Prom 35 - 9.08.13: Mahler – 'Resurrection' Symphony

[amateur51]

I have just listened to a pair of live recordings by Bruno Walter in the 1941/2 with the NYPO on Music and Arts .

They are stunning , visceral accounts . I don't think I shall ever hear Mahler 1 in the same way again but it exemplified to me what was wrong with this Resurrection - too pretty , too safe , too neat and too small !

Is this one of the two recorded performances of Mahler symphony no 1 conducted by Walter that appear in the recent Sony box of Mahler/Walter, barbs?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bruno-Walter-conducts-Mahler/dp/B006XOBFTM/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1376215404&sr=1-1&keywords=Mahler+Walter

There are a good few recording of this work made by Walter, I now realise

[amateur51]

My first Mahler 2 (and the first Mahler I ever heard live) was at the Free Trade Hall with Barbirolli conducting the Halle. I had already got to know the work through the Bruno Walter recording but I cannot describe the overwhelming impact that live performance had on me.

Lucky man, johnb - deeply green here

[Simon B]

loud and frightening

About as good a three word guide to how it should go as it would be possible to conceive!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

that concert had a first "half" which I guess a Mahler 2 never would these days (if you see what I mean)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/s...august-27/8641

Interesting - the first time I heard the work (CBSO/Rattle; Leeds Town Hall, 1980) there was Szymanowski's Stabat Mater in the first "half" (Rattle alternated this with the Boulez Rituel). The Mozart Piano Quartet (with members of the Fitzwilliam 4tet with St William on Piano) is the type of programming that I suggested on the Beethoven/Berlioz Thread to "fill" concerts which otherwise last around the 80min mark.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

About as good a three word guide to how it should go as it would be possible to conceive!

[Mr Pee]

http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/prom-35-mahlers-resurrection-symphony-jansonsprom-36-bach-oratorios-gardiner

[Petrushka]

Interesting - the first time I heard the work (CBSO/Rattle; Leeds Town Hall, 1980) there was Szymanowski's Stabat Mater in the first "half" (Rattle alternated this with the Boulez Rituel). The Mozart Piano Quartet (with members of the Fitzwilliam 4tet with St William on Piano) is the type of programming that I suggested on the Beethoven/Berlioz Thread to "fill" concerts which otherwise last around the 80min mark.

Rattle once again proving what a master he was at building programmes in his CBSO days. In his 1998 CBSO 'farewell' performance he coupled the Mahler 2 with Asyla by Thomas Ades. Now that was a performance of Mahler 2 that pressed all the right buttons. The other one, for me, is the 1989 LPO/Tennstedt that remains one of the greatest concert hall experiences of my life.

Other interesting couplings that precede the Mahler 2 I've encountered are the Messiaen Et exspecto Resurrectionem mortuorum (Wigglesworth, BBC NOW radio only) and in the RFH in a 1985 LSO/Abbado concert, Wolfgang Rihm's Dis-Kontour which was as loud and frightening as the Mahler.

[Barbirollians]

My first Mahler 2 (and the first Mahler I ever heard live) was at the Free Trade Hall with Barbirolli conducting the Halle. I had already got to know the work through the CBS Bruno Walter recording but I cannot describe the overwhelming impact that Barbirolli's live performance had on me.

(I remember reading a rather snooty review in the Manchester Evening Post. These days it is difficult to imagine the very mixed opinions about Mahler's music that were prevalent in the 1960s.)

Although there are a considerable number of errors in the orchestra there is a strong sense of that excitement in Barbirolli's live Stuttgart RSO account from the year he died . Indeed, I grew to love and appreciate the work as never before after hearing that account .

[Barbirollians]

Is this one of the two recorded performances of Mahler symphony no 1 conducted by Walter that appear in the recent Sony box of Mahler/Walter, barbs?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bruno-Walter-conducts-Mahler/dp/B006XOBFTM/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1376215404&sr=1-1&keywords=Mahler+Walter

There are a good few recording of this work made by Walter, I now realise

No it is this one .

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Symphonies-1-Bruno-Walter/dp/B008919TNG/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1376221046&sr=8-6&keywords=mahler+walter+music+and+arts

[amateur51]

No it is this one .

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Symph...music+and+arts

Many thanks, Barbs

[LaurieWatt]

[QUOTE=Petrushka;321226]
Hmm, I've just listened to this performance again in the recording I made from R3 and find myself more impressed than I was in the hall. Perhaps Choir East isn't exactly the right place to be but the microphones caught the whole thing very well indeed. Of course the visceral impact of the bass drum couldn't match the reality (it was like being punched in the solar plexus) but the cymbals came across with great clarity even to that tiny, ultra quiet brush during the trombones intonation of the Dies Irae in the finale. You wouldn't know it was there on many recordings but here it was crystal clear.

In some ways the microphones probably made up for the lack of numbers in the chorus as there didn't seem any lack of weight as it came across in the broadcast. Needless to the say, the electronic organ was still inaudible while timps came up better than they did in the hall but still needed extra clout. Better than many recordings even so. The off-stage brass and percussion sounded magical in the hall, something that no radio relay will ever actually convey but this came as close as it was possible to get.

All in all, this was one of those rare occasions when I felt that the broadcast did better justice to the performance than the reality. Plaudits for the engineers are in order, I'd say.

...................

The other one, for me, is the 1989 LPO/Tennstedt that remains one of the greatest concert hall experiences of my life.
QUOTE]

Petrushka, you have it absolutely right. I have listened now to the broadcast which, as I said before, was over Internet Radio. It was one of the finest broadcasts technically I have ever heard where they not only had a great sound spectrum and spread, but largely left the dynamic range to itself as well - wonderful! The chorus sounded much larger than the 100 or so described, the organ remained pathetic because nothing could add to what simply wasn't there; the detail you described is all there and even the weight of the bass drum came through well, actually!

But to the performance; well, I liked it, without being overwhelmed by it, because it was so well done - a perfect working German machine doing, smoothly and with extreme efficiency, exactly what was asked of it (whatever they say in the Audi ad!) and some of it very exciting indeed. Petrushka, you have got in first but what I was going to say, if you had not, was that what Jansons lost was what both Tennstedt in his amazing 1989 performance had, and, what Jurowski also has, albeit in very much his own way, with the same orchestra, so recently, is a true sense of the architecture of the piece and the accumulation of tension which builds throughout and explodes in the last five minutes or so. Jansons was like a walk in the park (the very end of the first movement was pathetic, as were the grinding threes against twos a bit earlier) albeit occasionally quite an exciting one (with exceptions as noted!), while Tennstedt, and, later, Jurowski were going on a emotional journey and climbing great peaks on the way.

[Petrushka]

[QUOTE=LaurieWatt;321271]

Hmm, I've just listened to this performance again in the recording I made from R3 and find myself more impressed than I was in the hall. Perhaps Choir East isn't exactly the right place to be but the microphones caught the whole thing very well indeed. Of course the visceral impact of the bass drum couldn't match the reality (it was like being punched in the solar plexus) but the cymbals came across with great clarity even to that tiny, ultra quiet brush during the trombones intonation of the Dies Irae in the finale. You wouldn't know it was there on many recordings but here it was crystal clear.

In some ways the microphones probably made up for the lack of numbers in the chorus as there didn't seem any lack of weight as it came across in the broadcast. Needless to the say, the electronic organ was still inaudible while timps came up better than they did in the hall but still needed extra clout. Better than many recordings even so. The off-stage brass and percussion sounded magical in the hall, something that no radio relay will ever actually convey but this came as close as it was possible to get.

All in all, this was one of those rare occasions when I felt that the broadcast did better justice to the performance than the reality. Plaudits for the engineers are in order, I'd say.

...................

The other one, for me, is the 1989 LPO/Tennstedt that remains one of the greatest concert hall experiences of my life.
QUOTE]

Petrushka, you have it absolutely right. I have listened now to the broadcast which, as I said before, was over Internet Radio. It was one of the finest broadcasts technically I have ever heard where they not only had a great sound spectrum and spread, but largely left the dynamic range to itself as well - wonderful! The chorus sounded much larger than the 100 or so described, the organ remained pathetic because nothing could add to what simply wasn't there; the detail you described is all there and even the weight of the bass drum came through well, actually!

But to the performance; well, I liked it, without being overwhelmed by it, because it was so well done - a perfect working German machine doing, smoothly and with extreme efficiency, exactly what was asked of it (whatever they say in the Audi ad!) and some of it very exciting indeed. Petrushka, you have got in first but what I was going to say, if you had not, was that what Jansons lost was what both Tennstedt in his amazing 1989 performance had, and, what Jurowski also has, albeit in very much his own way, with the same orchestra, so recently, is a true sense of the architecture of the piece and the accumulation of tension which builds throughout and explodes in the last five minutes or so. Jansons was like a walk in the park (the very end of the first movement was pathetic, as were the grinding threes against twos a bit earlier) albeit occasionally quite an exciting one (with exceptions as noted!), while Tennstedt, and, later, Jurowski were going on a emotional journey and climbing great peaks on the way.

Ah but you had to be there to hear that bass drum! It did indeed come across very well on the radio relay ( I recorded from Freeview, by the way) but 'in the flesh' so to speak each thump on that bass drum left you winded. Good too that the clanging of the bells, real ones not the tubular variety, came through the texture so clearly when on most recordings they are lost in the general welter of sound. The pathetic organ contribution was a real let-down. The RAH organ going at full throttle would have lifted those final few minutes (and us) on to another planet.

[Resurrection Man]

..... The pathetic organ contribution was a real let-down. The RAH organ going at full throttle would have lifted those final few minutes (and us) on to another planet.

I totally agree. To be honest if I'd known that I was going to be short-changed on the organ (and to a certain extent the small choir) then I'd probably not have gone.

[Petrushka]

I totally agree. To be honest if I'd known that I was going to be short-changed on the organ (and to a certain extent the small choir) then I'd probably not have gone.

I'm not sure I'd have gone to that extreme myself but can understand your thinking. In the 1989 Tennstedt performance as issued on CD, KT specifically requested the organist (Malcolm Hicks) to play as loud as possible. The result in the hall that night was overwhelming and it comes across very well on the CD. Last time I played that recording I had tears running down my cheeks but I felt a distinct lack of the same high emotion on Friday. That is why Jansons failed and Tennstedt triumphed.

[LaurieWatt]

I'm not sure I'd have gone to that extreme myself but can understand your thinking. In the 1989 Tennstedt performance as issued on CD, KT specifically requested the organist (Malcolm Hicks) to play as loud as possible. The result in the hall that night was overwhelming and it comes across very well on the CD. Last time I played that recording I had tears running down my cheeks but I felt a distinct lack of the same high emotion on Friday. That is why Jansons failed and Tennstedt triumphed.

..and it was the RFH organ too, which can sound so pathetic unless the organist has the courage or the instruction, as here, to let fly! Just wait for the release next month of Bernard Haitink's Vaughan Williams Sinfonia Antartica on the LPO label, where in the landscape movement the performance demonstrates that that organ, especailly in the quiet underpinning passges, has really deep pedals. Wonderful!