Mahler 1

[Beef Oven!]

My first purchase of a recording of this symphony was Claudio Abbado's Chicago Symphony Orchestra outing on Deutsche Grammophon. Still love that CD to this day (I think Abbado's first performance and possibly his first CD (?) on taking on the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra from Karajan was Mahler 1).

Currently listening to London Symphony Orchestra, Georg Solti. Decca.

One of the handful of Solti recordings I rate. The best Mahler 1? I think so.

Great music - should be though, given that Hans Rott wrote most of it (didn't he pull out a revolver and try to shoot Brahms dead on a train?).

[Barbirollians]

I see that Horenstein's Unicorn Mahler recordings including the First are to reappear on Scribendum in March.

[cloughie]

My first purchase of a recording of this symphony was Claudio Abbado's Chicago Symphony Orchestra outing on Deutsche Grammophon. Still love that CD to this day (I think Abbado's first performance and possibly his first CD (?) on taking on the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra from Karajan was Mahler 1).

Currently listening to London Symphony Orchestra, Georg Solti. Decca.

One of the handful of Solti recordings I rate. The best Mahler 1? I think so.

Great music - should be though, given that Hans Rott wrote most of it (didn't he pull out a revolver and try to shoot Brahms dead on a train?).

Great music indeed - there are so many outstanding Mahler 1s out there - those you mention above - Ancerl, Kubelik, Ozawa -plus all the usual Mahler gang - Abbado probably recorded it with the BPO early doors because Karajan never bothered with it!

[richardfinegold]

My personal fave is the Horenstein that Barbs mentioned, but I am very fond of Walter, Ancerl, MTT....come to think of it, I don't know Ia version that doesn't have something recommendable.

[teamsaint]

just in case this has passed anybody by, here is Eschenbach and the Orchestre de Paris performing the symphonies complete.

http://www.christoph-eschenbach.com/mahler/

[Pulcinella]

This was my first Mahler 1: Vienna Phil, Kletzki.
Good old Classics for Pleasure.

https://www.discogs.com/Mahler-Paul-Kletzki-Vienna-Phiharmonic-Orchestra-The-Symphony-No-1-In-D-Major/release/6470771

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I prefer it when the Slow Movement comes before the Scherzo.

[Pulcinella]

I prefer it when the Slow Movement comes before the Scherzo.

You might have to wait quite a while for that final hammer blow, though!

[Richard Barrett]

Regarding Hans Rott: his Symphony is really a ponderous and awkward piece of work compared to Mahler - many of its themes and turns of phrase obviously got under Mahler's skin, but an extended composition isn't fundamentally made of such bits and pieces stuck together, and it's the obvious joins and miscalculations (as well as turgid orchestration) in Rott's work that let it down.

By coincidence I've heard Mahler's First more often than any of the others in live performance in the last couple of years despite not attending orchestral performances very often. Every time I hear it I think to myself it's better than I remember it, and almost every time I hear it I feel that the main material of the second movement is too slow. An exception, and the most memorable of the recent performances I've heard, was Andrew Davis conducting the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

[Richard Barrett]

I prefer it when the Slow Movement comes before the Scherzo.

Which reminds me, the last time I heard the piece included the "Blumine" movement which of course Mahler later removed, and I'd previously heard this piece played on its own. Response: it makes little impression when played alone, compared to when it's integrated into the symphony, and in the latter case I would say it really is a valid alternative way of performing the whole work. So here's another Mahler symphony which inhabits parallel realities.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

In 1967, I cycled from Stockport to Waunfawr, near Caernarfon in a single day. Throughout the ride, I had the finale of Mahler 1 running through my head, but could not recall what it was, but thought it might be the finale of Shostakovich 5.

[Barbirollians]

Bruno Walter's early 1960s Columbia SO recording remains my favourite though Barbirolli's live Czech PO version nearly displaces it .

[ahinton]

Which reminds me, the last time I heard the piece included the "Blumine" movement which of course Mahler later removed, and I'd previously heard this piece played on its own. Response: it makes little impression when played alone, compared to when it's integrated into the symphony, and in the latter case I would say it really is a valid alternative way of performing the whole work. So here's another Mahler symphony which inhabits parallel realities.

An interesting thought, but one fundamental difference here is that Mahler survived for 23 years after completing his first symphony and thus had far greater opportunity to consider whether removal of that movement was what served the work best whereas, in the case of the sixth, he had just six years in which he only conducted it twice (I think); I don't have detail readily to hand about the performance history of the first during the composer's lifetime, but I think that it is a point nevertheless.

[ahinton]

You might have to wait quite a while for that final hammer blow, though!

Le maître sans marteau, as in, peut-être?...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Which reminds me, the last time I heard the piece included the "Blumine" movement which of course Mahler later removed, and I'd previously heard this piece played on its own. Response: it makes little impression when played alone, compared to when it's integrated into the symphony, and in the latter case I would say it really is a valid alternative way of performing the whole work. So here's another Mahler symphony which inhabits parallel realities.

Joshing aside, I was going to mention Blumine - a lovely intermezzo, and one which I'd love to hear in the context of the 1889 instrumentation (the only one which Mahler gave Titan as a subtitle - he removed the title along with the Blumine Movement). I believe (and look forward to hearing that I'm wrong) that Wyn Morris made the only recording of this version.