangement played with terrific power, accuracy and verve.
Only for "the adventurous"? Perhaps. Or for the happy few... but another one for my top group…(getting a bit crowded up there...)
You have the fascination of the lighter, more revealing and varied orchestration (which is subtly and faithfully done - at times you wouldn't even know...) but Mahler also adds instruments (e.g sometimes increasing the number of horns in a passage, or adding violins to violas) to clarify lines and sharpen impact. His adjustments to dynamics also intensifies musical contrast. Add in Chailly’s fast tempi, crisp pseudo-HIPPs phrasing, rapid-response, exposed brasses in zooming crescendi, and you create an effect that’s not for the fainthearted!
But this is the Leipzig Gewandhaus playing at their virtuosic, open-textured best, so as long as you can take Schumann at this degree of sonic intensity, you can’t lose. Yet the Romanze, at a flowing pace, is unusually and touchingly hesitant, feather-light, freshly expressive (bringing the 3rd movement of the Rhenish to mind); the scherzo surprises you again with its weight and truculence, the violins really cutting through overhead. The finale intro is very powerful, widely dynamic, but never once reminds you of Bruckner!
Mahler dispenses with the outer-movement repeats, which, as with the leavened textures, aligns 1851 more closely with 1841, adding another layer of interest.
But what the listener retains afterward is the sheer physical impact of the Decca recording, the devastating music directness of Chailly’s conception. I almost said “drama” again, but it isn’t that, not really. No emotional excess at all; just the music, in Mahler’s remarkably subtle, insightful arrangement played with terrific power, accuracy and verve.
Only for "the adventurous"? Perhaps. Or for the happy few... but another one for my top group…(getting a bit crowded up there...)
- The final nudge to buy this set was my noticing that Roger Montgomery was one of the soloists in the Konzerstuck (that and the inclusion of the Zwickau Symphony - which I don't remember ever hearing before - and the Paradise and Mignon choral works, which I think I've only ever heard at most twice each.) So - that's the weekend's listening sorted!
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