New and recent Mahler recordings

[richardfinegold]

Apologies! It's not an SACD but a CD - although still well-recorded. Exton are in the Mercury school of recording, as opposed to say, the Decca Phase Four school. A purist (and typically Japanese) approach where there is not much intervention by recording engineers, although I wouldn't want to suggest that they don't edit and master (and - usually - mix) what they record. Usually taken from live concerts but with patching sessions thereafter, the results reflect where they have been recorded so, if it's the Rudolfinum in Prague (Zdenek Mácal's Mahler 7 - a great favourite with Caliban, I remember) or the Concert Hall in Stockholm (Ashkenazy's Sibelius), the results are about as good as recordings ever get. If it's a more challenging recording venue, that's what you'll hear - no attempt to compensate for acoustic shortcomings. Hence my phrase about warts and all. My qualification about mixing is that they experiment with "One-Point" recording (see http://www.lcs-consulting-sales.de/en/technik_en.html which will give you the general idea). My one foray into it (Eliahu Inbal in the Mahler/Cooke 10th) was a good demonstration of, alas, every grunt and snort from Maestro Inbal (much worse than Colin Davis or Sir JB ). Anyway, this is a very rambling way of saying that, with Exton - and to mangle a phrase - "what you hear is what you get".

Actually the Honeck Mahler CDs listed on Amazon all have the SACD logo prominently displayed on their covers

[HighlandDougie]

Actually the Honeck Mahler CDs listed on Amazon all have the SACD logo prominently displayed on their covers

Indeed. My copy of the 5th is in Scotland and I’m in France so I can’t check whether it was first released as a CD then as an SACD or whether my memory is at fault - probably the latter. Whatever, it is a fine recording. Ditto the 3rd.

[BBMmk2]

RFG is the Chicago Symphony re ording again or have I missed it all?

[richardfinegold]

They still seem to be releasing discs. There was a poorly reviewed Muti Bruckner disc not long ago.

[mahlerei]

Bbm

To expand on Richard's reply, if I may: yes, they now have their own label, CSO Resound. I found the Muti Bruckner 9 rather disappointing, but then RM doesn't have much of a track record with this music. That said, I have a feeling some forumites were more positive on an earlier thread. I was much more impressed with Muti's CSO Verdi Requiem, Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet Suites, Berlioz Symphonie fantastique/Lélio, and the DSCH Michelangelo songs. All are very well recorded, too.

I certainly wouldn't be averse to Honeck recording an M5 with the CSO, if that were possible...

[richardfinegold]

Bbm

To expand on Richard's reply, if I may: yes, they now have their own label, CSO Resound. I found the Muti Bruckner 9 rather disappointing, but then RM doesn't have much of a track record with this music. That said, I have a feeling some forumites were more positive on an earlier thread. I was much more impressed with Muti's CSO Verdi Requiem, Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet Suites, Berlioz Symphonie fantastique/Lélio, and the DSCH Michelangelo songs. All are very well recorded, too.

I certainly wouldn't be averse to Honeck recording an M5 with the CSO, if that were possible...

I just received the new issue of Fanfare. The Vanska/ Minnesota 5th received a strong thumbs up from a reviewer that I respect (Phillip Scott)
Regarding the newer CSO releases cited above, none have particularly caught my fancy when I have heard them on a local radio preview show. Glad to see Mahleri thinks well of most of them. The Bruckner 9 has been generally acknowledged as a misfire

[BBMmk2]

Bbm

To expand on Richard's reply, if I may: yes, they now have their own label, CSO Resound. I found the Muti Bruckner 9 rather disappointing, but then RM doesn't have much of a track record with this music. That said, I have a feeling some forumites were more positive on an earlier thread. I was much more impressed with Muti's CSO Verdi Requiem, Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet Suites, Berlioz Symphonie fantastique/Lélio, and the DSCH Michelangelo songs. All are very well recorded, too.

I certainly wouldn't be averse to Honeck recording an M5 with the CSO, if that were possible...

Oh my goodness! That would be very tempting!!

[mahlerei]

I just received the new issue of Fanfare. The Vanska/ Minnesota 5th received a strong thumbs up from a reviewer that I respect (Phillip Scott)
Regarding the newer CSO releases cited above, none have particularly caught my fancy when I have heard them on a local radio preview show. Glad to see Mahleri thinks well of most of them. The Bruckner 9 has been generally acknowledged as a misfire

Richard

The Vanska M5 has certainly had mixed reviews. One of my MusicWeb colleagues liked it rather more than I did, but wasn't ecstatic. IMHO, there are far better versions out there.

I must admit I rarely - if ever - pursue a recording purely on the basis of audio clips, as I invariably find them misleading. Ideally, I would prefer to spend a few days with the complete performance before approaching any kind of conclusion. However, I have been known to follow steers from friends, colleagues and fellow forumites :) HD's comment about the Fassbaender/Celibidache Kindertotenlieder is a case in point.

[richardfinegold]

Richard

The Vanska M5 has certainly had mixed reviews. One of my MusicWeb colleagues liked it rather more than I did, but wasn't ecstatic. IMHO, there are far better versions out there.

I must admit I rarely - if ever - pursue a recording purely on the basis of audio clips, as I invariably find them misleading. Ideally, I would prefer to spend a few days with the complete performance before approaching any kind of conclusion. However, I have been known to follow steers from friends, colleagues and fellow forumites :) HD's comment about the Fassbaender/Celibidache Kindertotenlieder is a case in point.

I’m aware that the Vanska M5 has received mixed reviews. The previous ones that I had encountered ranged from scalding to ecstatic. I’ve really liked the Vanska Sibelius and Beethoven cycles, and I heard him do a very memorable Nielsen 5 Concert here. I enjoyed his Bruckner 4, and inevitably wonder how he would fare in Mahler. Since I can resist anything but temptation, I downloaded the Vanska M5 just now and am currently listening, as I await Honeck tonight. I’m not sure I like the Vanska out of the box (or to modernize that phrase, out of the router): it’s a pretty genial, light sounding effort, missing a lot of the gruff irony and sarcasm and rounding off the edges. I have learned that with Mahler, however, over time differences in approach can have their own legitimacy. Boulez took some adjusting on my part, but ultimately opened up quite a lot of new possibilities, and this could be a new way as well. Time will tell

[richardfinegold]

Well, if they do release a Honeck/CSO 5th, I think most of last night’s concert goers will buy a copy, based on the ecstatic
Reception last night. Honeck seems to have a feel for the architecture and the “one climax per movement “ philosophy as opposed to another Conductor who gets lauded about these here parts....The adagietto was simply magical, the CSO strings laying a velvet carpet of Sound that left people slack jawed at the conclusion. Honeck plunges into the finale and treats it as a Rondo Allegro with a double fugue, not trying to eke out profundity. I really don’t know what the right approach is to V, but the movement itself is so anti climactic after the preceding ones and particularly on the heels of the Adagietto.
Now I will let this memory linger before I turn back to Vanska

[HighlandDougie]

Going back to Solti, has anyone heard his Mahler 5 with the Zurich Tonhalle?

His last ever concert?

Just played. The booklet notes (by the-then intendant of the Tonhalle Orchestra) say that, "The re-introduction of Mahler's Fifth Symphony into Solti's repertoire also has its own story. He preferred longer intervals between performing the major symphonic works in order to work out fresh interpretations", which proves in some ways to be the case. While I was never greatly taken with the Chicago SO fifth (although I've recently acquired it in SACD format as part of a Tower Records set of 5/6/7) and Solti would never be my ideal Mahler interpreter, I am much more taken with this Tonhalle performance than the Chicago one. It's a Swiss Radio recording edited from two live concerts but, given that it was intended for radio broadcast and not as a commercial release, there was no patching after the event so infelicities in the orchestral playing and the odd cough are part of the package, balanced out in my view by the 'presence' which comes from it being live. While the Tonhalle is a fine orchestra (with the Zinman Mahler cycle to come), clearly playing its heart out for Solti, it doesn't reach the stellar heights of its counterpart in Chicago. The performance is marginally slower than Chicago overall and reflects a mellowing of Solti's approach, perhaps unsurprising given that he was 85 in Zurich rather than the 58 year old recording in Chicago. If all this makes it sound a bit like a curate's egg, that would be an unfair verdict. It wouldn't be a BaL choice but it's a fine performance by a very good orchestra, in decent if not spectacular sound, conducted by someone who was passionate about this wonderful music.

[richardfinegold]

Just played. The booklet notes (by the-then intendant of the Tonhalle Orchestra) say that, "The re-introduction of Mahler's Fifth Symphony into Solti's repertoire also has its own story. He preferred longer intervals between performing the major symphonic works in order to work out fresh interpretations", which proves in some ways to be the case. While I was never greatly taken with the Chicago SO fifth (although I've recently acquired it in SACD format as part of a Tower Records set of 5/6/7) and Solti would never be my ideal Mahler interpreter, I am much more taken with this Tonhalle performance than the Chicago one. It's a Swiss Radio recording edited from two live concerts but, given that it was intended for radio broadcast and not as a commercial release, there was no patching after the event so infelicities in the orchestral playing and the odd cough are part of the package, balanced out in my view by the 'presence' which comes from it being live. While the Tonhalle is a fine orchestra (with the Zinman Mahler cycle to come), clearly playing its heart out for Solti, it doesn't reach the stellar heights of its counterpart in Chicago. The performance is marginally slower than Chicago overall and reflects a mellowing of Solti's approach, perhaps unsurprising given that he was 85 in Zurich rather than the 58 year old recording in Chicago. If all this makes it sound a bit like a curate's egg, that would be an unfair verdict. It wouldn't be a BaL choice but it's a fine performance by a very good orchestra, in decent if not spectacular sound, conducted by someone who was passionate about this wonderful music.

That’s a nice review, HD.
The Chicago 5th was my only recording of the work for many years, when I actually didn’t care very much for the piece. Then at one point the work “clicked” for me and I became obsessed with it, buying several recordings. I was looking for the Solti/Chicago reading a few days ago and it’s gone missing. I know that my local library has a copy so I will borrow it.
I’m still absorbing the Vanska

[jayne lee wilson]

Well, if they do release a Honeck/CSO 5th, I think most of last night’s concert goers will buy a copy, based on the ecstatic
Reception last night. Honeck seems to have a feel for the architecture and the “one climax per movement “ philosophy as opposed to another Conductor who gets lauded about these here parts....The adagietto was simply magical, the CSO strings laying a velvet carpet of Sound that left people slack jawed at the conclusion. Honeck plunges into the finale and treats it as a Rondo Allegro with a double fugue, not trying to eke out profundity. I really don’t know what the right approach is to V, but the movement itself is so anti climactic after the preceding ones and particularly on the heels of the Adagietto.
Now I will let this memory linger before I turn back to Vanska

I'm surprised you say that about the finale.
For me it was always all about the final climax - the build-up should be all but unbearably tense, but then Mahler teases us with softer interludes, "not yet...not yet.." - but the music mustn't lose too much momentum.
Then, if the great, trumpeting peak isn't utterly overwhelming, as brazenly brassy as possible, a given performance always seems, indeed, anticlimactic(***). That last climax has to be bigger and more brilliant than its 2nd movement counterpart, which in turn mustn't be too powerful; a tricky one to get right across 70 minutes or so.

I don't listen to Mahler much just now, but I always loved that sheer momentum and thematic inventiveness of the last movement, which really has to drive along to make its distinctive, differential effect after all the sonic and emotional adventures (so often changing direction, so often becalmed) of the previous 4.
The first finale theme which emerges, pushing the music on gently, after the horn and wind solos, has to generate considerable energy when it returns with the full string complement or it's usually fatal for the symphony's impact; which should be physically as thrilling as any. It is a brilliantly symphonic movement too, wonderfully inventive with its 2 main themes and a whole family of energy-injecting rhythmical figures, often on brass; not to mention the "love" theme from the Adagietto itself, so wittily transformed, first light and lyrical, then urgent...

And what do you do at the very end? Go manically crazy as you race for the line, as it were shouting and laughing, or something more controlled (hopefully, only a little more...)...

Intrigued by the appearance of the Roth, I just risked the finale via Qobuz.....well, this one seems to get it very right indeed, balanced in sound and clear in musical argument, not cutting-edge brazen, but nicely buoyant, building power and impetus cleverly, with terrific weight and dynamics at the very end. Excellent. Not sure I'm ready to hear the whole thing again, just yet though.

(***)
Mind you, if you listen to Mahler as often as I do to Bruckner, you might want to hear more "revisionist" approaches more often...and be less dependent on the final impact...

[pastoralguy]

Although I had the Barbirolli/Philharmonia Mahler 5 I was loaned the Solti/Chicago Symphony by a wealthy friend who bought each new release as it was released in the early days of cd. (When cds were really expensive!) I was bowled over by both the interpretation, playing and the recording. Thanks to the new medium I heard so much detail that had been hidden by tape and Lp.

It's a work I've played many times but, alas, don't really hear that often today. I must come back to it.

[Alison]

Very grateful for the Solti Tonhalle review, HD.

Sounds well worth seeking out.