Dear all,
Happy New Year and thanks to Scott for taking the initiative to revive the Discussion Forum/Mahler Board lineage.
I'm currently in Japan for my annual New Year's visit with family. Shortly after awaking on New Year's Day I was please to see that a performance of an Abbado M5 from Lucerne (2004) was being broadcast on TV Asahi's Satellite Channel (I missed the first two movements
). Not sure if this was the same performance that is available on DVD, as the credits seemed to imply that TV Asahi had been involved in the original broadcast. One of the nice aspects of this performance was the ability to hear a lot of the counterpoint/extra detail which is an important feature of M5. My gripes with Abbado's conception were mainly his very rapid coda at the end of the Scherzo (plus the drumbeats entering the coda were almost inaudible, a weakness of many of my recorded performances); and his too rapid statement of the triumphant anthem at the end of the Finale; after all of the buildup, and all that has come before, I see rushing forward here as a major blunder and waste of the crowning moment of the whole work).
I also picked up (at a local music store!) a BBC Documentary from 1997 on Mahler from the series 'The Great Composers'. Haven't had a chance to watch yet. Has anyone seen this previously on PBS or BBC?
The program on Japanese TV 'Mainichi Mozart' ('Mozart Every Day') has finally come to an end after several hundred installments. Any chance that they will have a 'Mainichi Mahler' program during the 2010-11 Mahler Jubillee season? (my wife scoffed at the idea)--and perhaps some Mahler will get on the Vienna Phil's New Year's concert program in 2010 or 2011? I am thinking of Blumine or M2.2.
Now it's back to Laos where there is no Mahler to be found on TV, in record stores, or anywhere else for that matter (but in a few years, who knows?)
Mike Bosworth
(currently in Tokyo)
Topic: BBC Documentary on Mahler (Read 14908 times)