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General Category => Gustav Mahler and Related Discussions => Topic started by: barry guerrero on July 30, 2015, 05:57:51 AM
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http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphonies-Nos-1-2-6-8-Eines-Fahrenden-Gesellen-Tennstedt-London-Philharmonic-Live-Recordings-9CD_6546909
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These have all been available for quite a while on the LPO label singly, though Songs with #1 on a single disk, the otheres ar 2 disk packages
. A total, I believe, of 7 disks. Is this a Japanese remastering on 9 disks?
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I think I will have to pass until they can remaster these in Ultra 4K HD, DXD, on a platinum, holographic, binaural SHM-SACD thats been cryogenicaly frozen. Then, maybe, I can listen to Tennstedt the way it is supposed to sound. Perhaps it will also allow me to make use of all of the plasma tweeters I've got laying around.
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. . . might just be easier to resurrect Tennstedt.
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Just a service to those who haven't bothered using Google Translate: that extra 2CDs are given to a previously unissued 2nd recorded in 1981 (I suppose, performed and recorded just after/before their studio 2nd with EMI).
To me (and I've mentioned this a few times in this forum) Tennstedt's live Mahler is generally vastly superior to the studio versions, being better recorded, better played, and much more intensely interpreted. I have their LPO Mahler 8th (on the LPO label, which is to be included in this box) and that is a uniquely moving experience (though at times massively inflated). Having the remaining recordings on the LPO label boxed up means it's a no-brainer for me. (I hope they similarly box up his other recordings of Bruckner, Beethoven, etc.)
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"that extra 2CDs are given to a previously unissued 2nd recorded in 1981 (I suppose, performed and recorded just after/before their studio 2nd with EMI)"
I was at that 1981 performance at Royal Festival Hall and it was sensational. IMHO, vastly better than the live "Resurrection" that has circulated around on the LPO's own label from the latter 80's or early 90's. It'll be interesting to know if the sound quality does that performance justice or not.
Oddly enough, when it comes to M8, I greatly prefer the studio recording to the live one. I'm not a fan of Tennstedt's later, 'slower is better' period.
I probably won't get this set because, quite frankly, I'm perfectly happy with the Jurowski/LPO M2
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Re Barry, I'm not generally a fan of such slow Mahler but when it's done with this level of scorching heart-on-sleeve intensity it doesn't really matter, does it ;)
But if you want all that intensity compressed in a shorter period of time, Tennstedt did a few Mahler performances with the NDR Symphony Orchestra as well; I have the 1 and 2 on the Memories Label. (M1 from 1977, M2 from 1980.) These are extremely thrilling, extremely speedy performances (the finale of M1 is 18:43 in comparison to the 1990s CSO M1's 22:42) with fantastic quality of playing (though not quality of recording). It's of course a different type of intensity from his late, live Mahler, but it's equally fascinating.
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"I'm not generally a fan of such slow Mahler but when it's done with this level of scorching heart-on-sleeve intensity it doesn't really matter"
Yes, but it's applied in the wrong manner. The whole performance is laden with massive ritardandos. Wherever there's a chance to slow down, sure enough. At least Simon Rattle knows that if you're going to add a bunch of gratuitous, non-solicited ritards, then you should also add non-solicited speed-ups to counterbalance things. For me, music is not a competition about who feels the most. That sort of thinking leads to the Rollling Stones, rap, Lady Gaga, etc.
Perhaps more to the point, the performance takes a very long time, yet the ending is done in the same somewhat quick manner as in his studio recording - rather like Maazel. I'm also not a fan of the splashy, 'whangy' sounding Paiste tam-tams that they keep on using in London (while the rest of the world has moved on to Wuhans except for England and France). I also don't think that the vocals are all that great either. For me - and judging by Tennstedt's facial expressions as much as just hearing the performance - the word that comes to my mind in describing this particular Mahler 8 is 'overwrought'. Sorry, but that's how it strikes me.
If white heat intensity is the goal, then I'll stick with Bernstein/LSO and the the dvd of Bernstein/Vienna Phil. Those two are not just intense, they keep the level of concentration up from beginning to end. Tennstedt's earlier studio recording more closely resembles those two.