A couple new recordings

[ChrisH]

While most of my listening time as of late has been devoted to opera, I wanted to put down a few short lines concerning two recordings I've been listening to in between my bouts with Turandot, Der Zwerg and Violanta.

First is a recording I picked up for cheap on Amazon. I purchased this because it is one of the few recordings of Jim Thompson, one of my favorite trumpet players, playing Mahler. I expected great things from him, which he delivered, but was really surprised by the playing of the the Atlanta Symphony, top notch, and Yoel Levi's direction of Mahler 7. This recording may not be first choice for many, but it has some really great moments. The first movement came across to me as a more lucid version of Bernstein, or a more amped up Zinman. Really good tempo changes, color and character. Levi also uses very long phrasing through out the entire symphony, it has real legato feel to it. The first and second Nachtmusik are excellent. Some of the best I have heard. The march rhythms have a wonderful gait to them, the woodwind tutti's are full of life in the first. Everything has character. Nachtmusk II is very sensual and romantic, though the tempo is not that slow. It worked very well for me,
 
The Scherzo, along with the Finale, are the weak points in a pretty good recording for the same reasons. Not enough pep, and the long phrasing seems to cloud some of great polyphony in the finale movement, and kills the mood in the Scherzo. Levi also doesn't treat this as a light/dark symphony, more like pictures in a series. Not too bad overall, but not great either.

The second disc is Yannick Nezet-Seguin's new recording of the M1 with the BRSO. I'll keep it short. This is a top drawer reading and recording. The playing of the BRSO is outstanding. YNS's interpretation hits all the right buttons. This might be the best Mahler recording I have heard from him. For myself, I would easily place this along my other favorites. This is also the first recording using the new Universal Edition of the score.

[AZContrabassoon]

I guess I have to get that Next-Seguin recording. Everyone seems to be quite impressed.

In general, I think the Levi Mahler recordings are superb. Expertly played and superbly recorded. I like them all, and if I could only have one recording of each Mahler symphony and among them were Levi's the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th I'd be ok with that. But you're right, not the 7th - it's very well played, and the first four movements are just fine, but it's that finale that hangs him up - too slow! I have a simple rule: any 7th that requires 2 disks is too slow. That doesn't mean all the 1-disk recordings are acceptable (Masur!). But it's one of this conductor's few (very few) less than excellent recordings.

[John Kim]

I have a dissenting opinion on the Yannick Nezet-Seguin/BRSO M1st. It is a decent reading, but there are some mishaps in the playing (e.g., horn) and the sonics are imperfect; the dynamic range fluctuates up and down occasionally suggesting the audio engineers weren't sure to which norm they should set things.

[Prospero]

I have to disagree rather strongly with John Kim on the Nezet-Seguin Marhler 1 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony. My wife and I have listened to ten versions of Mahler 1 on CD and LP this last year, and this is one of our two favorites, the other being the Ardite Kubelik live.

My wife has heard Mahler live with Tennstedt, Haitink, Abbado, Harding, and Nezet-Seguin among others live. And  her hearing, like many women’s, is superb. She commented unprompted on the excellence of the miking of this recording. We listen on Wayne Piquet rebuilt Quad ESL 57s driven by a very fine French amplifier. The coherence of the orchestra and the sound is remarkable in our experience on this Nezet-Seguin Mahler 1. And the integration of pianos and pianissimos with the range of the orchestra is striking for us.

There is, of course, room for many responses. But ours is that this performance is spell binding and the sound remarkably fine.

Tom in Vermont