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It's February...M2-A-Thon!

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techniquest:
I really do intend doing this right through the year - devoting a month to a Mahler symphony in chronological order.
My introduction to Mahler was through switching on the the radio when I was about 13 and hearing a huge sound with choir, orchestra, organ, bells, tam-tams. It was like nothing I had ever heard before. At the end, amid prolonged and very enthusiastic applause, the announcer gave the name of the piece and my life was changed. That may sound dramatic, but maybe that really was a life-changing experience because, despite everything, I can't imagine how my musical appreciation would have gone if I had not happened to turn the radio on that particular afternoon.
Some time later - but not too long - I acquired my first M2 recording: LSO / Bernstein on CBS (since reissued on Sony Classics). It was not only my first Mahler, but my first 'box-set'. That was my only Mahler for many years, in fact until I picked up the CFP LP of the M1 with which I opened the M1-A-Thon thread.
So, come on, there are zillions of M2's out there. Let's get listening and comparing!

Casaubon:
I've been listening to Slatkin's M2 in my car lately.  That one has always been head and shoulders above the rest, in my mind (particularly in the last movement).

Leo K:
I first heard Gustav Mahler while listening to Bernstein's Harvard Lecture series on LP in 1987 or so...but it wasn't until I ordered Gilbert Kaplan's recording of Mahler's 2nd in 1989 that I first heard a full symphony...I didn't know what to think at first, as this work seemed classical, romantic and modern and even post-modern in one package...nothing seemed to tie together at all.

In my M2 list, this one is at the top:



Everything about this M2 is right on the money.  Tempos, structuring, dynamics, singing, and with a sense of occassion and wonder, plus it has the best sound. 

Fischer's M2 has great sound too, and with a great performance:




Others on my list are:

Rattle/BO/EMI

Chailly/RCO/Decca

Walter/NYP/Sony

Schercen/VO/Millennium Classics



And a special mention goes to the live M2 from Klemperer from May 16,1971.  I have always been a fan of slow Mahler (I also love Klemperer's M7 reading).  This performance is a kind dissection or surgery, as if Mahler is having an operation.  It is as if the score is being scrutinized for any last shred of possible meaning and subjectivity and cut out like a disease and placed under a microscope for study.  The interpetation is more from the viewpoint of Klemperer (with scapel in hand) rather than Mahler, but I find this a very moving performance...focused and strong, and very dark at the beginning, which largely persists until the Urlicht movement, which shines like the sun with the appearance of a human voice.  Klemperer's view with the Andante is perhaps the saddest of any recording I've encountered.  Klemperer seems to magnify the 'disease' under his microscope here and there is no cure.  The way the music fades at the end of the Andante, the way the strings somehow disappear is not unlike the 9th Symphony Adagio or the last bars of Das Lied Von der Erde.  The Scherzo makes me feel we have been left outside the operating room, with only a window to look into to witness a precedure unknown in our experience. 
 
The Finale really feels like a narrative epic...a convincing path to light from darkness.  The light, however, is reflected in sorrow.  There are moments when everything breaks down and even sounds like Ives at his most chaotic.  The percussion crescendo is very industrial and primal beyond description...it slowly stirs...the dead are drying to dig from the earth, and the struggle is heard in all it's passion...as if earth is hanging on to the dead.  Towards the end the performance actually reaches into the spiritual, which I didn't expect based on what I've already heard.  The last time I heard such an arresting M2 was when I first heard Scherchen's unique account.  Not everyone will dig this, but for me this is a performance to savor for special occasions.

--Todd
   

techniquest:
For someone who's not in the music profession, doesn't play or sing in any amateur bands or choirs, and isn't involved in musical organisations in any way, shape or form, I have a silly number of M2 recordings! 7 on vinyl; 10 on CD; 12 as legal downloads; the Abbado/Lucerne dvd, and various tapes and dvd recordings from TV concerts (Proms, etc) over the years. However, of these comparitively few are from traditional 'big name' conductors: there are no Mehtas or Klemperers, the only Bernstein is the one I mentioned above, the only Rattles are from TV broadcasts of live concerts (including the wonderful one which was his last concert with the CBSO). That being said, in this M2-a-thon, I'm going to concentrate again on the less well known, oft less admired conductors and recordings. To start...



This one's a bit of a mystery...I have it in 3 incarnations, the one you see here, the same recording as part of a Slovenian box-set but with the orchestra cited as Slovenian Philharmonic and with Eva Novzak-Houzka replacing Ute Priew, and the Forum release which retains the Ljubljana orchestra, but omits to mention the soloists and replaces Horvat with Anton Nanut. Whatever - it's all the same live recording!
And it is absolutely wonderful!
The first movement is paced perfectly with just the right amount of urgency and menace coupled with beauty and some clear, lovely playing. When it needs the power, it's certainly there, when it needs gentleness that's there too. OK, the high strings are a little on the thin side but the woodwinds especially are delightful. The percussion is clear, precise and what a whopper of a large tam-tam! It all flows well with no eccentric changes in tempo
The second movement is again paced just as I like it, the pizzicato section as delicate as can be. The third movement is a little less polished maybe, and the triangle perhaps too pronounced, but again no real complaints- lovely deep final chord.
Urlicht - whoever it's sung by - is fine until the last minute or so when there are a couple of coughs in the audience and the movement tends to end just a little too abruptly. The finale opens with an understated tam-tam but a huge chord from the orchestra which dies down well. The march and subsequent explosions are handled really nicely and the off-stage brass-band are just distant enough, oh and the percussion crescendos are superb- I reckon the percussionist split the high tam-tam which might account for it's mysteriopus absense later! The entrance of the choir is really ppp, but there's something really odd going on in the brass chorale after the first choral / solo 'verse'; something somewhere sounds very off - I think it's the tremolo woods / strings in the background. Anyhow, back comes the choir and all is well as is the second orchestral interlude prior to 'O Glaube', which has just the right amount of urgency. The soloists have a bit too much vibrato and the choir doesn't sound 'big' enough, but the ending is well handled with a superbly slow 'Aufersteh'n' with an organ you can actually hear, reasonable tubular bells but, oddly, no 2nd tam-tam at the close.
OK, this is a ridiculously cheap CD (an couple of quid I think), but the recording is spacious and clear and the performance well on a par with much more illustrious and expensive offerings. The version pictured is on single disc has no applause at the end, the 'Nanut' version spread over 2 discs does - it also has a most bizarre start to the 5th movement, not with the crash bang wallop after 'Urlicht', but with the first offstage horn calls.

Leo K:
Tech...I like the fact you are reviewing lesser known releases, we need more reviews of these on the board for reference.  Have you heard the Vans Vonk M2 on the Brilliant Classics Mahler box?  I have always liked this performance even though the sonics are not that good.

--Todd

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