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General Category => Gustav Mahler and Related Discussions => Topic started by: GL on February 16, 2017, 11:51:39 AM

Title: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 16, 2017, 11:51:39 AM
A new Ninth with Jansons conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (I think it is his second after the one recorded in Oslo):

https://www.amazon.de/Mahler-Sinfonie-Symphonieorchester-Bayerischen-Rundfunks/dp/B01MY0PLQ0/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487242305&sr=1-1&keywords=B01MY0PLQ0

Some lovely thoughts about it by Mr. Hurwitz:

"Yawn. Stretch. Repeat. That’s about all I have to say about this utterly irrelevant release. This is a nicely played, emotionally neutral Mahler Ninth. Everything about it screams “average.” All of the first movement climaxes are just that much under-characterized. Those creepy, atmospheric interludes are neither especially creepy nor particularly atmospheric. The first scherzo isn’t clumsy enough, and the recurring waltzes lack desperation. The Rondo:Burleske has no fire in its belly. Where is the bite–the shrillness? The finale flows along at an average tempo (23 minutes), and expires peacefully. You’d never know that anything meaningful happened at all. And didn’t this orchestra just release a Haitink Mahler Ninth a little while ago? The sonics are good, but bass-heavy. There’s insanity here, but it’s in the label’s decision-making when it should be in the music." (http://www.classicstoday.com/review/jansons-irrelevant-mahler-9/)

I will add mine when I will have the time to write a few lines about two concerts I attended last year with Jansons conducting M5 (BRSO) and M7 (RCO).

Other Mahler Symphonies by Jansons with the Symphonieorchester Bayerischen Rundfunks

The First: https://www.amazon.de/Mahler-Symphonie-Nr-1-D-dur/dp/B00LOO9L74/ref=pd_sim_15_6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=BHJN13Q8Z7QQ4JET7K37

The Second: https://www.amazon.de/Symphonie-Nr-Auferstehung-Gustav-Mahler/dp/B00ATNK0UI/ref=sr_1_1?s=music-classical&ie=UTF8&qid=1487242138&sr=8-1&keywords=B00ATNK0UI & https://www.amazon.de/Mariss-Jansons-dirigiert-Mahler-Sinfonie/dp/B00CF0EUKY/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487242340&sr=1-1&keywords=B00CF0EUKY

The Third: https://www.amazon.de/Mahler-Symphonie-Nr-3-Doppel-CD/dp/B005WV7GNG/ref=pd_sim_15_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=XQMJJE6ES8PGES9R0G9Q

The Fifth: https://www.amazon.de/Symphonie-Nr-Cis-Moll-Gustav-Mahler/dp/B0019HNEK6/ref=pd_sim_15_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=P6KHM2S7TTN5ZBZ1H9V2

The Seventh: https://www.amazon.de/Mahler-Symphonie-Nr-7-Hybrid-SACD/dp/B002MUQ9YC/ref=pd_sim_15_6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VN4SMBZR7BAPCFX0PFQ5

Let's try to make a recap of Mahler's Symphonies conducted by Jansons:

3 Firsts: one with the Oslo Philharmonic (Simax), one with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO Live), one with  Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (BR Klassik).

3 Seconds: one with Oslo Philharmonic (Chandos), one with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO Live; 3 versions: SACD, DVD & Blu-ray), one with  Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (BR Klassik; 2 ersions: CD, DVD & Blu-ray).

2 Thirds: one with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO Live; 3 versions: SACD, DVD & Blu-ray), one with  Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (BR Klassik),

2 Fourths, both with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO Live), one (recorded in December 2014) available on DVD and one recorded in Febraury 2015), available on SACD.

2 Fifths: one with  Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (BR Klassik), one with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO Live).

2 Sixths: one with London Symphony (Lso Live) and one with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO Live).

3 Sevenths: one with Oslo Philharmonic (Simax), one with Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk (Br Klassik) and one with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO Live; availabe in the same box where you can find the DVD of the Fourth; this Seventh is a recording in which the orchestra is not in its usual form, moreover the recorded sound is rather mediocre)

1 Eight, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO Live; 3 versions: SACD, DVD & Blu-ray)

2 Ninths: with the Oslo Philharmonic (Simax), one with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (BR Klassik).

Nevertheless, the king of Mahler multiple recordings remains Bernard Haitink. His fifth recording of the Third shows that he reigns supreme-statistically speaking, I mean.

Bye,
GL
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 16, 2017, 12:04:21 PM
For the ones that can't wait to listen to Mahler's Symphonies performed by chamber ensembles:

Another recording of the Stein's transcription, courtesy of Orfeo:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strauss-Webern-Schatz-Walzer-Schoenberg-Kaiser-Walzer/dp/B01MSSN4WO/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487246219&sr=1-1&keywords=B01MSSN4WO

The Fifth, with the Natalia Ensemble (Cobra):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Symhony-No-Arranged-Players/dp/B01N1Z2WQ8/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487246286&sr=1-1&keywords=B01N1Z2WQ8

The Seventh, with Die Taschenphilharmonie conducted by Peter Stangel (Sony):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/CDs-Vinyl/Mahler-Symphony-Taschenphilharmonie-Stangel-MUSICA/B019EN4Z4K/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487246349&sr=1-1&keywords=B019EN4Z4K

Bye,
GL
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 16, 2017, 12:31:11 PM
A Todtenfeier from the archives of the German Radio: the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra is conducted by the late G. Pretre:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Dvorak-Antonin-1841-1904_000000000019851/item_Dvorak-Symphony-No-9-Mahler-Totenfeier-Georges-Pretre-Stuttgart-Radio-Symphony-Orchestra-1996-1998_7475063

GL
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 16, 2017, 12:37:04 PM
A new recording of the Piano Quartet by Naxos:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brahms-Piano-Quartet-Mahler-8572799/dp/B01N5GDQED/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487248579&sr=1-1&keywords=B01N5GDQED

GL
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 16, 2017, 01:02:51 PM
As it has been noted elsewhere in this forum, two new recordings of Das Lied von der Erde conducted by J. Nott are going to be released in a few weeks:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Roberto-Stephen-Bamberger-Symphoniker/dp/B01MY5F6PQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487249179&sr=1-1&keywords=B01MY5F6PQ

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Das-Lied-Von-Erde/dp/B01MZZXR1G/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487249193&sr=1-1&keywords=B01MZZXR1G

Originally, Kaufmann was scheduled to sing all, to conduct, to play the tam-tam (while singing) and the flute's solos (recorded separately) in the Abschied, but then it was opted for a conductor and for the Vienna Philharmonic's percussionist and first flute.

Bye,
GL

PS. Of course, I was kidding about Kaufmann's original schedule.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 16, 2017, 06:48:13 PM
A Ninth from the archives of the German Radio: the NDR Orchestra is conducted by Kurt Sanderling:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sinfonie-Kurt-NDR-Sinfonieorchester-Sanderlin/dp/B01MT4E5HU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487269222&sr=8-1&keywords=B01MT4E5HU

I wish he had played & recorded the middle instrumental symphonies.

GL
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 16, 2017, 07:26:39 PM
From the archives of the Hungarian Radio, a performance of Das Lied von der Erde conducted by Klemperer in 1948 which I did not know:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphonies-Nos-2-4-Das-Lied-von-der-Erde-etc-Otto-Klemperer-Bavarian-Rso-Hungarian-Rso-etc-1947-65-3CD_7598045

I am afraid it is not something for audiophiles.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barry guerrero on February 16, 2017, 08:36:06 PM
I would like it if, someday, the M8 that Georges Pretre did at Wien's Konzerthaus (Vienna Symphony) were to get issued. I heard it on a radio broadcast, and it was outstanding.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 16, 2017, 10:17:44 PM
For now, only the Fifth and the Sixth by VSO/Pretre are available:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-5-Pretre-Wiener-Symphoniker_2675266

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_-Symphony-No-6-Tragic-Pretre-Wiener-Symphoniker_2675267

The label "Wetblick" is european, but, at least online, I can find the Mahler recordings by Pretre only in Japan.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barry guerrero on February 17, 2017, 11:24:41 AM
Thank you. I was aware of those, and I've been meaning to listen to his M6.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 20, 2017, 06:45:16 PM
The last Mahler complete cycle with Philharmonia Orchestra/Maazel is going to be released in one box:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Complete-Symphonies-Nos-1-9-Lorin-Maazel-Philharmonia-15CD_7675591

https://www.amazon.fr/Mahler-Symphonies-Nos-Various-artists/dp/B01MTGFVUM/ref=sr_1_10?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487618507&sr=1-10&keywords=mahler

YAWN!
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barry guerrero on February 20, 2017, 08:15:23 PM
Indeed, "yawn".  :-\
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 22, 2017, 06:36:31 PM
Das Lied von der Erde with VPO/Kaufmann/Nott will be available also in Blu-spec Cd-2:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Das-Lied-Von-Der-Erde-Nott-Vpo-J-kaufmann-T_7620675

https://www.amazon.de/Mahler-das-Lied-Von-Erde/dp/B01MRA8CNJ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487788437&sr=1-1&keywords=B01MRA8CNJ

The world can't wait for the SHM-CD, SACD, Vinyl & BtsRom versions.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 22, 2017, 07:21:49 PM
Mahler's Seventh with Adam Fischer conducting the Duesseldorfer Symphoniker:

https://www.amazon.com/Symphony-No-7-FISCHER-ADAM/dp/B01IWVT1T4/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487790194&sr=1-1&keywords=B01IWVT1T4

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Symphony-No-Adam-Fischer/dp/B01IWVT1T4/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487790177&sr=1-1&keywords=B01IWVT1T4

Recorded in 2015, it was released in 2016. It represents the beginning of a complete "Mahler-Zyklus" with the Duesseldorfer Symphoniker conducted by Adam Fischer.

Adam Fischer about Mahler:

“I am delighted to perform and record the complete symphonies of Gustav Mahler with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker. The result, we hope, should be something special: a rendition that stems from an active collaboration in which we mutually inspire one another. This should not be “my” Mahler, but “our” Mahler........Whenever I conduct Mahler, I attempt to find a way to formulate each symphony’s world and its emotional content in a way that I can apprehend. Out of the music, I spin stories for myself. And I also spend much time learning about the period when the work was written, and about Mahler’s universe of ideas. Ultimately, for every note I need to find a message and make that message my utter conviction. Thus, for instance, I imagine the first movement of the 7th Symphony as the step-by-step protocol of a disease. The dramaturgy seems to be following a fever curve: the fever starts by attacking, then it calms down, then it all suddenly comes back again. The Finale has sparked a multitude of opinions; as far as I am concerned, it should not be read as something directly positive. It sounds more like when one is drawing towards the end of a sickness, trying to convince oneself that one has truly recovered. It is a way of gathering up courage to start over, the will to embark on something new – in reality, however, one is not yet well. In the extended central Scherzo I have a feeling of persecuted angst; the surrounding “Night Music” movements are more or less delusory phases of apparent recovery. But it could all be a dream where certain flights of emotion are felt to be entirely logical, although incomprehensible if one were awake. Thanks to such associations I can reach a state of mind in which I can affirm: “this note has its justified place at exactly this spot, and no other one could be there in its place”. It is the result of a long process, in the course of which I ensure that the scores become my innermost conviction. In my view, this is the conductor ́s task. It is exactly the opposite of “work-to-rule”. And, as we all know, convictions can change.......” (http://www.challengerecords.com/products/14701399309837/)

"A jewel among Mahler Sevenths" wrote Firebrand on Amazon. With all due respect to Firebrand, before buying this one I will wait to read at least one review written by somebody with an actual name and a proved competence.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on February 22, 2017, 07:40:21 PM
Yes, of course: the usual Freudian analysis. I'm surprised he didn't throw Alma's name in there somewhere - everyone else does. God forbid that it should actually just be little more than a really good piece of music. Nor does it ever dawn on these people that symphonies 6 through 8 form a 'darkness to light' trilogy of its own, regardless of whether Mahler was aware that he had done that or not. Nor does it dawn on them that Mahler is not only poking fun at himself, but the entire over-blown, late romantic idiom.

Even further, I find it interesting that the 7th ends in C major, while the 8th starts and ends a major third higher (Eb). Or, if you want to look at as an inversion, it starts and ends a major 6th lower. 
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 23, 2017, 11:01:26 AM
... symphonies 6 through 8 form a 'darkness to light' trilogy of its own, regardless of whether Mahler was aware that he had done that or not...

The usual Freudian analysis indeed...
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: ChrisH on February 23, 2017, 01:54:43 PM
There is also an Ivan Fischer/BFO Mahler 3 coming out this year, as well as his 7th. I emailed Channel Classics asking about the 7th, they said it's still coming, they are just going with the 3rd first. Hopefully he gets his swagger back with these two. I am looking forward to both of them.

I almost pulled the trigger on the Adam Fischer 7th just after Christmas. Instead I picked up an amazing Die Frau Ohne Schatten with Wiegle and Frankfurt. Maybe we can get another Mahler recording from Francois Xavier-Roth this year. His recording of the first from a few years ago was really enjoyable to me.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on February 23, 2017, 07:24:30 PM
"Die Frau Ohne Schatten with Wiegle and Frankfurt"   .    .    . 

Do tell. Is it a dvd? What label? (I love "DFoS")
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 23, 2017, 07:40:57 PM
There is also an Ivan Fischer/BFO Mahler 3 coming out this year, as well as his 7th. I emailed Channel Classics asking about the 7th, they said it's still coming, they are just going with the 3rd first. Hopefully he gets his swagger back with these two. I am looking forward to both of them.

I almost pulled the trigger on the Adam Fischer 7th just after Christmas. Instead I picked up an amazing Die Frau Ohne Schatten with Wiegle and Frankfurt. Maybe we can get another Mahler recording from Francois Xavier-Roth this year. His recording of the first from a few years ago was really enjoyable to me.

I found Mahler's Ninth with BFO/Fischer, their latest release, very nice and I am looking forward to M3 and M7.

Years ago I wrote to Channel Classics enquiring about their project about recording Mahler's Symphonies with BFO/Fischer. At that time M2, M4 and M6 were available and they replied having spoken of recording M1, M3 and M5 in the future. When I read BFO/Fischer were touring with M7, I thought they were preparing to record it, but, after a while, M1 was released. It was a bit peculair in certain details, but excellent and wonderfully recorded. I had great, perhaps too high expectations for M5, but it turned out to be a spectacular disappointment (I found it even disappointing on the technical side of the recorded sound). It made me wonder what's wrong with this symhony that so many conductors can't get it right.

According to an interview of 2006, Ivan Fischer, "Not a fan of complete cycles, he’d rather only conduct those works that he has a truly deep connection with and leave the others to other conductors. He admits straightaway that there are already so many full cycles that there is no point in just doing another one. The symphony of Mahler’s that he is less fond of than the others is – not surprising for a ‘Mahlerian’ - the pompous glory-feast (my words, not his) that is the Eight Symphony. This very complicated, complex, monumental work (his words, not mine) is “not his cup of tea”." (http://ionarts.blogspot.it/2006/10/interview-with-ivan-fischer.html)

After reading that Bernard Haitink, interviewied by the Gramophone Magazine, said that because Mahler is such a special composer, recordings of his music should be rare and then went on to become the world champion of Mahler recordings, I am a bit skeptical about Fischer's words. Moreover, while 7 years ago at Channel Classic's project was limited to Symphonies No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, a Ninth is just available and they are confirmed to Mr. Vehemence that, after the Third, they will record the Seventh. I find it difficult to think they will resist the temptation to cap the palace with the big dome of the Eight.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: ChrisH on February 23, 2017, 08:16:02 PM
"Die Frau Ohne Schatten with Wiegle and Frankfurt"   .    .    . 

Do tell. Is it a dvd? What label? (I love "DFoS")
It's actually Weigle and was recorded by Oehms. The sound is stunning in this one. My only other Schatten is with Sinopoli, a recording I always have enjoyed, but this is on another level.

It's this recording:
https://www.amazon.com/Strauss-Die-Frau-ohne-Schatten/dp/B00XZKQCXG/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487880849&sr=1-3&keywords=die+frau+ohne+schatten
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on February 23, 2017, 08:47:10 PM
I'd like to ask a question. Both Bartok's "Concerto for Orchestra" and "Music for S., P. & C." have creepy sounding "night music" movements that are central to those works. Why is it that nobody psychoanalysis Bartok for that? Why is it that nobody questions his happy, dance-like finales as being 'false'?

They're appreciated at face value as pure pieces of music. Mahler should be accommodated the same way.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 23, 2017, 11:10:26 PM
I'd like to ask a question. Both Bartok's "Concerto for Orchestra" and "Music for S., P. & C." have creepy sounding "night music" movements that are central to those works. Why is it that nobody psychoanalysis Bartok for that? Why is it that nobody questions his happy, dance-like finales as being 'false'?

They're appreciated at face value as pure pieces of music. Mahler should be accommodated the same way.

It is less known (because Mahler is more famous and debated), but, actually, Bartok has been psychanalyzed for that. His "night music" movements (there are in concertos and piano works too, for example in the suite "Outdoors") has been related to the fact that he spent his early infancy quite isolated because of a skin disease (a severe eczema). Moreover, he lost his father when he was seven.

Some of his happy, dance-like finales has been criticized. For example, the Concerto for orchestra has been entirely questioned by the avanguarde because it was considered a step back towards music more audience-friendly than the one Brtok composed during the 30s. On the other hand, other dance-like movements are not questioned because, being related to his work with folk-music, are considered part of his quest for a personal voice, outside the Austrian-German tradition.

The problems with Mahler's Seventh began mostly after the First World War and, above all, after the negative judgement of Adorno. Nevertheless, Paul Bekker, the most important and influential Mahler scholar before Adorno, considered the Rondos of the Fifth and Seventh Symphony quite successful. I concur with Bekker.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 23, 2017, 11:36:27 PM
"Die Frau Ohne Schatten with Wiegle and Frankfurt"   .    .    . 

Do tell. Is it a dvd? What label? (I love "DFoS")
It's actually Weigle and was recorded by Oehms. The sound is stunning in this one. My only other Schatten is with Sinopoli, a recording I always have enjoyed, but this is on another level.

It's this recording:
https://www.amazon.com/Strauss-Die-Frau-ohne-Schatten/dp/B00XZKQCXG/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487880849&sr=1-3&keywords=die+frau+ohne+schatten

FROSCH, as it was called by Strauss himself (it means "frog" in German), with Sinopoli has cuts and is not recorded very well while the Frankfurt/Weigle series has really impressive sonics in general (I had the Ring, Puccini's Fanciulla del West and Korngold's Tode Stadt and they are wonderfully recorded, despite being live).

You should try FROSCH with Solti (the one with Domingo, without cuts) and Boehm.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: ChrisH on February 23, 2017, 11:57:12 PM
"Die Frau Ohne Schatten with Wiegle and Frankfurt"   .    .    . 

Do tell. Is it a dvd? What label? (I love "DFoS")
It's actually Weigle and was recorded by Oehms. The sound is stunning in this one. My only other Schatten is with Sinopoli, a recording I always have enjoyed, but this is on another level.

It's this recording:
https://www.amazon.com/Strauss-Die-Frau-ohne-Schatten/dp/B00XZKQCXG/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487880849&sr=1-3&keywords=die+frau+ohne+schatten

FROSCH, as it was called by Strauss himself (it means "frog" in German), with Sinopoli has cuts and is not recorded very well while the Frankfurt/Weigle series has really impressive sonics in general (I had the Ring, Puccini's Fanciulla del West and Korngold's Tode Stadt and they are wonderfully recorded, despite being live).

You should try FROSCH with Solti (the one with Domingo, without cuts) and Boehm.
I will check out the Solti and Boehm recordings, thanks.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barry guerrero on February 24, 2017, 09:38:31 AM
I already own both the Bohm and Solti recordings (I prefer the Bohm, in spite of any cuts). I just wanted to know about this Frankfurt one. Could you provide the label, please.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 24, 2017, 10:02:25 AM
I already own both the Bohm and Solti recordings (I prefer the Bohm, in spite of any cuts). I just wanted to know about this Frankfurt one. Could you provide the label, please.

OEHMS CLASSICS: OC964
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barry guerrero on February 25, 2017, 03:55:14 AM
Thank you!
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on February 26, 2017, 08:04:13 PM
GL, thanks for the detailed work you've done here.

I believe there's still a Janson's M8 on Youtube from Munich. I guess that one has never been issued on dvd. Interesting.

My bet is that Ivan Fischer and Channel Classics will avoid M8. But that would be a good opportunity for Adam Fischer to do it 'live'.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 27, 2017, 10:30:57 AM
GL, thanks for the detailed work you've done here.

I believe there's still a Janson's M8 on Youtube from Munich. I guess that one has never been issued on dvd. Interesting.

My bet is that Ivan Fischer and Channel Classics will avoid M8. But that would be a good opportunity for Adam Fischer to do it 'live'.

You are welcome.

I know about the M8/Jansons on Youtube. On Yotube or torrent there is also a selection of Wunderhornlieder with Hampson/RCO/Jansons. I do not often write about stuff you can find on Youtube or torrent because I do not know if has been legally uploaded.

On Youtube there is also a video of M8/RCO/Haitink that I find strange it has never been released on DVD (if I am wrong, please, let me know).

On Youtube I recently found a fabulous M1 (HD video) with the Philhadelphia Orchestra/Nezet-Seguin. I'd like to ask something to my American friends around here: Nezet-Seguin is making oustanding Mahler recordings with the BRSO (another video one of BRSO/M1 has just popped up on Youtube), the LPO, the Rotterdam Philharmonic (a M10 you can find on Youtube); moreover (a part from a not convincing Figaro) he recorded fine Mozart Operas with European Ensembles; why then, a part some mp3 downloads (M5 & M8, as far as I know), is he not recording anything with the Philadelphia Orchestra, which I think it to be the best one among the orchestras with which he works?
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 27, 2017, 10:33:18 AM
Here we are: Mahler: Third Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer:

https://www.amazon.de/Symphony-No-3-Fischer-Ivan/dp/B06XBC7JL6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music-classical&ie=UTF8&qid=1488189980&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XBC7JL6

https://www.amazon.fr/Symphony-No-3-Fischer-Ivan/dp/B06XBC7JL6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1488189963&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XBC7JL6

This could be a relevant Mahler release among the many irrelevant ones. Finger crossed!
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: waderice on February 27, 2017, 01:11:02 PM
Nezet-Seguin is making oustanding Mahler recordings with BRSO; is he not recording anything with the Philadelphia Orchestra, which I think it to be the best one among the orchestras with which he works?

What recordings Nezet-Seguin is making with the Philadelphia Orchestra are very few, and what has been done is under contract with DG.  Thus far under his directorship, some Rachmaninoff has been recorded in concert in a projected cycle of that composer's works for piano and orchestra.  Also, a Stravinsky Rite of Spring and some Stokowski Bach orchestral transcriptions have been recorded.  With the DG Mahler market thoroughly inundated with sales of Abbado, Bernstein, and Karajan Mahler recordings, I don't see anything ever coming out by Nezet-Seguin conducting Mahler with the Philadelphia Orchestra on DG, as much as I and many others would love to see.  There are a couple of in-concert Philadelphia Orchestra Mahler symphony recordings (M2 and M6) on the Austrian Ondine label conducted by the Philadelphia Orchestra's previous director, Christoph Eschenbach, though that M2 doesn't come up to the quality of the performance I heard under Nezet-Seguin.

Since living in the Philadelphia area for almost five years now, I've seen/heard Nezet-Seguin perform M2, M8, and M10 Cooke III.  The least successful performance of the three, I felt, was the M10, and the M8 was absolutely superb, in observance of the centennial of the first performance of M8 in the U.S.  Nezet-Seguin will conclude the 2016-17 season with performances of M3.

Probably the best venue to hear Nezet-Seguin perform Mahler with the Philadelphia Orchestra is to listen on line at Philadelphia's Public Radio affiliate, WHYY:  http://wrti.org/programs/philadelphia-orchestra-concert (http://wrti.org/programs/philadelphia-orchestra-concert).  In the past, I've recorded Philadelphia Orchestra performances off the air on a delayed basis on Sunday afternoons at 1:00 Eastern Time (usually about a month after the live performances downtown at the Kimmel Center), and last year's M8 was broadcast live as it was performed.  I haven't recorded anything in a while now, but it now seems that past performances of the Philadelphia Orchestra are now available for purchase on a download basis from either ArkivMusic or iTunes.  I'll have to check this coming Sunday afternoon to see if the broadcast is live or is on a delayed basis.  If live, the performance will be at 2:00 Eastern Time, as that is the time that all live Sunday afternoon Philadelphia Orchestra performances take place.  The down side of these on-air, off-air broadcasts is like any other FM broadcast - the sound is compressed, and you lose the full impact of the orchestra's sound.

Wade
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: ChrisH on February 27, 2017, 06:28:55 PM
There used to be a YNS Mahler 5 with Philadelphia available on HDtracks. I don't think it's there anymore, though. It is an excellent recording.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 27, 2017, 06:58:57 PM
Nezet-Seguin is making oustanding Mahler recordings with BRSO; is he not recording anything with the Philadelphia Orchestra, which I think it to be the best one among the orchestras with which he works?

What recordings Nezet-Seguin is making with the Philadelphia Orchestra are very few, and what has been done is under contract with DG.  Thus far under his directorship, some Rachmaninoff has been recorded in concert in a projected cycle of that composer's works for piano and orchestra.  Also, a Stravinsky Rite of Spring and some Stokowski Bach orchestral transcriptions have been recorded.  With the DG Mahler market thoroughly inundated with sales of Abbado, Bernstein, and Karajan Mahler recordings, I don't see anything ever coming out by Nezet-Seguin conducting Mahler with the Philadelphia Orchestra on DG, as much as I and many others would love to see.  There are a couple of in-concert Philadelphia Orchestra Mahler symphony recordings (M2 and M6) on the Austrian Ondine label conducted by the Philadelphia Orchestra's previous director, Christoph Eschenbach, though that M2 doesn't come up to the quality of the performance I heard under Nezet-Seguin.

Since living in the Philadelphia area for almost five years now, I've seen/heard Nezet-Seguin perform M2, M8, and M10 Cooke III.  The least successful performance of the three, I felt, was the M10, and the M8 was absolutely superb, in observance of the centennial of the first performance of M8 in the U.S.  Nezet-Seguin will conclude the 2016-17 season with performances of M3.

Probably the best venue to hear Nezet-Seguin perform Mahler with the Philadelphia Orchestra is to listen on line at Philadelphia's Public Radio affiliate, WHYY:  http://wrti.org/programs/philadelphia-orchestra-concert (http://wrti.org/programs/philadelphia-orchestra-concert).  In the past, I've recorded Philadelphia Orchestra performances off the air on a delayed basis on Sunday afternoons at 1:00 Eastern Time (usually about a month after the live performances downtown at the Kimmel Center), and last year's M8 was broadcast live as it was performed.  I haven't recorded anything in a while now, but it now seems that past performances of the Philadelphia Orchestra are now available for purchase on a download basis from either ArkivMusic or iTunes.  I'll have to check this coming Sunday afternoon to see if the broadcast is live or is on a delayed basis.  If live, the performance will be at 2:00 Eastern Time, as that is the time that all live Sunday afternoon Philadelphia Orchestra performances take place.  The down side of these on-air, off-air broadcasts is like any other FM broadcast - the sound is compressed, and you lose the full impact of the orchestra's sound.

Wade

Thank you for having taken the time to reply so exaustively.

I knew the M6 and M2 conducted by Eschenbach and released by Ondine (which is Finnish). M6 has one of the best Finales committed to disc. Moreover, years ago I bought a FLAC of M5 with Eschenbach, a live recording not ideally balanced but still good.

Last November I dowloaded an mp3 with the M8 conducted by Nezet-Seguin, but I have not yet had time to listen to it properly. An mp3 of his M5 is available on Amazon, but the price is too high for the average Amazon's mp3 quality I have so far experienced.

I suspected what you wrote about DG and I even find it understandable.

Since Nezet-Seguin recordings with the BRSO and the LPO were released by orchestras' labels, I was hoping that the Phildelphia Orchestra was going to do something like that (it had did it in the past, for example by releasing Schumann's Symphonies with Sawallisch). Considering the effort to pull together a performance of M8, I had thought it would have been even logical to produce a CD like they do at RCO Live, LSO Live, BR Klassik and so on. Nevertheless, in 2017, while we have officially released recordings of a M6 with none other than the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc and a M7 with the Czech Radio Orchestra, we can't have some well recorded Mahler from one of the best orchestras in the world.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 28, 2017, 07:59:53 PM

"A jewel among Mahler Sevenths" wrote Firebrand on Amazon. With all due respect to Firebrand, before buying this one I will wait to read at least one review written by somebody with an actual name and a proved competence.

Well, it seems that somebody with an actual name and a proved competence has written a review concerning this release:

"Just what we’ve been waiting for! Another Mahler cycle! Yay! Or rather, Oy! Hearing this perfectly decent reading of the Seventh prompts several thoughts. No, it’s not “necessary”, but I can’t help but acknowledge the high quality of even the lesser-known German orchestras, the idiomatic response of so many conductors–in short, the way this music, even the odd Seventh, has become so integral to our musical experience. Who’d have thunk it?

Adam Fischer leads a completely convincing interpretation of the symphony. The truculent first movement flows with unusual coherence; the two Nachtmusiks are perfectly paced, the creepy scherzo has a nicely slithery transparency of texture, and the finale rises to an aptly raucous final climax. It’s a difficult performance to criticize, other than to say that the playing, while very good, lacks a certain bravura that the best orchestras bring to the work, and the sonics are seriously deficient in bass.

In short, I can’t think of a compelling reason why you should own this, but you’d probably enjoy it if you did."

Artistic Quality: 8
Sound Quality: 7

D. Hurwitz

(http://www.classicstoday.com/review/mahler-cycle-guessed-dusseldorf/)

I. Langsam – Allegro risoluto, ma non troppo.......   20:42
II. Nachtmusik. Allegro moderato.......................15:41
III. Scherzo. Schattenhaft.................................10:06
IV. Nachtmusik. Andante amoroso......................12:35
V. Rondo-Finale. Allegro ordinario.......................17:45

I am always surprised when I read that, in 2017, there are still problems in recording a concert in excellent sound quality.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on February 28, 2017, 08:15:30 PM
As it has been noted elsewhere in this forum, two new recordings of Das Lied von der Erde conducted by J. Nott are going to be released in a few weeks:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Roberto-Stephen-Bamberger-Symphoniker/dp/B01MY5F6PQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487249179&sr=1-1&keywords=B01MY5F6PQ

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Das-Lied-Von-Erde/dp/B01MZZXR1G/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487249193&sr=1-1&keywords=B01MZZXR1G


There are some marvelous moments in this beautifully recorded performance: the solo violin and flute in “Der Trunkene…”; the white, dead tone that baritone Stephen Gadd uses to start the “Abschied“ as well as his downright spooky, almost-not-there Ewigs to close the song; the warm and pleasant reading of “Von der Jugend” with its quiet, jumpy energy and lovely Asian inflections matched by Roberto Sacca’s singing; and the weariness in Gadd’s voice in “Der Einsame…”.

But for each of these there’s a counter-issue: While Sacca sings the “Trinklied” well (without erasing memories of either Wunderlich or Vickers), the song’s start, under Jonathan Nott, is not as rambunctious as it should be, which undercuts the contrasting central lyricism–and the repeated “Dunkel ist das Leben” endings lack gravity. And though Gadd is sensitive, his voice lacks the depth for dark despair. In addition, one always hopes for sheer wildness in the central gallop of “Von der Schönheit”, and it is absent here.

I also wish that Gadd sounded less like a tenor and had more body to his voice. He’s probably a marvelous Mozart singer and would do wonders in Britten’s songs as well, but here he sounds like a very small Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Nott and his Bamberger players are superb–the brass is brilliant, the strings are gentle and warm when they need be. Tempos are invariably correct. This is an oddly unmoving performance."

Artistic Quality: 7
Sound Quality: 9

R. Levine

(http://www.classicstoday.com/review/good-das-lied-nott-not-good-enough/)

This review depicts well my mixed feelings towards Mahler's Nott. It is not bad, it is generally correct, it has beautiful moments, sometimes you even notice a certain, nice detail that escaped to you in other performances, but... how can I say in a language that is not mine? I feel he does not keep his grip on the big picture.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: AZContrabassoon on February 28, 2017, 09:35:58 PM

I am always surprised when I read that, in 2017, there are still problems in recording a concert in excellent sound quality.

I'm not - not one bit. There are many reasons. First, most younger people today have no idea at all of what a great sound system can do. They listen to music through ear buds (which can be quite good) usually to music that is streamed, compressed, and other atrocities on their phones - where the sound quality is an afterthought. Many recordings are mastered with little thought to big sound stereos - as long as the mp3 sounds ok, why bother? Secondly, many recording engineers today have little experience in classical; pop/rock/hiphop they're experts. Long gone are the days of the great engineers of EMI, Decca, Columbia, RCA. Same with producers. I've played many concerts and recording sessions where some moron setting up microphones clearly has no idea what he is doing. Third: I swear a lot of people who listen to popular music have ruined their ears and have no idea if a recording sounds good or bad to a person with good ears.

Even some companies that maintain a higher standard (Chandos, BIS come to mind) have their share of misses. My preferred listening mode is headphones driven by a high quality vacuum tube amplifier, or a big, heavy, loud surround sound system. But they seem to be going the way of dinosaurs thanks to portable electronics.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: waderice on March 01, 2017, 02:08:24 AM

I am always surprised when I read that, in 2017, there are still problems in recording a concert in excellent sound quality.

I'm not - not one bit. There are many reasons. First, most younger people today have no idea at all of what a great sound system can do. They listen to music through ear buds (which can be quite good) usually to music that is streamed, compressed, and other atrocities on their phones - where the sound quality is an afterthought. Many recordings are mastered with little thought to big sound stereos - as long as the mp3 sounds ok, why bother? Secondly, many recording engineers today have little experience in classical; pop/rock/hiphop they're experts. Long gone are the days of the great engineers of EMI, Decca, Columbia, RCA. Same with producers. I've played many concerts and recording sessions where some moron setting up microphones clearly has no idea what he is doing. Third: I swear a lot of people who listen to popular music have ruined their ears and have no idea if a recording sounds good or bad to a person with good ears.

Even some companies that maintain a higher standard (Chandos, BIS come to mind) have their share of misses. My preferred listening mode is headphones driven by a high quality vacuum tube amplifier, or a big, heavy, loud surround sound system. But they seem to be going the way of dinosaurs thanks to portable electronics.

I will NEVER forget the first time I was part of performances (chorus) of towering works like the Beethoven 9th and Mahler 2nd - those composers knew what they wanted, and how to make their point at specific places in their scores.  The overall sound, from very low pianissimos to extremely loud fortissimos can be quite overwhelming, almost to the point of extreme shock.  Those eddies of sound swirling all around you produce an effect that cannot be described, but must be experienced!  Hector Berlioz once said, "Vulgar prejudice states that when an orchestra plays fortissimo, it's loud.  Instead, it is powerful."

If I cannot afford to spend thousands on the best possible sound system to obtain the best quality sound, I will instead invest in high-quality system interconnects to hear what few remaining bits of high-quality sound my system and speakers are capable of.

I'm thankful that I spared my ears the damage that so many others have inflicted upon themselves.

Wade
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 01, 2017, 10:39:22 AM
I concur with Waderice. And I add we have to take into account the concert hall acoustic too.

Let's be back to the main thread. Well, sort of "be back", because I am going not to write about a 2017 release. In fact, there is a 2015 release that seems to have not been noticed around here.

Praga Digital released a live recording of Das Klagende Lied (final, 2 movements version) conducted by none other than Rafael Kubelik:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/CDs-Vinyl/Tribute-Rafael-Kubel%C3%ADk-Chor-Bayerischen-Rundfunks/B015G9MHUU/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1488362633&sr=1-1&keywords=B015G9MHUU

https://www.amazon.com/Tribute-Rafael-Kubelik-Kubel%C3%ADk/dp/B015G9MHUU/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1488362641&sr=1-1&keywords=B015G9MHUU

(the selection of the Gurre-Lieder is taken from the same concert that was entirely released by DG)

It is an exciting, intense, dramatic, gripping interpretation. The music seems really to tell a story. You can understand why Kubelik was so good both on the concert platform and in the theater's pit. Alas, the sound quality is mediocre, almost poor, if one considers that the concert was recorded on 8 June 1979 (do not be fooled by all the babbling about the SACD format). It's just a speculation, but this, and the presence of the Gurre-Lieder (in mediocre sound too) familiar from the DG release, make me suspect that the release has been put together from pirate sources.

If original tapes of the 8 June 1979 existed and were of the same quality we know from the Audite's other BRSO/Kubelik releases, this Das Klagende Lied would be a very nice addition to Kubelik's discography in particular and Mahler's discography in general.

Let me add a few more things. I admire Kubelik for the great conductor he was; I admire him for the man he was, a man who was not afraid to take his stand and speak against dictatorships; I admire him because, when he felt he was no more able to his job properly, he simply retired, out of respect for the music, for his fellow musicians, for his audience and for himself.

Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: ChrisH on March 01, 2017, 03:30:54 PM

I am always surprised when I read that, in 2017, there are still problems in recording a concert in excellent sound quality.

I have heaps of excellent sounding recordings. Literally piles of them! Where this break down in audio quality starts is simply your room, speakers, and the position of your speakers within the room. Hurwitz ways this recording has low bass. Maybe, maybe not. Bass is dependent on your room, it's size and where your speakers reside in this space. In my room, I have a null at 53hz, this is caused not because of my speakers or a recording, it's because of where I sit. If I could move my seat back 16 inches the null is pulled up into the 70hz range, which easily taken care of with some acoustical treatments.

I will say this again, if you want the best sound out of your system, spend money on a microphone so you can measure your listening environment. With out doing this, you have no idea what you are really hearing and, more importantly, what needs to be fixed.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on March 01, 2017, 07:26:43 PM
I think I mentioned this before. I knew a retired engineer close to Stanford who had THE most incredible stereo I've EVER heard. His living room had stacks and stacks of speakers - it looked terrible! But all of this equipment was used to fine tune his listening environment. You could literally walk around that space and hear the same exact excellent, realistic sound wherever you sat or stood. He spent decades working on this set-up. I'm sure one can get good results fine tuning their listening environment without stacks of speakers everywhere.

Think of all the times when somebody bought a new pair of speakers that sounded excellent at the shop, only to later feel disappointed by how they sounded in their home environment.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: ChrisH on March 01, 2017, 08:10:38 PM


Think of all the times when somebody bought a new pair of speakers that sounded excellent at the shop, only to later feel disappointed by how they sounded in their home environment.
This is how Bowers and Wilkins makes a living. Sounds good in the Hi-Fi shop, but will fatigue your ears to death at home.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 02, 2017, 10:21:30 AM
Here we are: Mahler: Third Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer:

https://www.amazon.de/Symphony-No-3-Fischer-Ivan/dp/B06XBC7JL6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music-classical&ie=UTF8&qid=1488189980&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XBC7JL6

https://www.amazon.fr/Symphony-No-3-Fischer-Ivan/dp/B06XBC7JL6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1488189963&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XBC7JL6

This could be a relevant Mahler release among the many irrelevant ones. Finger crossed!

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-3-Ivan-Fischer-Budapest-Festival-Orchestra-Gerhild-Romberger-A-etc-2SACD-Hybrid_7720328
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on March 02, 2017, 03:06:59 PM
Thanks GL. They obviously bumped the 7th so that Ivan's brother could have the spotlight for himself. Maybe they could join forces and have a Dudamel style M8 (which I like)   ;)
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 06, 2017, 08:07:13 PM
Here we are: Mahler: Third Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer:

https://www.amazon.de/Symphony-No-3-Fischer-Ivan/dp/B06XBC7JL6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music-classical&ie=UTF8&qid=1488189980&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XBC7JL6

https://www.amazon.fr/Symphony-No-3-Fischer-Ivan/dp/B06XBC7JL6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1488189963&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XBC7JL6

This could be a relevant Mahler release among the many irrelevant ones. Finger crossed!

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-3-Ivan-Fischer-Budapest-Festival-Orchestra-Gerhild-Romberger-A-etc-2SACD-Hybrid_7720328

It is now possible to pre-order M3/Ivan Fischer in UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Symphony-Budapest-Festival-Orchestra-x/dp/B06XBC7JL6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1488830700&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XBC7JL6
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 06, 2017, 08:08:33 PM
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0199316104/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488830446&sr=1-1&keywords=9780199316106

https://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Mahler-Jeremy-Barham/dp/0199316104/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1488830072&sr=1-1

"Barham JM. Rethinking Mahler. New York : Oxford University Press

Abstract

Rethinking Mahler comprises a collection of essays by leading and emerging scholars in the field. It commemorates the composer’s anniversary years (2010-11) by offering reassessment of his engagement both with the immediate creative and cultural present of the late nineteenth century, and with the weight of a creative and cultural past that was the inheritance of artists living and working at that time. Its authors explore Mahler’s relationship with music, media and ideas present and past in three themed sections, addressing between them issues in structural analysis, performance, genres of stage, screen and literature, cultural movements, aesthetics, history/historiography and temporal experience."
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on March 07, 2017, 05:25:19 AM
for $75  :(, I think I'll continue to do my own thinking, thank you   ;)
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 07, 2017, 10:32:07 AM
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0199316104/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488830446&sr=1-1&keywords=9780199316106

https://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Mahler-Jeremy-Barham/dp/0199316104/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1488830072&sr=1-1

"Barham JM. Rethinking Mahler. New York : Oxford University Press

Abstract

Rethinking Mahler comprises a collection of essays by leading and emerging scholars in the field. It commemorates the composer’s anniversary years (2010-11) by offering reassessment of his engagement both with the immediate creative and cultural present of the late nineteenth century, and with the weight of a creative and cultural past that was the inheritance of artists living and working at that time. Its authors explore Mahler’s relationship with music, media and ideas present and past in three themed sections, addressing between them issues in structural analysis, performance, genres of stage, screen and literature, cultural movements, aesthetics, history/historiography and temporal experience."

European, paperback edition:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rethinking-Mahler-Jeremy-Barham/dp/0199316104/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488882389&sr=1-1&keywords=9780199316106

https://www.amazon.fr/Rethinking-Mahler-Jeremy-Barham/dp/0199316104/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488881829&sr=8-1&keywords=9780199316106

(more or less, 29,99£ = 36$ & 36,62€ = 39$)

About Jeremy Barham:

http://www.surrey.ac.uk/DMM/People/jeremy_barham/

Obviously, it is always better to purchase goods directly from the countries were they are manufactured, without too much intermediaries (distributors and so on).

Concerning international shipping from Amazon websites in Europe, cheapest shipping costs for CD & DVD can be found on Amazon UK, while cheapest shipping costs for books can be found on German Amazon.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 09, 2017, 10:05:41 AM
Here we are: Mahler: Third Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer:

https://www.amazon.de/Symphony-No-3-Fischer-Ivan/dp/B06XBC7JL6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music-classical&ie=UTF8&qid=1488189980&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XBC7JL6

https://www.amazon.fr/Symphony-No-3-Fischer-Ivan/dp/B06XBC7JL6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1488189963&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XBC7JL6

This could be a relevant Mahler release among the many irrelevant ones. Finger crossed!

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-3-Ivan-Fischer-Budapest-Festival-Orchestra-Gerhild-Romberger-A-etc-2SACD-Hybrid_7720328

Now it's available for pre-order in USA too:

https://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-Budapest-Festival-Orchestra/dp/B06XBC7JL6/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1489053731&sr=1-2&keywords=mahler
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on March 09, 2017, 11:15:32 AM
Presto Classical still has it cheaper, even with shipping, and with a one week earlier release date.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Channel/CCSSA38817
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: ChrisH on March 09, 2017, 01:51:56 PM
You will be able to download the Fischer Mahler 3 directly from their site the minute it's released. CD quality is 13 bucks. If you use their new beta site, you can get an additional 25% off as well.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on March 09, 2017, 06:08:22 PM
.    .    .  and will be able to hear it for free at Spotify not too long after that   8) - one presumes.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 09, 2017, 07:49:30 PM
He even conducted it in Berlin:

https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/22400

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCwjXzhNmLo
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: waderice on March 10, 2017, 12:19:27 AM
Once Fischer gets his Mahler symphony cycle complete, I'll buy it.  So far, I have only his M2, which is outstanding.  Anyone know his stand on M10?

Wade
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on March 10, 2017, 09:42:15 AM
.    .     .   or his stand on M8, for that matter. Channel Classics had originally announced that Fischer's Mahler would NOT be a 'complete' cycle. I took that for code that he doesn't care for the 8th. But as I suggested - somewhat seriously - he and his brother (Adam) could combine forces for a truly large M8. One brother could conduct Part I, while the other gets Part II. Something like that.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 10, 2017, 10:20:37 AM
Another one, this time from Czech Republic.

Libor Pešek's complete cycle with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra:

http://www.cnso.cz/EN/news/429/mahler_____complete_symphonies_.html

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 1 in D major "Titan" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AhM4-UjrwU)
Symphony No. 2 in C minor "Resurrection"
Symphony No. 3 in D minor
Symphony No. 4 in G major
Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor
Symphony No. 6 in A minor
Symphony No. 7 in E minor
Symphony No. 8 in E flat major
Symphony No. 9 in D major
Symphony No. 10 (Adagio)

Libor Pešek - conductor
Czech National Symphony Orchestra
Eva Urbanová - soprano (2, 8); Mieko Sato - soprano (4); Anna Chierichetti, Doriana Milazzo, Kateřina Kněžíková – sopranos (8); Dagmar Pecková – mezzo (3); Kateřina Jalovcová - alto (2, 3, 8); Yvona Škvárová - alto (8); Marcello Nardis – tenor (8); Gianfranco Montresor – baritone (8); Ondrej Mráz – bass (8); Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno (2, 8); Kühn Children‘s Choir (3); Kantiléna Children‘s Choir (8)

Recorded in Rudolfinum Prague, Municipal House, and Studio CNSO No. 1 "Gallery"
Recording Director: Sylva Smejkalová; Balance Engineer: Jan Kotzmann; Engineer Assistant: Čenda Kotzmann
Producers: Jan Hasenöhrl & Chikari Fujii
Coproduct recording by Victor Entertainment, Inc. & Czech National Symphony Orchestra

http://www.cnso.cz/EN/shop.html
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on March 11, 2017, 06:23:30 AM
I'll bet those are pretty good, too. I used to see him conduct the S.F. Symphony.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 13, 2017, 10:36:49 AM
I'll bet those are pretty good, too. I used to see him conduct the S.F. Symphony.

Pesek recorded an excellent M9 in Liverpool. The Czech National Symphony Orchestra has done very fine recordings of works by Fibich (with Marek Štilec, a very promising young conductor) and Voříšek, but a Mahler's symphony is a more complex affair. I am curious to find out how they managed, but, apart from M1, M2, M4 & M5 which a are a bit expensive, the complete cycle seems to be available only in Czech Republic.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: AZContrabassoon on March 14, 2017, 03:28:56 PM
Another missed opportunity...and frustration to collectors. How hard would it have been to add DLVDE to this set? I can see omitting the song cycles, but surely any Mahler symphony set should include DLVDE...like the Inbal set on Denon. I still want to hear this set, though. Pesek is a fine conductor who is fully at home with middle European style and sound. His recording of Schmidt's 3rd was terrific. And it's only about $50 - a deal.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 14, 2017, 07:16:45 PM
Another missed opportunity...and frustration to collectors. How hard would it have been to add DLVDE to this set? I can see omitting the song cycles, but surely any Mahler symphony set should include DLVDE...like the Inbal set on Denon. I still want to hear this set, though. Pesek is a fine conductor who is fully at home with middle European style and sound. His recording of Schmidt's 3rd was terrific. And it's only about $50 - a deal.

I'd say that $2.98 could be a better deal (https://www.amazon.com/Franz-Schmidt-Symphony-Conducting-Philharmonic/dp/B000WL19OI/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1489518827&sr=1-1&keywords=B000WL19OI).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: AZContrabassoon on March 15, 2017, 04:23:28 AM
Sorry, I was really unclear. The Pesek/Mahler set is about $50 - not the Schmidt. I paid nearly $20 for that Schmidt some 30 years ago. Is that all my beloved cds are worth anymore?
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 16, 2017, 11:37:35 AM
Sorry, I was really unclear. The Pesek/Mahler set is about $50 - not the Schmidt. I paid nearly $20 for that Schmidt some 30 years ago. Is that all my beloved cds are worth anymore?

Cheer up! The re-issue is worth more:

https://www.amazon.com/SCHMIDT-PESEK-SLOVAK-PHILHARMONIC-ORCHESTRA/dp/B004717GKU/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1489664165&sr=1-1&keywords=B004717GKU
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 16, 2017, 11:39:17 AM
After the M5, the Chicago Symphony/Abbado's M6 will soon be available in SACD:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Sym-6-Abbado-Cso-Ltd_7723145

Like the M5, it is too expensive.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on March 19, 2017, 06:43:59 AM
That wasn't a bad M6 by any means. It's a tad slower but also heftier than the Berlin remake (or Lucerne on dvd, for that matter). Typical of the CSO, the brass outplayed the percussion in terms of volume - not something I necessarily want in M6.

To put that another way, I'm not impressed with the CSO percussion section on this recording. However, it's great that they got this onto one disc. Of more interest to me: I wonder if DG is also going to reissue this on their inexpensive Virtuoso series (?).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 19, 2017, 07:44:55 PM
Another one, this time from Czech Republic.

Libor Pešek's complete cycle with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra:

http://www.cnso.cz/EN/news/429/mahler_____complete_symphonies_.html

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 1 in D major "Titan" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AhM4-UjrwU)
Symphony No. 2 in C minor "Resurrection"
Symphony No. 3 in D minor
Symphony No. 4 in G major
Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor
Symphony No. 6 in A minor
Symphony No. 7 in E minor
Symphony No. 8 in E flat major
Symphony No. 9 in D major
Symphony No. 10 (Adagio)

Libor Pešek - conductor
Czech National Symphony Orchestra
Eva Urbanová - soprano (2, 8); Mieko Sato - soprano (4); Anna Chierichetti, Doriana Milazzo, Kateřina Kněžíková – sopranos (8); Dagmar Pecková – mezzo (3); Kateřina Jalovcová - alto (2, 3, 8); Yvona Škvárová - alto (8); Marcello Nardis – tenor (8); Gianfranco Montresor – baritone (8); Ondrej Mráz – bass (8); Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno (2, 8); Kühn Children‘s Choir (3); Kantiléna Children‘s Choir (8)

Recorded in Rudolfinum Prague, Municipal House, and Studio CNSO No. 1 "Gallery"
Recording Director: Sylva Smejkalová; Balance Engineer: Jan Kotzmann; Engineer Assistant: Čenda Kotzmann
Producers: Jan Hasenöhrl & Chikari Fujii
Coproduct recording by Victor Entertainment, Inc. & Czech National Symphony Orchestra

http://www.cnso.cz/EN/shop.html

The ones not living in Czech Republic but nevertheless interested in the Pesek complete cycle, can purchase it by contacting Jan HODOUSEK (hodousek@cnso.cz).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on March 20, 2017, 07:31:54 AM
Sounds like a pretty good M1 to me.  :)  It has a bigger bass drum roll at the end than what you hear on the highly touted Nezet-Seguin/BRSO one.

Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 21, 2017, 10:00:31 AM
OT "new" Release: Beethoven Complete String Quartets played by the Takacs Quartet in one box. At last.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beethoven-Complete-Quartets-Tak%C3%A1cs-Quartet/dp/B01N4MFPV0/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490089713&sr=1-1&keywords=B01N4MFPV0

https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Complete-String-Quartets-Blu-Ray/dp/B01N4MFPV0/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490089711&sr=1-1&keywords=B01N4MFPV0

https://www.amazon.fr/Beethoven-Complete-Quartets-Coffret-Blu-Ray/dp/B01N4MFPV0/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490089822&sr=1-1&keywords=B01N4MFPV0
Other fabulous recordings by Takacs:

Bartok: Complete String Quartets (Decca, a classic)

Dohnanyi: Piano Quintet & Sextett (finally reissued in Decca Eloquence series, coupled with Kodaly's Second String Quartet played by Musikverein Quartet:

https://www.amazon.com/Dohnanyi-Quintet-Sextet-Kodaly-String/dp/B016CQZYSI/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490090337&sr=1-1&keywords=B016CQZYSI

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dohnanyi-Quintet-Sextet-Kodaly-Quartet/dp/B016CQZYSI/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490090298&sr=1-1&keywords=B016CQZYSI)

Dvorak: Piano Quintet (Decca)

Janacek: String Quartets, Smetana: String Quartet No. 1 (Hyperion, a reference recording of these beautiful works)

Schubert: String Quintet in C & Quarttetsatz in c (Hyperion)

Schubert: String Quartets "Death and the Maiden" & "Rosamunde" (Hyperion)
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on March 27, 2017, 06:18:52 PM
John Barbirolli conducts Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, 6 & Das Lied von der Erde:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphonies-Nos-2-4-5-6-Das-Lied-von-der-Erde-John-Barbirolli-BBC-SO-Berlin-PO-Houston-SO-Halle-O-Kathleen-Ferrier-etc-1952-67-4CD_7725259

M4:

Heather · Harper (soprano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Recording: January 3, 1967 (live, stereo; previously released in BBC Legend series)

M5:

Houston Symphony Orchestra
Recording: Carnegie Hall (live) on March 24, 1966

M6:

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Recording: January 1966 (live; previously released on Testament)

Das Lied von der Erde:

Kathleen Ferrier (Alto)
Richard Lewis (tenor)
Halle Orchestra
Recording: April 1952 (live; previously released by APR)

I did not know the Houston/Barbirolli's M5.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on April 04, 2017, 06:46:58 PM
As it has been noted elsewhere in this forum, two new recordings of Das Lied von der Erde conducted by J. Nott are going to be released in a few weeks:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Roberto-Stephen-Bamberger-Symphoniker/dp/B01MY5F6PQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487249179&sr=1-1&keywords=B01MY5F6PQ

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Das-Lied-Von-Erde/dp/B01MZZXR1G/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487249193&sr=1-1&keywords=B01MZZXR1G

Originally, Kaufmann was scheduled to sing all, to conduct, to play the tam-tam (while singing) and the flute's solos (recorded separately) in the Abschied, but then it was opted for a conductor and for the Vienna Philharmonic's percussionist and first flute.

Bye,
GL

PS. Of course, I was kidding about Kaufmann's original schedule.

The Guardian's review about Kaufman's Das Lied:

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde CD review – Jonas Kaufmann delivers a real disappointment

In an interview that serves as the sleeve notes for his recording, Jonas Kaufmann describes his first encounter as a student with Das Lied von der Erde, in the classic recording conducted by Otto Klemperer. Kaufmann says he immediately tried to emulate Klemperer’s incomparable soloist Fritz Wunderlich in the three tenor songs, but doesn’t reveal whether at that stage he thought he could sing the three other numbers too, which Mahler designated for either a contralto or a baritone. (It’s Christa Ludwig, still unsurpassed, on the Klemperer recording.) Yet here he is tackling all six, in a recording taken from concerts in the Vienna Musikverein last June.

Performances with a baritone rather than a mezzo or contralto as the second soloist appear to have become more common over the last decade, following the example set half a century ago by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Thomas Hampson and Christian Gerhaher, in particular, have showed how effective a second male voice can be. But though Kaufmann’s voice is regularly described as having baritonal qualities, he is not, at this stage in his career at any rate, a true baritone, and there are moments in all three of the contralto songs when he seems to be struggling to muster enough weight of tone to support the vocal line. Parts of the final Abschied are almost crooned, and the repeated closing “Ewig” is virtually toneless.

It’s a triumph of hubris over sound musical judgment, which does nothing for the tonal contrasts between the songs that Mahler carefully built into the work, and has a serious effect on Kaufmann’s performance of the three tenor numbers too. They are a gruelling test for any singer, let alone one who is allowing himself no respite during the other numbers, and even in the opening Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde, there’s none of the effortless power, the sense of the voice surfing over the surging orchestral textures, that the greatest interpreters achieve. It all becomes a bit of a struggle.

A real disappointment, then, which isn’t helped by the rather routine orchestral contributions of the Vienna Philharmonic under Jonathan Nott. At best, this is an interesting experiment that really shouldn’t have been enshrined on disc.

Andrew Clements

(https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/mar/29/mahler-das-lied-von-der-erde-cd-review-jonas-kaufmann-sony-classical)
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on April 04, 2017, 09:50:34 PM
"and the repeated closing “Ewig” is virtually toneless"    .    .    . 

I'm not disputing what the reviewer says, but it should be noted that are ZERO crescendos for the singer in the last minute or so of the work. "Ewig" is marked pp, then ppp the last time (pianissimo, and triple piano). All of this is often times waaaay over-sung.

Also, "hubris" is one of those soft "h" words that generally means nothing in the context that most writers use it in, and it has absolutely no place in a review about "Das Lied von der Erde". The Venezuelan government and their actions towards their musicians (whom they feel threatened by): that's hubris!

I have trouble trusting a reviewer who accuses a record company of "hubris" when their decisions are based simply on the hopes of actually selling something - however misguided those hopes might be. Let's also throw in the other soft "h" word that says absolutely nothing: "hegemony".

If you want to sound erudite and insightful while also displaying no guts, reach for the soft "h" words. George Carlin would turn in his grave.

Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on April 18, 2017, 06:06:46 PM
Mahler's Eight Symphony

Ricarda Merbeth soprano
Juliane Banse soprano
Anna Lucia Richter soprano
Sara Mingardo contralto
Mihoko Fujimura contralto
Andreas Schager tenor
Peter Mattei baritone
Samuel Youn bass

Bavarian Radio Choir
Latvian Radio Choir
Orfeón Donostiarra
Tölz Boys' Choir

Lucerne Festival Orchestra

Riccardo Chailly.

Recorded at the KKL - Lucerne Festival Hall (Lucerne, Switzerland), on August 14, 2016

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0NMj89TLes)

DVD & Blu-ray versions (Accentus Music) available in May:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B071CKFXCP/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1492538583&sr=1-3&keywords=%E3%83%9E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC

https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B06ZYRFCCM/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1492538583&sr=1-4&keywords=%E3%83%9E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC

Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on April 18, 2017, 06:49:56 PM
I watched this on Youtube and found it to be quite inferior to his Leipzig dvd - even from Chailly's conducting standpoint. I wonder if it needed more rehearsal time.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Freddy van Maurik on April 19, 2017, 01:11:52 PM
Thanks for the heads up, GL and Barry!
I think I'll check it out anyway...  ;)

Freddy
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on April 20, 2017, 06:07:20 PM
Thanks for the heads up, GL and Barry!
I think I'll check it out anyway...  ;)

Freddy

I think that the concert on DVD/Blu-ray won't be exactly the same as the one broadcast by ARTE (and uploaded on youtube-see the link I provided). I mean, I was present at the Mahler's Ninth with Abbado in Luzern (2010) and I clearly spotted some mistakes that I spotted again watching the ARTE broadcast of the same concert but not in the Blu-ray release.

Anyway, considering the Leipzig and the Luzern versions of Chailly's M8, I think the Luzern one superior in the singers department and inferior in the orchestral one, but both are surclassed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra's one (on CD).

Concerning the Leipzig DVD/Blu-ray cycle, M1 was recorded and broadcast, so it will be probably released. M3 was due to be recorded last December, but Chailly cancelled for health reasons and Andris Nelsons stepped in to save the day. Nevertheless, just a few days later, Chailly was conducting in Milan... It looks like that something went wrong between Chailly and Gewandhaus Orchestra and it is really a pity.

Luca
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on April 20, 2017, 06:18:50 PM
I know that Kazuo Yamada (1912-1991, not to be confounded with Kazuki Yamada), conductor and chairman of the Japan Mahler Society, kept alive a Mahler tradition in Japan, but I do not know with what results.

For the ones more adventurous than me and interested in investigating the activity of Kazuo Yamada, a M4 played by the Kanegawa Philharmonic Orchestra (recorded in 1986) will be released soon:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Mahler-Symphony-No-4-Mozart-Divertimento-K-136-Brahms-Kazuo-Yamada-Kanagawa-Philharmonic-Yukie-Okura-S_7775096

A M5 (with the NHK Symphony Orchestra) and a M9 (with the New Japan Philharmonic) are just available:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Mahler-Symphony-No-5-Mozart-Symphonies-Nos-38-41-Kazuo-Yamada-NHK-Symphony-Orchestra-1985-1990-Stereo_7272844

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-9-Kazuo-Yamada-New-Japan-Philharmonic-1986-2CD_4159212
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on April 20, 2017, 08:26:44 PM
Thank you as always. Good info.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Russell on April 23, 2017, 11:56:55 PM
Not sure if this was mentioned already, but Channel Classics has just recorded a new DLVDE with Fischer/BFO and soloists Gerhild Romberger and Robert Dean Smith.  Should be released about a year from now.

Russell
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on April 24, 2017, 02:33:44 AM
Sheeesh   .    .    .   not exactly two stellar singers. I never want to hear Robert Dean Smith again.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 22, 2017, 10:30:33 AM
I knew that Minnesota & Vänskä recorded the Sixth last autumn and I read about the recording of the Second, so I was surprised to find out that the first Mahler release of Minnesota & Vänskä will be the Fifth!

https://smile.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-No-Minnesota-Orchestra/dp/B0711CKS48/ref=tmm_acd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498125409&sr=1-3

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-5-Vanska-Minnesota-Orchestra-Hybrid_7982750

https://www.amazon.fr/Symphony-No-5-Sacd-G-Mahler/dp/B0711CKS48/ref=tmm_acd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498125591&sr=1-10

It could be interesting for the orchestra and the sonics provided by BIS. As for Vänskä's contribution, I did not find his Fifth with Hong Kong very special:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_yxolaffpo
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 22, 2017, 04:18:53 PM
Sounds pretty good to me, and it's not quite Minnesota either. Crappy sounding tam-tam in the HK Phil, but the great Roland Szentpali is on tuba in this video.

I'll be curious to see who Vanska/BIS get for vocalists on M3 and M4. If they get a really good mezzo or contralto for M3, I might dump the Ivan Fischer. I'm just not impressed with Romberger. I think Vanska/Minnesota may conjure up more visceral impact in the two outer movements too.  Wait and see.

You would think that the HK Phil. - being much closer to Wuhan, China than the U.S. or Europe are - would have a great sounding, hand selected Wuhan tam-tam.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 22, 2017, 06:34:40 PM
Apropos of Fifths... Jansons did it again:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-5-Mariss-Jansons-Bavarian-Radio-Symphony-Orchestra-Hybrid_7999632

https://www.amazon.de/Mahler-Sinfonie-5-Mariss-Jansons/dp/B071JD84V9/ref=sr_1_1?s=music-classical&ie=UTF8&qid=1498127900&sr=1-1&keywords=B071JD84V9

https://www.amazon.fr/Sinfonie-5-allemand-Jansons-Mariss/dp/B071JD84V9/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1498127887&sr=1-1&keywords=B071JD84V9

This is his third recording of the Fifth, the second one with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2016 he toured with Mahler's Fifth and Shostakovich Seventh. I heard both Symphonies while in Vienna, in March 2016. The Shostakovich was terrific. The playing of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra was impressive, exception made for an hilarious mistake made by the timpanist at the end of the Scherzo of Mahler's Fifth: at bar 771, while the strings were playing pp, he started hammering his big pots as if it were bar 772!
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 22, 2017, 06:37:06 PM
I find Jansons to be far more interesting in Shostakovich than in Mahler.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 22, 2017, 08:00:23 PM
I find Jansons to be far interesting in Shostakovich than in Mahler.

Shostakovich's Seventh made the balcony where I was seated tremble like an earthquake shake. It was terrifying, but of course in a good sense. It was not the case with Mahler and that's my main problem with Jansons's Mahler.

Before Mahler's Fifth, they played the Coriolano Ouverture on steroids of Mahler's Instrumentalretuschen, but I do not think it will be included in the CD release.

Instead of a third Fifth by Jansons, I need a second one by Ivan Fischer, accurately revised and corrected compared to the first one (even in the sonic department), which I consider a blot on an otherwise splendid cycle. 

And to keep speaking of Fifths, RCO should really release the Fifth conducted by Bychkov last November in Amsterdam. It was something unbelievable.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: AZContrabassoon on June 22, 2017, 11:50:21 PM
So was his recording of the third. Brilliant, underrated conductor.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 23, 2017, 07:38:46 AM
Bychkov?   .    .    .  I saw him give an outstanding M6 with the Vienna Phil. in Berkeley. Interestingly enough, he rehearsed it in andante/scherzo order, then changed his mind before the concert. I'm glad he did because it sounded great in S/A order. I frankly liked his performance more than the M6 I saw Bernstein do with the V.P.O. in Carnegie Hall in the latter '80s.

Then again, it's the Vienna Phil., right?   .    .    .  just give a downbeat, walk off and let 'em play it.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 25, 2017, 06:34:08 PM
Apropos of Fifths... Jansons did it again:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-5-Mariss-Jansons-Bavarian-Radio-Symphony-Orchestra-Hybrid_7999632

https://www.amazon.de/Mahler-Sinfonie-5-Mariss-Jansons/dp/B071JD84V9/ref=sr_1_1?s=music-classical&ie=UTF8&qid=1498127900&sr=1-1&keywords=B071JD84V9

https://www.amazon.fr/Sinfonie-5-allemand-Jansons-Mariss/dp/B071JD84V9/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1498127887&sr=1-1&keywords=B071JD84V9

This is his third recording of the Fifth, the second one with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2016 he toured with Mahler's Fifth and Shostakovich Seventh. I heard both Symphonies while in Vienna, in March 2016. The Shostakovich was terrific. The playing of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra was impressive, exception made for an hilarious mistake made by the timpanist at the end of the Scherzo of Mahler's Fifth: at bar 771, while the strings were playing pp, he started hammering his big pots as if it were bar 772!

Sound Clips of M5/Jansons:

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/gustav-mahler-symphonie-nr-5/hnum/7239344
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Prospero on June 25, 2017, 10:54:31 PM
On Bartok, how can you not examine central Europe from 1910 to 1945, dark forces political and personal, Bartok's refugee status, and his fatal illness.

Bluebeard's Castle and the Miraculous Mandarin certainly raise deep psychological issues. And why are the night music movements not connected to both history and Bartok's psyche?

When Mahler asked Bruno Walter how one could live after  DLvdE, or when he was in tears after conducting a performance of the 6th, or when he scrawled the heart wrenching cries to Alma in the manuscript of the 10th symphony: how could that be "absolute music" with no connection to his personal emotions and psyche?

The claim that Mahler's music is "absolute music"-whatever that might be --seems to ignore far too much.

One can have whatever view one wants, but it seems very strange to think that art is a disembodied thing.

Best to all,

Tom in Vermont


Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 26, 2017, 04:15:12 AM
Actually, I just watched that whole M5 video from HK and thought that this bodes really well for the upcoming Minnesota series. It's really good.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 26, 2017, 05:31:17 PM
Actually, I just watched that whole M5 video from HK and thought that this bodes really well for the upcoming Minnesota series. It's really good.

A beautiful run-of-the-mill performance of Mahler's Fifth, complete with an old fashioned, funereal Adagietto. Just waht we need in general for Mahler and in particular for his Fifth.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 26, 2017, 05:34:03 PM
On Bartok, how can you not examine central Europe from 1910 to 1945, dark forces political and personal, Bartok's refugee status, and his fatal illness.

Bluebeard's Castle and the Miraculous Mandarin certainly raise deep psychological issues. And why are the night music movements not connected to both history and Bartok's psyche?

When Mahler asked Bruno Walter how one could live after  DLvdE, or when he was in tears after conducting a performance of the 6th, or when he scrawled the heart wrenching cries to Alma in the manuscript of the 10th symphony: how could that be "absolute music" with no connection to his personal emotions and psyche?

The claim that Mahler's music is "absolute music"-whatever that might be --seems to ignore far too much.

One can have whatever view one wants, but it seems very strange to think that art is a disembodied thing.

Best to all,

Tom in Vermont

...moreover, Bluebard's Castle was a wedding gift for Bartok's first wife, whom he treated like a child.

Mahler did not stop writing program music, he simply withheld programs because people, especially critics, kept misunderstanding them or, worse, they thought the program came before the actual writing of the music.

What is really intriguing in music that tells a story is the way a the story is told through musical processes. If you have time for some stimulating read, you should try:

Mahler's Symphonic Sonatas (Oxford Studies in Music Theory) by Seth Monahan

Monahan's essays that can be downloaded for free:

http://www.sethmonahan.com/research.html

Richard Strauss's Orchestral Music and the German Intellectual Tradition: The Philosophical Roots of Musical Modernism (Indiana University Press) by Charles Youmans

and: Mahler and Strauss: In Dialogue (Indiana University Press) by Charles Youmans.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 26, 2017, 05:37:44 PM
So was his recording of the third. Brilliant, underrated conductor.

I think that people tend to uderestimate Bychkov because he is not a showman of the podium. The same year he toured with the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Sixth, he came to Turin to conduct the Sixth and it was amazing: the orchestra seemed transformed and the results were fabulous. But he can make the difference even with a great band like the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, as I witnessed last year, when I attended two concerts in a month, the first conducted by Jansons (M7), the second by Bychkov (the above mentioned M5).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 26, 2017, 05:42:16 PM
I knew that Minnesota & Vänskä recorded the Sixth last autumn and I read about the recording of the Second, so I was surprised to find out that the first Mahler release of Minnesota & Vänskä will be the Fifth!

https://smile.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-No-Minnesota-Orchestra/dp/B0711CKS48/ref=tmm_acd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498125409&sr=1-3

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-5-Vanska-Minnesota-Orchestra-Hybrid_7982750

https://www.amazon.fr/Symphony-No-5-Sacd-G-Mahler/dp/B0711CKS48/ref=tmm_acd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498125591&sr=1-10

It could be interesting for the orchestra and the sonics provided by BIS. As for Vänskä's contribution, I did not find his Fifth with Hong Kong very special:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_yxolaffpo

Bakc to the main topic: Mahler's Fifth with Minnesota & Vänskä

Sound Clips:

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/mahler-symphony-no-5-minnesota-orchestra-osmo-vanska/7318599922263#item

Recording Mahler's Fifth:

https://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/showcase/143-recording-mahler-5

The recording will be released in USA on 4 August, but it is just available at Orchestra Hall and through the Minnesota Orchestra’s website, as it has been announced here:

"Minneapolis Minnesota (June 6, 2017) — The Swedish label BIS Records is releasing its newest collaboration with Music Director Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra—a recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. The album will receive its U.S. release on August 4, but will be available at Orchestra Hall and through the Minnesota Orchestra’s website, minnesotaorchestra.org, beginning June 12.

Vänskä and the Orchestra recorded Mahler’s Fifth Symphony at Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall in a series of sessions in June 2016. They recorded Mahler’s Sixth Symphony last November, and to date, have made plans to record three additional symphonies: the Second during the current season and the First and Fourth during the 2017-18 season.

The BIS team, led by producer Robert Suff, recorded this album as a Super Audio CD (SACD), using surround sound recording technology to reproduce the sound of the concert hall as faithfully as possible. BIS Hybrid SACDs are playable on all standard CD players. Further information about the Minnesota Orchestra’s recordings on the BIS Records label can be found on the BIS website, www.bis.se."

(https://criticaclassica.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/bis-records-and-the-minnesota-orchestra-release-first-disc-in-mahler-recording-project/)
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 26, 2017, 11:00:47 PM
You still can't hear the sound clips yet. There's a nice shot of Minnesota tuba player Steve Campbell, who has monstrous chops.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 27, 2017, 09:35:07 AM
You still can't hear the sound clips yet. There's a nice shot of Minnesota tuba player Steve Campbell, who has monstrous chops.

I tried them before posting the link and they worked. I am trying them now and they are still working.

Clips from amazon.co.jp work too:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B072N97LKN/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp

A brief clip from a live performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V9uqw4pKWU

Vänskä's tempi according to hmv.co.jp:

I. 13:04/ II. 15:31/ III. 17:39/ IV. 12:36/ V. 15:27 = 75:30

For people interested in matters of tempi, Mahler's ones for his Fifth Symphony were:

Hamburg, 12 March 1905 (dress rehearsal): I. 12/ II. 15/ III. 17/ IV. 9/ V. 15 = 68 + (pauses) 2 + 3 + 3

Holland, 1906: I. 14/ II. 16/ III. 17/ IV. 9:30/ V. 14 (tempi annotated by Mengelberg; there were 8 performances of Mahler's Fifth in Holland in 1906; the first two were conducted by Mahler, the first in Antwerp and the second in Amsterdam, the others 6 were conducted by Mengelberg).

St Petersburg, 9 November 1907: I. + II. 27/ III. 17/ IV. 7/ V. NA (I think this is the performance attended by Stravinsky and Rimskij-Korsakov)

Bruno Walter's pocket score: I. 12/ II. 13:30-14/ III. 15-15:30/ IV. 7:30/ V. 14 = 63 + (pauses) 3 + 3
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 28, 2017, 02:06:48 AM
Yeah, I know what you're driving at. Vaenska's 12:30 for the Adagietto sounds extreme. I think 9 minutes is OK, but it sounds ridiculous at 7:30. Consider what Mahler himself wrote in the score.

At the very beginning (of the Adagietto) Mahler wrote several things in the span of just three measures: "sehr langsam" (very slow), "molto rit." (slow down lots) and "a tempo (molto Adagio)"   .    .     .    .  MOLTO ADAGIO!  Nowhere does Mahler mark anything faster than "fliessand" (flowing) and - at rehearsal figure 2 - "fliessender" (more flowingly, I think).

Mahler AGAIN writes "molto adagio" at the "Tempo I" located after figure 3, followed by "zogernd" (hessitantly) at figure 4, and "noch langsamer" (even slower) after that! Clearly the man did not want this movement to rush.

Am I suggesting that Mahler, Mengelberg and Walter were all out of their minds?    .    .    .   YES, I AM. The proof is in the pudding: the Adagietto sounds stupid when it's played for less than 8 minutes. Personally, I don't care if it was 'love letter' to Alma, or to Goebbels, or to anyone else. Musically, it sounds best in the 9 to 11 minute range. Granted 12:30 is at the other extreme. That said, however   .    .     .   

.   .    .  have you ever heard the Scherchen/Philadelphia Orchestra M5 from Tahra (which stayed in print for about 12 minutes)?   .    .    .   Scherchen does the Adagietto at 15:12 and it sounds fabulous! Of course, we're talkin' Philly here. Bruno Maderna - whom so many historical buffs hold up on such a high pedestal - did the Adagietto at 12:40. Bruno "freakin'" Maderna, folks.

Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 28, 2017, 10:14:08 AM
Yeah, I know what you're driving at. Vaenska's 12:30 for the Adagietto sounds extreme. I think 9 minutes is OK, but it sounds ridiculous at 7:30. Consider what Mahler himself wrote in the score.

At the very beginning (of the Adagietto) Mahler wrote several things in the span of just three measures: "sehr langsam" (very slow), "molto rit." (slow down lots) and "a tempo (molto Adagio)"   .    .     .    .  MOLTO ADAGIO!  Nowhere does Mahler mark anything faster than "fliessand" (flowing) and - at rehearsal figure 2 - "fliessender" (more flowingly, I think).

Mahler AGAIN writes "molto adagio" at the "Tempo I" located after figure 3, followed by "zogernd" (hessitantly) at figure 4, and "noch langsamer" (even slower) after that! Clearly the man did not want this movement to rush.

Am I suggesting that Mahler, Mengelberg and Walter were all out of their minds?    .    .    .   YES, I AM. The proof is in the pudding: the Adagietto sounds stupid when it's played for less than 8 minutes. Personally, I don't care if it was 'love letter' to Alma, or to Goebbels, or to anyone else. Musically, it sounds best in the 9 to 11 minute range. Granted 12:30 is at the other extreme. That said, however   .    .     .   

.   .    .  have you ever heard the Scherchen/Philadelphia Orchestra M5 from Tahra (which stayed in print for about 12 minutes)?   .    .    .   Scherchen does the Adagietto at 15:12 and it sounds fabulous! Of course, we're talkin' Philly here. Bruno Maderna - whom so many historical buffs hold up on such a high pedestal - did the Adagietto at 12:40. Bruno "freakin'" Maderna, folks.

No you don't. I'm driving at nothing.

Matters of tempo are relative, not absolute.

Modifications of speed as requested by Mahler are to be considered against the background of the basic tempo, which should be flowing. The programmatic issue concerning the love letters to Alma or Goebbles is not important, because it is something attached to the music ex post facto. What matters is what is immanent to music. The rules of the game we are invited to play while listening music are dictated by the genre and by what the composer actually writes. Adagietto is an Italian word and, being Italian, I can assure you that it means "little adagio"; if Mahler had wanted it to be played like a big adagio, he would have headed it "Adagione"! :-) As it always happens in Mahler, he added contradictory indications to prevent interpreters from exaggerations (in the case of Adagietto, to make them avoid rushing things). As for the question of genre, the ABA form's Adagietto is a song without words and, given the tristanesque central section, a song concerned with love--for whom (Alma? Goebbles?) or for what (solitude in Nature's realm?) frankly it does not matter. What matters is that a song needs to be played cantabile, what matters is that a love song is not a dirge/threnody.

And yet... as I wrote, matters of tempo are relative and an Adagietto sensitively shaped/phrased (usually stretching the central section) can be very nice even at the 11:34 of the Frankfurt/Inbal recording.

And yet... we do not have to forget that the Adagietto is part of a Symphony, it is its fourth movement, the first of the Symphony's third part. A sensitive conductor shapes it accordingly to his/her general vision of the entire Symphony. Considering it an introduction to the Rondo-Finale (Mahler wrote attacca at the end of the Adagietto, while he even took a pause between the first two movements), the brisker the Finale, the brisker the Adagietto. Unless a conductor wants to balance the weight & duration of the first part of the Symphony by adding weight & duration to the third part, usually through relaxing the Adagietto (while I think this is a mistake, because I believe the first and third part have to be and kept asymmetrical, if it is done well I am perfectly happy with that).

I own almost every recording of Mahler's Fifth, included (alas) the infamous Scherchen's live one taped in Philadelphia. Let's tell the whole story about Scherchen & the Fifth. He recorded it in 1952 with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra (Westminster) and his tempi are:

 I. 11:22/ II. 13:35/ III. 18:06/ IV. 9:15/ V. 15:19 = 67:39

On October 30, 1964 Scherchen conducted the Fifth with the Philadelphia Orchestra and his tempi were:

I. 13:03/ II. 13:46/ III. 5:42 (sic)/ IV. 15:12/ V. 10:29 = 58:14

He wrote to his daughter that he relaxed the Adagietto not to break the movement's world record for duration (which anyway, as far as I know, he still owns), but because the strings played wonderfully and could sustain the tempo he chose. But that tempo meant also that, in his perverse vision, with a Scherzo reduced to a bit less than 6 minutes and some cuts in the Finale too, the Adagietto needed to acquire weight and become the focal point of the third part to counterbalance the first part, which he executed without cuts (and very well, savagely enhancing the contrasts). With the pivotal Scherzo intact there would be no need to counterbalance anything, as his official, uncut recording of the Fifth clearly shows.

That said, Scherchen's disgraceful performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra is the musical equivalent of a rape. And I do not care if they played like gods and so on, because an inferior orchestra like the NHK Symphony of Tokio (http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphonies-Nos-4-5-Blomstedt-NHK-Symphony-Orchestra-Akiko-Nakajima-2001-1985-Stereo-2CD_4241320) playing Mahler's Fifth is better than a great orchestra like the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Scherchen's Symphony concocted with chunks of Mahler's Fifth.

Finally, Mahler and Walter were not out of their minds. It is just that up to 1950s there was a tradition, stemming from the composer himself, to play the Adagietto flowingly and it was perceived right and liked that way. When Bernstein played it as a dirge first for Serge Koussevitzky and then for JF Kennedy and when Visconti exploited it for Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice), a new tradition began affirming itself; people who knew and experienced their Mahler in that new tradition, felt it right and liked it.

In the end I return to the beginning: I'm driving at nothing. I just enjoy great performances, even better if beautifully played, and where everything makes sense according to the conductor's vision. Tempi are relative to that vision. I like fresh, intriguing, thought provoking approaches, I care about tradition when it is something genuinely felt and expressed, I do not care about tradition when it is just Schlamperei.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 28, 2017, 10:44:39 AM
Back again to the main topic:

Mahler's Song Cycles with Alice Coote and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marc Albrecht:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Song-Cycles-Alice-Coote/dp/B072Q51CNC/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1498127840&sr=1-1&keywords=B072Q51CNC

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Kindertotenlieder-Lieder-Eines-Fahrenden-Gesellen-Ruckert-Lieder-Alice-Coote-S-Marc-Albrecht-Netherlands-Philharmonic-Hybrid_7897258

It could be a nice release: I was delighted by Mahler's Fourth conducted by Marc Albrecht with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Elizabeth Watts (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Symphony-No-4-G/dp/B00TP96RAE/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1498646336&sr=1-1&keywords=B00TP96RAE).

Marc Albrecht knows his Mahler and Dutch friends around here should know that he will conduct the Tenth (Cooke's performing version) next September at the Concertgebouw (https://www.concertgebouw.nl/concerten/marc-albrecht-dirigeert-mahlers-tiende/15-09-2017/conductor=Marc+Albrecht/gezocht-op=marc+albrecht).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 28, 2017, 05:51:30 PM
OK, fair enough. ALL of your points are well argued. And you're right, Scherchen lopped off an awful lot of the scherzo (personally, I like it - it was done that way to fit into a radio broadcast [or so I've been told]). But you have to admit that the playing of Philly is pretty incredible at the start of the second movement. I've never heard it executed that well at that tempo.

I jump on this topic for a very obvious and annoying reason. Everybody - and I'm not talking about you, GL - makes a big fuss about how the Adagietto shouldn't go slow (even though Mahler wrote what he wrote in the score), yet the very same people are perfectly are willing to ignore Mahler's "andante moderato" marking for the slow movement of M6. The word "langsam" isn't written ANYWHERE in that movement, yet people are happy to let that thing drag out to 17 or 18 minutes. So yes, this is a big pet peeve of mine.

In the spirit of what you've written, GL, I won't be scared off by Vaenska's 12:30 for the Adagietto.  I would prefer that it be closer to 11 minutes, but I'm quite curious to see how it all works.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 28, 2017, 06:53:58 PM
OK, fair enough. ALL of your points are well argued. And you're right, Scherchen lopped off an awful lot of the scherzo (personally, I like it - it was done that way to fit into a radio broadcast [or so I've been told]). But you have to admit that the playing of Philly is pretty incredible at the start of the second movement. I've never heard it executed that well at that tempo.

I jump on this topic for a very obvious and annoying reason. Everybody - and I'm not talking about you, GL - makes a big fuss about how the Adagietto shouldn't go slow (even though Mahler wrote what he wrote in the score), yet the very same people are perfectly willing to ignore Mahler's "andante moderato" marking for the slow movement of M6. The word "langsam" isn't written ANYWHERE in that movement, yet people are happy to let that thing drag out to 17 or 18 minutes. So yes, this is a big pet peeve of mine.

In the spirit of what you've written, GL, I won't be scared off by Vaenska's 12:30 for the Adagietto.  I would prefer that it be closer to 11 minutes, but I'm quite curious to see how it all works.

...and as a very last point I'd add that we should remember that Mahler was criticized for his fast tempi in big Adagios like the one of Beethoven's Ninth, and this means that it is very probable that what he meant for "slow" in his times was faster than what we mean for "slow" nowadays.

Anyway, I think that with rich and complex music, and I don't mean just Mahler's music, the more one tries to be open minded to different approaches and aware of all the layers of meanings attached to the music through generation after generation of listeners, the more one can enjoy his music and learn to be flexible and tolerant. Moreover, he/she will be able to judge the musicians for what they are doing, and not for doing/not doing what one has set up in his/her mind before arriving at the concert hall.

As for our good old Vänskä, I just hope he has not turned the whole Fifth Symphony into a pompous affair. In Germany it has become available today:

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/symphony-no-5-sacd/hnum/7120053
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on June 28, 2017, 06:55:04 PM
New release: Mahler's Tenth and Strauss's Alpensinfonie with the European Union Youth Orchestra conducted by James Judd.

Interesting coupling: the First Movement of the Symphony that remained unfinished because of Mahler's death and the Symphony that, on the composer desk (in different versions) since 1899, received the decisive impulse for completion by the shocking news of Mahler's death.

https://www.amazon.com/Eine-Alpensinfonie-Adagio-Symphony-No/dp/B06XS1QHK2/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1498675746&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XS1QHK2

https://www.amazon.co.uk/R-Strauss-Alpensinfonie-Mahler-Symphony/dp/B06XS1QHK2/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1498675727&sr=1-1&keywords=B06XS1QHK2
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Prospero on June 29, 2017, 12:00:27 AM
What is one to make of de la Grange's documenting the Adagietto timings of Megelberg and Walter, who both worked intimately with Mahler? And reports of Mahler's timings. GM: Vienna, The Years of Challenge, p. 818.

Mengelberg, two recordings, 7 in 1926 and 8.20. Walter 7:58 in Vienna (1938) and in NY (1948) 7.38. Plus other early reported timings. Mengelberg reports Alma's memory that the movement is an orchestral song. Donald Mitchell concurs that the song form cannot be done or sustained as a song taken as slowly as many do.



Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 29, 2017, 04:12:36 PM
But then why the tempo markings? - much slower than those in the slow movement of the 6th, and just as slow as those for the slow movement of the 4th.

Look at the harp part. If it's taken quickly, the arpeggiated harp figures will begin to sound like mumbo-jumbo.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: AZContrabassoon on June 29, 2017, 08:07:00 PM
Jumping into this Adagietto discussion late:

1. There is NO correct tempo for any piece of music. All that matters is how musical the chosen tempo is. There are many things to consider: quality of the performers, the relationship to tempos of surrounding movements, the acoustics in the hall, what time of day it is. Not a joke. Last year I was conducting four performances of the Nutcracker ballet. Several people, including a mad ballerina, mentioned that my Saturday matinee performance was noticeably quicker than the preceding Friday evening reading. Biorhythms and all that.

2. Regarding Walter's recording. Bear in mind that the old 78 rpm records could only hold 4.5 minutes per side and if he needed to get the Adagietto on two sides, quicker tempo it is. Historical recordings are always tricky in this way - the performers are slaves to the recording technology.

3. We know for a fact that performance timings have slowed down over the last 100 - 150 years. Erich Leinsdorf discussed it at length. So did Lorin Maazel - and he knew a few things about slow tempos!

4. As a rule, I like performances that move along...no draggy tempos for me. Hence, some of my favorite recordings come from conductors noted for picking things up: Paray. Monteux, Solti, Reiner, Markevitch, Jarvi. Too many conductors let tempos, and with it interest, flag. Maybe in a live performance a 15 minute Adagietto could be spellbinding - at  home it's simply boring.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 30, 2017, 09:40:01 AM
I agree with ALL of those points. Every one of them. But as I said before, I think the Adagietto works best somewhere between 9 and 11 minutes - which is only a difference of two minutes. Anything else is getting into an extreme, one way or the other. But I also feel that a 12.5 minute Adagietto makes more sense, musically speaking, than a 7.5 minute Adagietto. And I think that Mahler's own tempo markings in the score - as well as the reality of the harp part - back that thought up. That's my only point. No one has to agree with it. But it's not my fault that Mahler wrote "sehr langsam" and "molto adagio".
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 30, 2017, 09:56:30 AM
Jumping topics here, I feel that Alice Coote will be put to better use on the three shorter Mahler song cycles, than she was in "DLvdE". That's not a bad "das Lied", mind you, but neither is it terribly distinguished. Coote was definitely the best one of the three on it: contralto, tenor and conductor.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Prospero on June 30, 2017, 08:18:36 PM
The points on 78 sides are reasonable. Although there are reports of timed performance not on record. de la Grange lists Hamburg (1905) at 9 and St. Petersburg (1907) at  7.

Mengelberg's performance score sets his version of a metronome pace that is certainly on the faster side:

http://www.omifacsimiles.com/brochures/mahler_ad.html

As an aside, Mahler's piano roll version of "Ging heut' Morgan" has a remarkably fast opening and then a significantly slower conclusion. Questions about technology and timing, but also some version of variety in Mahler's approach at that time and in that place and in those conditions. Still, it has Mahler setting a very fast clip for the opening.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Prospero on June 30, 2017, 08:41:17 PM
And for what it is worth, Alma's version.

http://www.omifacsimiles.com/brochures/images/mahler_ad_3.jpg

What might her "Nicht schleppen!" mean?  She is quoting Mahler from a little further on. She told Mengelberg that the movement  was an orchestra song, and he constructed a version of the words in his score as you can see in the previous link.

http://www.omifacsimiles.com/brochures/images/mahler_ad_3.jpg

Mahler includes more than six different descriptive tempo markings in the movement. Only the very opening and the passage at bar 78 are marked Sehr lansam. At bar 39 he has Etwas fliessender als am Anfang  (somewhat more flowing than at first), followed by Nicht schleppen (do not drag).

So the idea that the whole movement is one tempo-Sehr langsam or molto adagio- is not what the score says.

Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on June 30, 2017, 11:47:16 PM
Obviously. But any tempo modification has to be in relation to the initial tempo. You can't start out quarter note 60, then jump to quarter note 120 at the development. Granted, that's an exaggeration, employed in an effort to make the point. But you know what I mean.

In addition, at Tempo I, look at the tempo modifications there. Before we come to the end, he clearly is asking us to enter a state of stasis (no visa or passport is required).

I have to believe that "molto adagio" means exactly what it says. Look at those markings in relation to the tempo markings for the slow movement of M6. No comparison!

Again, 9 minutes will work perfectly fine for me (I prefer 9.5).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Prospero on July 02, 2017, 10:49:50 PM
Then Nicht schleppen also means exactly what it says. If it were stasis, why Mahler include this? How would Nicht schleppen be stasis?

Your example of 60 vs. 120 makes no sense at all as you admit. But clearly there are many tempo variations in the movement,which suggests tempo movement and variety and not stasis. The first marking is "Sehr langsam."  Molto adagio comes in after a retard. Then fliessen and Nicht schleppen and others. There are many different tempo adjustments, not violent but still clearly varied and suggesting movement. So, there is not one unvarying tempo.

And the song underpinnings of the movement seem quite clear. Look at Mengelberg's writing in song text. He was a good deal closer to Mahler than you or I.

Why or where is Mahler static? That I don't understand.

But ever expanding listening and response.

Best,

Tom in Vermont
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on July 03, 2017, 01:37:58 AM
After the double-bar "Tempo 1 (molto adagio)", Mahler writes both "rit." and "zoegernd" at rehearsal figure 4, then "noch langsamer" at bar 88. These are all modifications upon "molto adagio". The final "draengend" doesn't appear until 8 measures before the very end. A state of 'stasis' is in that passage before the final "draengend". OF COURSE, the harp keeps plucking away through those bars - just not quickly.

Before the 'development' which begins at rehearsal figure 2, Mahler does write "estwas draengend" (bar 28), followed by "fliessand" for the second half of bar 30, followed almost immediately by "zuruckhaltend". That's a speed-up, alright, but it's for a short duration.

Yes, there is a "nicht schleppen" near the beginning at bar 10, but it's slightly tempered by the words, "etwas flussiger als zu Anfang". That 'anfang' is marked "sehr langsam". We're still not talking about M6's "andante moderato".

At figure 2 itself, Mahler  does write "fliessender", followed by "etwas draengend" four bars later, leading to "fliessand" going into a big, double-bar key change at measure 60. He then asks "espressivo" at bar 64 - which could mean anything in terms of tempo - followed by "zuruckhaltend" at bar 68, which in turn is followed by "molto rit." at bar 71. But the "Tempo 1" that appears six bars later is back to "molto adagio".

There are more measures under the jurisdiction of a slow marking than there are 'faster' ones. None of the 'faster' ones are ANY faster than "fliessend" (or "fliessender"). And the 'song' business is, to me, totally irrelevant. "Um Mitternacht", "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen", der Tambourgs'ell" and "Wo did schonen Trumpeten blasen", are songs by Mahler that go quite slowly, are they not?

Mahler was a precise enough and great enough composer, that if he had meant something other than "sehr langsam" and "molto adagio", then that's what he would have written.  Yes, there are tempo modifications - of course there are.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Prospero on July 03, 2017, 05:38:56 PM
Differences of reading. It seems to me that at least half of the movement is marked by fliessend and etwas drängend plus one Nicht schleppend. A "molto rit." before rehearsal #3  is a notable marked change in tempo during the return to
Tempo 1, which must show that the previous section is not molto adagio, and then even a "Drangend" eight bars from the end. And under the last bars we read "attaca Rondo. Finale"

Much to reflect on.

Thanks for the observations and views.



Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on July 04, 2017, 07:14:29 PM
Jumping into this Adagietto discussion late:

1. There is NO correct tempo for any piece of music. All that matters is how musical the chosen tempo is. There are many things to consider: quality of the performers, the relationship to tempos of surrounding movements, the acoustics in the hall, what time of day it is. Not a joke. Last year I was conducting four performances of the Nutcracker ballet. Several people, including a mad ballerina, mentioned that my Saturday matinee performance was noticeably quicker than the preceding Friday evening reading. Biorhythms and all that.

2. Regarding Walter's recording. Bear in mind that the old 78 rpm records could only hold 4.5 minutes per side and if he needed to get the Adagietto on two sides, quicker tempo it is. Historical recordings are always tricky in this way - the performers are slaves to the recording technology.

3. We know for a fact that performance timings have slowed down over the last 100 - 150 years. Erich Leinsdorf discussed it at length. So did Lorin Maazel - and he knew a few things about slow tempos!

4. As a rule, I like performances that move along...no draggy tempos for me. Hence, some of my favorite recordings come from conductors noted for picking things up: Paray. Monteux, Solti, Reiner, Markevitch, Jarvi. Too many conductors let tempos, and with it interest, flag. Maybe in a live performance a 15 minute Adagietto could be spellbinding - at  home it's simply boring.

My weird experience with perceived time: when I listen to a recording of a concert that I attended live, it almost always seems to me that the recording is slower than what I have experienced live.

Apropos of the Adagietto. The performers are not always slaves to the recording technology. It is true for the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata recorded by Harold Bauer in 1924: he played it as if it were written in 2/2 time (and actually he found out that there was an old edition in which it was printed in 2/2 time), resulting in a flowing (and fascinating) performance of 4 minutes and 56 seconds (one side). But it is not, it cannot be the case of the Adagietto. Since it was impossible to squeeze it on one side without cuts, this means that it must occupy two sides. And two sides means almost 10 minutes of music (and during the 1930s, sometimes even more). Thus, if they had wanted, Mengelberg and Walter would have done it long, but they did it short because, as I have written, that's the tradition stemming from Mahler himself. Remember that Mahler's tempi were between 7 and 9 minutes. There can be no doubt that he wanted it short.

In Europe, during the 1950s, it was still done short in the live and studio recordings of Kempe (Archipel; 9.32), Kubelik (Tahra; 9.24), H. Rosbaud (ICA; 8.53- a fabulous recording of the Fifth, never mind the imperfect playing of the orchestra), R. Schwarz (Everest; 7.31). It was in USA, with Bernstein and Mitropoulos, that the Adagietto began to be played very slow, and I think that it was so played because it was its meaning that started to shift from "love song" to "(almost) dirge" (in fact Bernstein played it at funerals). During the 1970, especially after Visconti's Death in Venice, the "long-playing" tradition prevailed and established itself firmly. Towards the 1990s the "short-playing" tradition started to slowly (pun intended) re-affirming itself. And so the big feud began, paralleled only by the bloody feud between the Sixth Symphony's Scherzo-Andante and Andante-Scherzo factions... (By the way, I am part of the Scherzo-Andante faction)

About Mahler's indications. He certainly intended that the piece is to be played with a lot of rubato. And, I repeat it again, Mahler was known (and criticized) for playing adagios rather flowingly; this means his concept of "slow" could have been faster than ours. A clue could be found in the slow movement of the Fourth Symphony. He wrote Poco Adagio for the G major theme, than viel langsamer (a lot more slower - not just slower, but a lot more!) for the E minor theme. Nowadays, many conductors take the beginning too slow and then fail to make that difference heard as requested.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on July 04, 2017, 08:07:46 PM
Back to the main topic:

Mahler's First with Markevitch and the Gewandthaus Leipzig:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-1-Igor-Markevitch-Gewandhaus-Orchestra-1982_7999713

I think this is a remastering of a Tahra release of around 2000. I do not know it. Anyway, Markevitch was no slouch and recorded in 1982, at least the sound might be good.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on July 06, 2017, 05:19:34 AM
"My weird experience with perceived time: when I listen to a recording of a concert that I attended live, it almost always seems to me that the recording is slower than what I have experienced live"

.    .    .   which is precisely why Fritz Reiner allegedly said that recordings should go a bit faster than the live performances.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on July 07, 2017, 07:31:30 AM
Another one, this time from Czech Republic.

Libor Pešek's complete cycle with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra:

http://www.cnso.cz/EN/news/429/mahler_____complete_symphonies_.html

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 1 in D major "Titan" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AhM4-UjrwU)
Symphony No. 2 in C minor "Resurrection"
Symphony No. 3 in D minor
Symphony No. 4 in G major
Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor
Symphony No. 6 in A minor
Symphony No. 7 in E minor
Symphony No. 8 in E flat major
Symphony No. 9 in D major
Symphony No. 10 (Adagio)

Libor Pešek - conductor
Czech National Symphony Orchestra
Eva Urbanová - soprano (2, 8); Mieko Sato - soprano (4); Anna Chierichetti, Doriana Milazzo, Kateřina Kněžíková – sopranos (8); Dagmar Pecková – mezzo (3); Kateřina Jalovcová - alto (2, 3, 8); Yvona Škvárová - alto (8); Marcello Nardis – tenor (8); Gianfranco Montresor – baritone (8); Ondrej Mráz – bass (8); Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno (2, 8); Kühn Children‘s Choir (3); Kantiléna Children‘s Choir (8)

Recorded in Rudolfinum Prague, Municipal House, and Studio CNSO No. 1 "Gallery"
Recording Director: Sylva Smejkalová; Balance Engineer: Jan Kotzmann; Engineer Assistant: Čenda Kotzmann
Producers: Jan Hasenöhrl & Chikari Fujii
Coproduct recording by Victor Entertainment, Inc. & Czech National Symphony Orchestra

http://www.cnso.cz/EN/shop.html

WARNING

I knew about the Czech National Orchestra through their recordings of Fibich's works and they seemed an average professional orchestra, but what I heard playing through this cycle surprised me as I have never been surprised before. Alas, in the negative.

I thought that the worst Mahler cycle was Svetlanov's, but this one is a serious contender. They often play like amateurs. The horn section is especially appalling: when things get difficult, they seem to hide, they seem to run for cover.

Compared to the rest, Symphonies 1-3 are decent, and the alto in the Second has a beautiful voice.

The Fourth is a total disaster, perhaps the worst performance ever committed on disc. Being among my most beloved symphonies of all the times, I succeeded in arriving to the end of this performance only through an almost physically painful effort. As it is the case for the Third, they do not even used an update edition of the score (they used the same one, pre-critical edition played by Bernstein in his first recording of the Fourth).

The other symphonies are below the standard of decency that should be accorded to this music, and to playing music in general. There are even things that I find hard to explain. For example, there is a (slow!) passage in the first movement of the Seventh where the orchestra literally fall apart and I wonder why nobody thought about a make-up session to correct that mess.

Apart from the first three symphonies, Pesek fares a bit better in the Fifth and the Ninth, the two symphonies he has previously recorded, but the general impression that remains at the end of this cycle is the one of having gone through a nightmarish voyage.

This cycle will certainly remain an enormous stain on the otherwise excellent conducting career of Pesek.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on July 18, 2017, 06:50:20 PM
The second release in the ongoing Düsseldorfer Mahler-Zyklus will be the Fourth:

Soprano: Hanna-Elisabeth Müller

Düsseldorfer Symphoniker

Adam Fischer

http://www.wz.de/lokales/duesseldorf/kultur/adam-fischer-vierte-symphonie-von-mahler-auf-cd-1.2439398

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/gustav-mahler-symphonie-nr-4/hnum/7509793
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on July 19, 2017, 06:42:21 AM
Oh boy, Fischer vs. Fischer!   :D
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on July 20, 2017, 11:36:16 AM
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAESTRO GIELEN!

Today, July 20 2017, is Michael Gielen's 90th birthday and SWR-music celebrated it by releasing a box with his complete Mahler recordings for SWR as Volume 6 of the Gielen-Edition:

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/michael-gielen-edition-vol-6/hnum/7443586

The box comprises the complete cycle previously released by Haenssler, plus the reference recording of the Tenth Symphony in Cooke's performing version, the complete Lieder collection of Das Knaben Wunderhorn, a questionable Das Lied von der Erde (questionable because it was put together from different performances), some unpublished recordings (Rueckertslieder, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen) and a DVD with a performance of the Ninth.

This is not Gielen's complete Mahler discography. In fact, apart from the content of this box, there also exist a Fifth (Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrucken; live recording 1971; Altus; an exciting performance in, alas, limited sound); a Third (Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; live recording; Altus); a Sixth (Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; live recording 1984; Altus; I slightly prefer this one to his remake for Haenssler); an excellent Seventh (Berliner Philharmoniker; live recording; Testament); an Eight (Opernhaus-und Museumorchester Frankfurt; live recoding; Sony); a Ninth (SWF-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden; 1990; Intercord).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on July 23, 2017, 06:30:34 PM
I knew that Minnesota & Vänskä recorded the Sixth last autumn and I read about the recording of the Second, so I was surprised to find out that the first Mahler release of Minnesota & Vänskä will be the Fifth!

https://smile.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-No-Minnesota-Orchestra/dp/B0711CKS48/ref=tmm_acd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498125409&sr=1-3

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-5-Vanska-Minnesota-Orchestra-Hybrid_7982750

https://www.amazon.fr/Symphony-No-5-Sacd-G-Mahler/dp/B0711CKS48/ref=tmm_acd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1498125591&sr=1-10

It could be interesting for the orchestra and the sonics provided by BIS. As for Vänskä's contribution, I did not find his Fifth with Hong Kong very special:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_yxolaffpo

Hurwitz nailed Vänskä to his repsonsibilities:


Artistic Quality: 4
Sound Quality: 9


This has got to be the most expressively sterile, emotionally neutral performance of Mahler’s Fifth yet captured on disc. I might call it a “CD from Hell” except that it’s not even that interesting. To be sure, the symphony has tripped up many a fine Mahler interpreter, but Vänskä hasn’t yet earned that distinction, and evidently he has a way to go before he does. Let’s start at the beginning.

The first movement is a true funeral march. Literally. It’s dead. The opening threnody sounds benumbed, which is fine if the music wakes up at that first, hysterical outburst, but it doesn’t. The ensuing wind band passage (figure 12) has never been played more metronomically. “Stormily agitated” and “With the greatest vehemence” hardly describe the tightly controlled start of the second movement. You can practically hear the players counting eighth notes. Its second subject, which Mahler marks to be played in the tempo of the opening funeral march, is far too slow, and the chattering accompaniment in the woodwinds is louder than the tune. So it goes.

The scherzo is a mess of illogical tempo relationships. As in the previous movement, where Mahler’s score says “don’t drag,” Vänskä tends to hurry forward; where it says “don’t rush,” he slams on the brakes. The first trio section features exaggerated portamentos, the very opposite of the gracious, relaxed spontaneity that Mahler had in mind. Those little breath pauses (“Luftpausen”) at figures 17 and 26, so exciting when observed, get ignored entirely. The Adagietto is slooooooooooowwww–some twelve and half minutes. I’m not a fan of those who insist that it be played as quickly as it was done originally, or sometimes is again today (around eight minutes). It’s really a question of contrast and proportion, but this version is lethal.

In the finale, Vänskä achieves an impressive degree of contrapuntal clarity, but at a droopy speed and with a mechanical, sewing machine approach to articulation that makes the fugal episodes (i.e. most of the movement) tedious. As with his pretty dreadful Sibelius cycle with this same band, it’s clear that he has turned into one of those interpretive micromanagers who fiddles around with the music just because he can. It’s a depressing transformation in an interpreter whose prior work often revealed interesting ideas presented idiomatically, in context. We can only hope that this is just a phase.

As for the Minnesota Orchestra, the playing is technically excellent, but faceless. You can appreciate the fine solo horn, the woodwinds playing with their bells up, or the precise string ensemble, but– whether the result of Vänskä’s expressive straightjacket or a simple dearth of personality–it comes across as cold and contrived. Mahler’s Fifth contains some of the most gut-wrenching, intense music in the symphonic repertoire. Its moods swing from the blackest despair to uninhibited giddiness. You won’t hear them in this abstract, clinical exercise in podium control.

Hurwitz has been too generous: I would give 3. But I do not think Vänskä has become so bad a conductor. I am listening to his cycle of Beethoven's Piano Concertos with Sudbin and he has plenty of splendid ideas, he keeps unearthing interesting details and Beethoven's scores sound fresh, sometimes almost new. My impression with his Mahler is that Vänskä is not really interested in this composer, as if he has now started conducting his music for reasons related to a conductor's career nowadays. Klemperer, who was a truly great conductor, did not like the Fifth and never conducted it. That's what a honest artist should do. The thought of a Second or a Third treated like the Fifth makes me wish this Minnesota cycle will be aborted or land in the hands of another conductor, a conductor who likes Mahler's music, understands it and knows how to show it through his/her interpretations.

Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on July 31, 2017, 10:30:05 AM
Courtesy of Capriccio, a new recording of Das klagende Lied is going to be released in the, alas, usual hybrid version, i.e. with the Waldmaerchen from the original three movement version. It is not specified, but I think it is the Waldmaerchen with the initial 1899 revisions, when Mahler still thought to keep it. When he decided to drop the movement, he stopped reworking it:

Das Klagende Lied : Cornelius Meister / Vienna RSO, S.Schneider, T.A.Baumgartner, Kerl, Erod

https://www.amazon.de/Das-Klagende-Lied-Schneider/dp/B0741ZGZTN/ref=sr_1_1?s=music-classical&ie=UTF8&qid=1501495261&sr=8-1&keywords=B0741ZGZTN

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Das-Klagende-Lied-Cornelius-Meister-Vienna-RSO-S-Schneider-T-A-Baumgartner-Kerl-Erod-etc_8093964

Since we have a lot of excellent recordings of the revised version, it would be better to concentrate a bit more on the true first (1878-1880) version, which present a peculiar orchestration and even some bitonal effects (orchestra on stage and off stage in different keys).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on August 01, 2017, 10:38:24 AM
I remember having read somewhere an Erwin Ratz's sarcastic comment about Keilberth's conversion to Mahler just after the fall of the Third Reich and I knew of his First and Fourth, but I did not know he conducted Das Lied von der Erde and even the Eight:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphonies-Nos-1-4-8-Das-Lied-von-der-Erde-Keilberth-SKD-Cologne-Rso-Vso-Bamberg-So-etc-4CD_8088928

If I were not too afraid of the audio quality of this kind of releases, I would be curious to listen to what he makes of the Eight.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on August 02, 2017, 09:27:43 AM
After the Second, here it is Symphony No. 4 with Valery Gergiev, the Munich Philharmonic & Genia Kuehmeier:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-4-Valery-Gergiev-Munich-Philharmonic-Kuhmeier-S_8109472

Is this the beginning of a very much needed second Gergiev cycle? It could be, since the Munich Philharmonic lacks one.

The Munich Philharmonic gave the world premieres of Symphonies nos. 4 (in the guise of Kaim Orchester) and 8.

PS

Of course discerning Mahlerites know that the "very much needed" is ironic.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Settembrini on August 02, 2017, 02:16:40 PM
Is this the beginning of a very much needed second Gergiev cycle? It could be, since the Munich Philharmonic lacks one.

Absolutely, the world needs another Gergiev cycle, since the first one was such a succes.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on August 03, 2017, 05:05:44 PM
Really, the first cycle from Gergiev isn't too terrible at all. It's executed in that typically Russian, no-nonsense and generally quick manner. But some of the playing of the LSO is really quite good. I've kept (so far) the M7 - because I like the LSO brass in the finale - and the M8, which was recorded in St. Paul's Cathedral after they restored the organ. The mostly Slavic cast of singers is really quite good, and I like how the sound just washes around in the dome at the end of each part. It's not fabulous but there are far worse. Then again, I like Mahler 8 more than most people. I have a bunch of them.

But need?   .    .    .  really, do we need ANY of this?   .    .    .    let's just say "it's there" if somebody actually wants to buy it. CD's have become souvenirs from live concerts, mostly.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on August 17, 2017, 06:18:55 PM
Daniele Gatti in Amsterdam. His Mahler's Second will be available soon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Symphony-minor-Resurrection-SACD/dp/B074L8YVW7/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1502991551&sr=1-1&keywords=B074L8YVW7

This is first recording as Chief Conductor of the RCO. It will be released in DVD/Blu-ray format too.

His other Mahler in Amsterdam:

a Fifth is available on Blu-ray/DVD;

Third, Sixth and Ninth I think can be founded on the web (I found the broadcast of the Sixth that I attended through torrents).

He is about to conduct the Fourth in Amsterdam and then in Luzern. He will do it again in November in Amsterdam. In January 2018 he will conduct the First.I will attend both.

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

Another Totenfeier by Jurowski (coupled with Strauss's Zarathustra, like Boulez did for DG), this time with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-Strauss-Sprach-Zarathustra-Totenfeier/dp/B074KW43YZ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1502991890&sr=1-1&keywords=B074KW43YZ

His first (live) recording of the Totenfeier was with the London Philharmonic and can be considered a sort of a hybrid because he used the actual score of the original Totenfeier but he played it following the indications one finds in its final (speaking in Zarathustrian terms) reincarnation as the first movement of the Second. Odd.

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

Abbado first encounters with Mahler:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphonies-Nos-2-6-Claudio-Abbado-Vienna-Philharmonic-Vienna-Symphony-Orchestra-Woytowicz-L-West-1965-1967-2CD_8046140

Both recordings were available (with the Rueckert Lieder) some twenty years ago in Italian newsstands...

The Second is his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in Salzburg (invited by Karajan, I think). The Sixth is part of the 1967 Vienna complete cycle during which Abbado shared the podium of the Wiener Symphoniker with Maderna and others. In that 1967 cycle the Fourth was the only time Sawallisch conducted a Mahler Symphony-and he was deputizing for someone, perhaps for Krips; Carlos Kleiber deputized for Krips, and conducted Das Lied von der Erde (which is officially available, in rather mediocre sound: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Christa-Ludwig-Carlos-Kleiber-Symphoniker/dp/B00N83UA5Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1502992637&sr=1-1&keywords=B00N83UA5Q).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Freddy van Maurik on August 28, 2017, 01:17:25 PM
Another Totenfeier by Jurowski (coupled with Strauss's Zarathustra, like Boulez did for DG), this time with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-Strauss-Sprach-Zarathustra-Totenfeier/dp/B074KW43YZ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1502991890&sr=1-1&keywords=B074KW43YZ

His first (live) recording of the Totenfeier was with the London Philharmonic and can be considered a sort of a hybrid because he used the actual score of the original Totenfeier but he played it following the indications one finds in its final (speaking in Zarathustrian terms) reincarnation as the first movement of the Second. Odd.

Hmmm... this release also includes a recording of the Sinfonisches Präludium, presented here (still) as a composition by Mahler. In 2011, I posted this:

There are a few articles about this, available on the net:

http://stgellert.com/downloads/BG_Cohrs_Bruckner_Symphonic_Prelude.pdf

http://www.chandos.net/pdf/CHAN%209207.pdf (a booklet from a recording of the piece by Neeme Järvi, with notes by Peter Franklin)

Other availble texts:

An Early Symphonic Prelude by Mahler?
Paul Banks
19th-Century Music
Vol. 3, No. 2 (Nov., 1979), pp. 141-149

Das "symphonische Präludium": kein Werk Mahlers
Rudolf Stephan
Nachtrichten zur Mahler-Forschung 17 (April 1987)

I think we can safely say that's it's very, very likely NOT a work by Mahler, as these authors convincingly point out.


Anyhow, nice to be able to hear a new recording of this piece.

Cheers,
Freddy
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on September 14, 2017, 08:38:26 PM
Another Totenfeier by Jurowski (coupled with Strauss's Zarathustra, like Boulez did for DG), this time with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-Strauss-Sprach-Zarathustra-Totenfeier/dp/B074KW43YZ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1502991890&sr=1-1&keywords=B074KW43YZ

His first (live) recording of the Totenfeier was with the London Philharmonic and can be considered a sort of a hybrid because he used the actual score of the original Totenfeier but he played it following the indications one finds in its final (speaking in Zarathustrian terms) reincarnation as the first movement of the Second. Odd.

Hmmm... this release also includes a recording of the Sinfonisches Präludium, presented here (still) as a composition by Mahler. In 2011, I posted this:

There are a few articles about this, available on the net:

http://stgellert.com/downloads/BG_Cohrs_Bruckner_Symphonic_Prelude.pdf

http://www.chandos.net/pdf/CHAN%209207.pdf (a booklet from a recording of the piece by Neeme Järvi, with notes by Peter Franklin)

Other availble texts:

An Early Symphonic Prelude by Mahler?
Paul Banks
19th-Century Music
Vol. 3, No. 2 (Nov., 1979), pp. 141-149

Das "symphonische Präludium": kein Werk Mahlers
Rudolf Stephan
Nachtrichten zur Mahler-Forschung 17 (April 1987)

I think we can safely say that's it's very, very likely NOT a work by Mahler, as these authors convincingly point out.


Anyhow, nice to be able to hear a new recording of this piece.

Cheers,
Freddy

I know it through the N. Jarvi's recording, but I did not even mention the symphonische Präludium because I concur with them who deny its authenticity.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on September 14, 2017, 08:42:22 PM
A Third with Zubin Metha and the Israel Philharmonic:

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-3-Zubin-Mehta-Israel-Philharmonic-Mihoko-Fujimura-Ms-2CD_8216029

I think (I am not sure) this will be his third recording of the Third. I am excited like when a new Mahler release by Haitink is announced.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on September 15, 2017, 05:49:25 AM
It didn't last long in the catalog, but there was a Mehta/Israel Phil. M3 issued on Sony Classical sometime in the mid 1980's (I believe).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on September 15, 2017, 09:48:49 AM
It didn't last long in the catalog, but there was a Mehta/Israel Phil. M3 issued on Sony Classical sometime in the mid 1980's (I believe).

His first official recording was with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (1978, Decca). Then he recorded it officially for the second time with the Israel Philharmonic in 1992 (Sony). He recorded it for the third time with the Bayerische Staatsorchester in 2004 (Farao). So, this one, taped in 2016, is his fourth official recording of the Third. But it circulated a fifth one, a pirate one, with the Wiener Philharmoniker (recorded in 1987).
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on September 15, 2017, 10:36:48 AM
Celibidache counducts Kindertotenlieder (coupled with Strauss's Tod und Verklaerung):

https://www.amazon.fr/Kindertotenlieder-Tod-belge-Mahler/dp/B075DR227H/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1505471667&sr=1-1&keywords=B075DR227H

(Münchner Philharmoniker Label)
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: waderice on September 15, 2017, 02:10:43 PM
This thread is starting to get extremely long.  It's now on its ninth page.  Can I suggest that a new one be started?  Lots of good information is starting to get buried within its length.  Also, I would think that any new thread ought not to be as generalized as this one is, which likely led to its getting as long as it is now.  Thanks.

Wade
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on September 18, 2017, 07:30:31 PM
Agreed, but back to Mehta and M3. There's also a Berlin Phil. video of M3 on their "Digital Concert Hall" site. I'm sure it's quite good.

https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/28
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: AZContrabassoon on September 20, 2017, 01:12:11 AM
It's back: Ozawa & Boston & Mahler. At nearly $60. I bought a few of these back in the LP era when they first came out. Totally unimpressed. Great orchestra but a conductor with seemingly no affinity for Mahler. Maybe over the years I might be more accepting, but I doubt it. But with the impending Gielen for about the same price, who would buy Ozawa except maybe BSO fanatics? Ozawa used to be great at some things, but Mahler was not his forte.


(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81ttbf8Qc5L._SX522_.jpg)
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: John Kim on September 20, 2017, 06:15:59 PM
I like the Ozawa set very much overall. The 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 9th all rank with the best. Ditto the 10th Adagio. The 2nd may be too refined, smooth to be effective, while the 5th and 6th are undercharacterized. The 8th is very good but suffers from the inadequate sonics. Still, none are bad entries in the set.

NOTE: Ozawa rerecorded the 2nd and 9th with Saito Kinen Orchestra. The Second improves much over the Philips recording.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: Roland Flessner on September 22, 2017, 05:06:55 AM
AZ, I respectfully disagree. I find the Ozawa a fine set that deserves to be back in the catalog.

Though generally an Ozawa fan, I would have expected him to have little if any affinity for Mahler. Thus I was delighted to be proved wrong when I bought the earlier box.

While I like the BSO M2 performance, the recording suffers from weak  bass. The Saito Kinen remake is outstanding on all counts. I am just coming to the end of an M2 survey, and have kept this recording for last; I’ll be listening to it again over the next few days.

John, I concur that Ozawa's M9 is among the best.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on September 22, 2017, 07:14:00 AM
The Ozawa/J. Norman M3 is almost worth the price of admission by itself, it's THAT good. The 7th is also really good, but does need more deep bells and cowbells at the end of the finale. As John stated, the 8th is superb, but is also wanting in the sonics department. One could do a whole lot worse (Solti, for example). I agree that you'd want the Saito Kinen (Sony) remake of the "Resurrection" symphony as a supplement.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: AZContrabassoon on September 22, 2017, 08:26:16 PM
Ok - I'll try it out. Not that I need any more Mahler sets, but maybe having not heard any of these recordings for 10-20 years I will listen to them differently. Need more shelf space...
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on September 26, 2017, 12:44:26 AM
I think you can hear much of the Ozawa cycle for free on Youtube - maybe Spotify too.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on September 28, 2017, 09:45:04 AM
As announced when the First was released, here it is:

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 8

Utah Symphony; Mormon Tabernacle Choir;

Thierry Fischer

Live Recording (February 2016), Reference Recordings: FR-725, 2 SACDs

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gustav-Mahler-Tabernacle-Reference-Recordings/dp/B075VWFRG5/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1506590499&sr=1-1&keywords=B075VWFRG5

Concerning Ozawa: I think his cycle is very good and his Japanese remakes of First, Second and Ninth are even excellent. In Italy, the complete set as shown in the picture posted by AZContrabasson is available (since 2013) at 38 Euros. My suggestion to save some money is to look for a recording in the country where it has been originally released (hoping that customs fee will not get in the way of the saving).

PS

This thread is meant to be a repository of all recordings released in 2017, so that people interested in new releases can find them just browsing in one thread. I suggest to people interested in discussing particular recordings, squabbling about Adagietto's tempi, insulting Solti an so on, to open specific threads.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on September 29, 2017, 04:49:14 PM
Very neutral cover art. But I prefer that to yet another photo of the conductor (which is useless). I know nothing about Thierry Fischer or most of the soloists employed, so I have no idea what to expect. Obviously, sound quality and the adult choirs will be spectacular.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: brunumb on September 29, 2017, 11:06:16 PM
The total playing time is 79:41 so why is it on two discs?  Is there a different upper limit for Hybrid SACDs?
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: AZContrabassoon on September 30, 2017, 07:52:59 PM
Theoretically, you can put almost 4 hours on an SACD only disk - but I've never seen it done. The dual-layer disk time limit is going to be restricted by the CD layer which is supposedly 80 minutes, so at 79:41 that's really getting close. One reason for using two disks is that some older players just cannot handle that long of a cd. I had a Panasonic years ago that burped when disk length was over 75 minutes. Nowadays, there are disks that exceed 80 minutes, going to 81, 82 and such. But it's risky. If everyone had state-of-the-art players it wouldn't be an issue. Another reason is that two disks allows them to charge more, if not double, to help defray the costs of recording.

I'm glad to see the Utah cycle appearing, and especially on RR - they generally have spectacular sound, although their older HDCD format to my ears sounds a lot better than even SACD. But try getting an HDCD player these days! It's also kind of sad that apparently we won't be getting a complete cycle from Pittsburgh. Every one of the recordings Honeck made there so far has been superb.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: waderice on October 01, 2017, 11:14:42 AM
But try getting an HDCD player these days!

There aren't many made (both the disks and the player), but a universal format disk player will usually have the circuit programming to play the HDCD disks.  My particular model is by Yamaha.  It'll play any disk format made, except for DSD.

Wade
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: AZContrabassoon on October 02, 2017, 03:02:50 AM
My Marantz "universal" player plays SACD, mp3 and a lot more - but not HDCD. I had an Oppo player that would decode HDCD, but they no longer make a unit supporting that format. The regular red book cd layer sounds great, but that HDCD decoding was really terrific. Gone with the wind, kind of like getting Dolby Surround decoded these days. But as I age, and my hearing isn't what it was 30 years ago, maybe it doesn't matter too much anymore... :P
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on October 16, 2017, 10:56:16 AM
Another Fifth is going to be released, this time by Harmonia Mundi. The Gürzenich-Orchester Köln is conducted by François-Xavier Roth.

https://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-No-5-Fran%C3%A7ois-Xavier-Roth/dp/B075V237HP/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1508150574&sr=1-1&keywords=B075V237HP

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphonie-No-5/dp/B075V237HP/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1508150589&sr=1-1&keywords=B075V237HP

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

Thierry Fischer recorded an excellent First with Utah:

https://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-No-1-Titan/dp/B012SOT6XC/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1508150500&sr=1-1&keywords=B012SOT6XC

I enjoyed especially the Finale.

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

The latest Pittsburgh/Honeck release is Shostakovich's Fifth:

https://www.amazon.com/Shostakovich-Symphony-No-Barber-Adagio/dp/B073FFSJ98/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1508151196&sr=1-1&keywords=B073FFSJ98

So far, Pittsburgh/Honeck's recordings for Reference Recordings ranged from the excellent to the extraordinary.

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

Dear AZ-C,

in 2005 BIS released the complete organ music of J. S. Bach (played by Hans Fagius) on 5 SACD (20h, 8min 21sec) for the price of two:

https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Complete-Organ-Hans-Fagius/dp/B0009MZ5S6/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1508151021&sr=1-1&keywords=B0009MZ5S6

Of course they can only be played on SACD player.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: ChrisH on October 16, 2017, 02:35:01 PM
The Xavier-Roth Mahler 5 will find it's way into my collection. His first with Baden-Baden was very, very good and not much talked about.
Thanks for the find, GL.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: barryguerrero on October 16, 2017, 11:04:26 PM
My guess - and it's ONLY a guess - is that the X-R. M5 will be 'musically' no better than the Markus Stenz, but will probably be better recorded.

I have great hopes for the T. Fischer/Utah M8, but they're just that: hopes.
Title: Re: Forthcoming & New Releases 2017
Post by: GL on November 07, 2017, 06:33:08 AM
Adam Fischer & Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra: here it comes the First (I. 15:31/ II. 7:43/ III. 10:04/ IV. 19:51):

http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Mahler-1860-1911_000000000019272/item_Symphony-No-1-Adam-Fischer-Dusseldorf-Symphony-Orchestra_8353846