More YouTube Mahler

[Ben]

For those interested, someone has uploaded Lorin Maazel conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in Mahler 8 on youtube.  Just go to youtube.com and search for "maazel mahler" and they should all show up.

Does anyone know in what year this video would have been filmed?  Quite a massive reading of it; the final chorus is pretty slow, as is the ending.  Glad to see he didn't rush to the end after being so slow.  Seems like a decent organ to me, at least on the youtube quality we get.  I don't know if I particularly care for the performance, but I always find it interesting to watch these video documents of concerts.

Ben

[barry guerrero]

Did you see the size of that tam-tam!?!    - more on that in a minute. From a purely technical standpoint, Maazel is the greatest conductor on the planet (I said technical, not musical). There's a reason why orchestras just love this guy. Watch how he just sits on the last note before the chorus cuts out; just waiting for the bass drum to finish making its huge crescendo. That's exactly how I would conduct that spot. He took the orchestral postlude much slower than he did on his commercial recording. By the way, just type "Mahler Maazel" in the search line at youtube.com, and all of the parts will come up.

Anyway, it's a typical ORF (Austrian Radio) recording - the offstage brass don't get captured very well, for example. The orchestra is clearly the Vienna Philharmonic (you can tell from the indiginous Wiener single F horns), but it's from neither of the two symphony halls in Vienna. I suspect that this must have been a Salzburg Festival performance, especially since the organ sounds like it might be a portable electronic one.  Now about the percussion .   .   .

That Wuhan tam-tam is at least 130 cm. (50 inches). Those tam-tam strokes were deep and profound sounding - as they should be. I've also never before witnessed the VPO using such large mallets on a bass drum like that. That's always been one of my biggest complaints about the VPO percussion section: they use small, antiquated bass drum mallets (but not here). I wonder if Maazel might have had Pittsburgh's 130cm. Wuhan flown over? I know that the VPO owns a 100 cm one, but this one is clearly larger than that. Anyway, watch for the gong! Believe me, you'll hear it too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX62TyprDm8

Julia Varady / Angela Maria Blasi / Juliane Banse / Marjana Lipovsek / Margarita-Hintermeier / Johan Botha / Monte Pederson / Jan-Hendrick Rootering / Konzertvereingung / Wienerstaatopernchor / Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks / Rias Kammerchor / Wiener Sängerknaben / Wiener Philharmoniker / Lorin Maazel, conductor

[barry guerrero]

Here's what those indiginous Viennese single F horns look like. There are slight variations in the design in different models, made by different makes. But the overall main design and principle is the same.

[barry guerrero]

Me again. Well, I can't find any reference as to when this performance happened. I have picked up a few hints that this might have been performed at the Wiener Staatsoper (state opera). It's not the live performance that was a available on a CD-R from Pandora's Box. The tenor here is Johan Botha - the same tenor that Boulez had in Berlin - so it must be a later performance. If anybody has further information, do tell! I'm wondering if a DVD of this thing exists somewhere. I tried the ORF's website, and nothing exists there.

Barry

[Jot N. Tittle]

Did you see the size of that tam-tam!?!    -

Hey, Barry, check out the EuroArts DVD of Abaddo and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester doing M9. Look at the tam-tam there. It has to be at least four feet across. (And one of the players appears to have a Vienese single F horn such as you displayed.)

Let's see if I can post a couple of images I found on their web site.

     . & '

[Jot N. Tittle]

I guess it didn't work. Is there some trick to posting an image?

    . & '