Iván Fischer at 70

[richardfinegold]

The 7th was the first Mahler Symphony I really engaged with. I had heard the 1st and 4th but had not given them their due attention. I remember The Gramophone having a comparative review of the NYPO/Bernstein and USO/Abravanel recordings of the 7th. I was impecunious at the time so 'made do' with the Abravanel, despite a warning that there was a wrong timp note at the start of the scherzo. By the way, the word which I have always associated with that scherzo is phantasmagorical.

You may have done well to get the Abravanel. The lp version of that recording was intentionally mixed for AM Radio capabilities. It sounded much better as a CD

[Bryn]

You may have done well to get the Abravanel. The lp version of that recording was intentionally mixed for AM Radio capabilities. It sounded much better as a CD

Yes, my original copy was on a Philips mid-price label, IIRC. More recently I have bought a CD release and downloaded high-resolution remasters. Seymour Solomon had an interesting approach to recording production. I have, of course, added that Berstein recording and his later ones, since, along with innumerable other recorded performances. It can be good to go back to recordings which introduced one to works, especially those which made a major initial impact.

[kernelbogey]

It cant be that difficult to distinguish between Ivan and Adam!

Reflecting on this extravagant assertion I was reminded of the (likely apocryphal) story of William Spooner greeting an undergraduate in the quad of New College at the beginning of Michaelmas Term 1919: 'Aaah, Simpkins, I can never remember if it was you or your brother who was killed at the Somme'.

[richardfinegold]

Yes, my original copy was on a Philips mid-price label, IIRC. More recently I have bought a CD release and downloaded high-resolution remasters. Seymour Solomon had an interesting approach to recording production. I have, of course, added that Berstein recording and his later ones, since, along with innumerable other recorded performances. It can be good to go back to recordings which introduced one to works, especially those which made a major initial impact.

Abravanel Mahler cycle was released on DVD Audio in the early 2000s. I picked it up when Tower records had their bankruptcy sale, at a time when DVD-A was clearly failing as a format. I have never actually heard the CDs or lps. It’s a very competitive cycle. The Utah SO got critically written off as not ready for prime time, but they sound at the very least the equal of Adam Fisher’s Düsseldorf band (Dusseldorfers?) and I believe M. A. was part of that group of Mahler devotees that included O.K., Walter, Scherchen, and others.
The Utah Concertmaster was Joseph Silverstein, longtime Boston SO concertmaster and a player with a discography of his own. His granddaughter went to school with me in Michigan. One day J.S. Came to our classroom-I was probably about 10- and played a few short pieces. I could have cared less at the time. A few years later I became interested in music and eventually realized what a special event that had been. His granddaughter and I went to the same University and whenever I ran into her I would always ask how her Grandfather Joe was.
I think I’ve told that story on the Forum previously. I turn 65 in a few weeks, and you know how old geezers prattle on

[smittims]

Maurice Abravanel deserves remembering as a pioneer of several composers including Vaughan Williams, recording three of his works on Vanguard at a time when they were neglected, including 'Dona Nobis Pacem' , its first and for some years only available recording.

[Bryn]

Maurice Abravanel deserves remembering as a pioneer of several composers including Vaughan Williams, recording three of his works on Vanguard at a time when they were neglected, including 'Dona Nobis Pacem' , its first and for some years only available recording.

Also for his mid-960s recordings of Varèse's Amériques, Ecuatorial and the Chou Wen-chung realisation of Nocturnal Each, IIRC, first commercial recordings.

[RichardB]

Returning to Iván Fischer, if we may, I'm now listening to his Mahler 9. The trouble with this work is that I get so involved in the composition that it's difficult to concentrate on what I might think about the performance. But the sighing horns at the end of the first movement are really special.

[kernelbogey]

Returning to Iván Fischer, if we may, I'm now listening to his Mahler 9. The trouble with this work is that I get so involved in the composition that it's difficult to concentrate on what I might think about the performance. But the sighing horns at the end of the first movement are really special.

It's strange that, for me, even this far down a thread I started, I have to think - which Fischer are you referring to, Richard. I actually have to work it out.

In fact I have the complete Haydn symphonies, having at the time imagined - without checking! - that I was getting a recording by the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra (pure laziness, or rushing, I believe); I haven't yet heard Ivan's Mahler.

And I recently acquired Adam's Beethoven Cycle with the Danish Chamber Orchestrs.

[RichardB]

which Fischer are you referring to, Richard.

I'm referring to Iván, here and elsewhere. A postscript to my previous post: when the final movement began I thought to myself oh no, this is far too fast, but by the end it had me thinking that the glacial pace of some renditions of this movement is more self-indulgence than bleak expressiveness. Fischer (I) is showing us the void, without having to underline it.

[kernelbogey]

I'm referring to Iván, here and elsewhere. A postscript to my previous post: when the final movement began I thought to myself oh no, this is far too fast, but by the end it had me thinking that the glacial pace of some renditions of this movement is more self-indulgence than bleak expressiveness. Fischer (I) is showing us the void, without having to underline it.

Apologies if I was unclear: i meant an internal (mental) 'Which one is that...?' - nothing to do with your post, which was clear, since you named Iván.

[kernelbogey]

... the second movement takes on a much stronger aspect of foreboding than I've come across before... perceiving a shadow of twentieth century atrocities.

This has been raised before on this Forum... though not in relation to the Seventh, AFAIK. I don't see how to avoid this, given the European history of the last 100 years. I feel that myself about the fifth symphony - but it has to be our own projection, and nothing to do with the composer at the time of composition.

[RichardB]

I feel that myself about the fifth symphony - but it has to be our own projection, and nothing to do with the composer at the time of composition.

That doesn't make it any less real of course, but I think there's more to it than that - the sense of foreboding isn't uncommon in art and thought between 1900 and 1914, whether it's Mahler or Schoenberg or the beginnings of Expressionism - a perception that the current world order was about to collapse, even if it might not have been completely clear that something like the First World War was only a few years away.

[richardfinegold]

This has been raised before on this Forum... though not in relation to the Seventh, AFAIK. I don't see how to avoid this, given the European history of the last 100 years. I feel that myself about the fifth symphony - but it has to be our own projection, and nothing to do with the composer at the time of composition.

I've tried to read a lot about the origins of WWI, and to do that one really has to delve into European, and to a lesser extent Asian, African and American History of the last half of the 20th Century. I think it's fair to say that by the end of the 19th Century most of the World knew that something dreadful was going to occur around the horizon. While a Composer such as Mahler could not have predicted some thing as specific as, for example, the Battle of the Somme, they knew that the various sources of stress in the world were going to burst the relative peace that Europe enjoyed. However Mahler was undoubtedly influenced by his personal tragedies as well. Is his music (and others of the general period, such as the Brahms Fourth, or the Tchaikovsky Sixth) indicative of purely personal psychological crisis, specific to the individual creator? Or is there a more general anxiety for the fate of mankind as a whole mixed in?

[kernelbogey]

I've tried to read a lot about the origins of WWI, and to do that one really has to delve into European, and to a lesser extent Asian, African and American History of the last half of the 20th Century. I think it's fair to say that by the end of the 19th Century most of the World knew that something dreadful was going to occur around the horizon. While a Composer such as Mahler could not have predicted some thing as specific as, for example, the Battle of the Somme, they knew that the various sources of stress in the world were going to burst the relative peace that Europe enjoyed. However Mahler was undoubtedly influenced by his personal tragedies as well. Is his music (and others of the general period, such as the Brahms Fourth, or the Tchaikovsky Sixth) inicative of purely personal psychological crisis, spwcific to the individual creator? Or is there a more general anxiety for the fate of mankind as a whole mixed in?

That [personal projection] doesn't make it any less real of course, but I think there's more to it than that - the sense of foreboding isn't uncommon in art and thought between 1900 and 1914, whether it's Mahler or Schoenberg or the beginnings of Expressionism - a perception that the current world order was about to collapse, even if it might not have been completely clear that something like the First World War was only a few years away.

I'm not a Jungian - and Carl Jung said, I believe, 'Thank God I'm not a Jungian!'. But what you allude to here, I think Richard B and Richard F, is close to what he called 'The Collective Unconscious'. I'm not best placed to describe this, but one might say, I think in line with Jung's idea, that a widespread concsiousness that something dreadful was going to occur, however that might be individually experienced might become manifest in music, music theatre and visual arts. In Mahler's symphonies that's pretty clear - in #2 Der Mensch liegt in tiefster Not - and the first movement, in particular, of #5, expresses, for me, profound existential angst.

[richardfinegold]

I'm not a Jungian - and Carl Jung said, I believe, 'Thank God I'm not a Jungian!'. But what you allude to here, I think Richard B and Richard F, is close to what he called 'The Collective Unconscious'. I'm not best placed to describe this, but one might say, I think in line with Jung's idea, that a widespread concsiousness that something dreadful was going to occur, however that might be individually experienced might become manifest in music, music theatre and visual arts. In Mahler's symphonies that's pretty clear - in #2 Der Mensch liegt in tiefster Not - and the first movement, in particular of #5, expresses, for me, profound existential angst.

By coincidence currently listening to the first movement of #5, after watching the movie Tar.
I think I agree with your assessments, kb. Whereas the first movement of the Sixth, with its Grotesque Marche, seems to usher in a specifically military catastrophe, 5/1 is a more generalized angst.
Regarding Jung, it’s been a while for me there. However—do we need to postulate the existence of a “collective unconscious “ as opposed to a very collective consciousness? For these Armageddon scenarios were openly discussed.
There was a dichotomy between those who on the one hand argued that Nations were to bound up with economic interdependence to fight a ruinous war (and these people also believed that Civilization had advanced to a stage that recognized the futility and evil of War); and on the other the other side those that thirsted to smash things up using whatever
argument was convenient as a pretext-Nationalism and Economics (Capitalism vs Socialism ) being the 2 most commonly used idealogies. So there was angst about who would prevail, and as the Political Crises, the Pogroms and other persecutions were matched by Anarchist Violence which gave rise to more Militarism and Persecution. Female Emancipation , Colonialism, andRacism added to a toxic brew. From our vantage point it was a Golden Era;
Not so much to the contemporaries. And as we know, the Smashers prevailed. There had to be a collective feeling of helplessness in the face of all this, and that is what I tend to think of when I listen to much of what was created during this time