M5 -P. Jarvi/Zurich Tonhalle . . . not sure what to think (?)

[barryguerrero]

Hi. I'd like to get some other folks input on this. I've listened through the Paavo Jarvi/Tonhalle Zurich recording of M5 at Spotify. It seems a decent enough performance. But the recording itself .   .  I'm not so sure about. It appears to be one of those recordings where everything sounds loud. Yes, there's dynamic range to it. However, the low strings are so boosted up that it just seems to make everything sound loud. As if to underline my point, all the soft tam-tam strokes in the first movement are really audible, but the big, fortissimo tam-tam smash towards the end of the second movement seems no louder. Perhaps it's because I've been listening to the excellence of the new Bychkov/Czech Phil M3. Or, perhaps, it's just that every conductor and every orchestra on Earth appears to recorded Mahler 5 multiple times. Frankly, I think it's a mistake for these record labels and conductors to begin their cycles with the fifth symphony. As David Hurwitz says, it's the hardest one to get right. Perhaps more accurately, M5 is the most difficult one to make distinguished sounding. With all its Bach-like, contrapuntal chugging, it's very easy for it to sound routine.

The last Mahler 5 to knock my socks off, was the completely ignored Jaap van Zweden/London Phil. one (it's on the LPO's inhouse label). 

[John Kim]

Barry

I've given the Jarvi/TOZ M5th a listen on streaming but have not noticed the sound issue you mentioned. Will try it again. On my listening I liked Jarvi's conducting and concept although there're couple moments where Jarvi slowed down for no good reason (he did the same in his recent Bruckner recordings with the same orchestra) depriving the music of flow and forward momentum.

John

[barryguerrero]

Yes, I'm not a fan of that mannerism either.

[John Kim]

Agreed on the Zweden/LPO M5. Although I am not a fan of Zweden-Mahler (his recent recording of M1 with SPO is terrible!), I have a soft spot for this M5th. He could turn out as a great Mahler conductor someday, who knows?

John

[Roland Flessner]

I just listened to this on Idagio and for me it goes to the top of the list. If dynamic contrast is limited, to me it seems the other way around, that the quieter parts are normal and the loud parts seem restrained. But it's not egregious and I'm not sure I would have noticed, Barry, if you hadn't pointed it out. I am listening with good Grado headphones on a business-class laptop.

Järvi places the second violins on the right and low strings on the left. In the Zinman recordings, the seconds were also on the right but so were the low strings. In Zinman the seconds often seemed faint but in this recording, they're at parity. Mahler often exploits interplay between the two sections and the antiphonal placement pays dividends.

Example: In the second movement, just before number 19, the firsts and seconds play staggered high Fs, a passage that loses its effect if the violins are massed instead of separated. Then too, in that elaborate contrapuntal writing in the Finale, the antiphonally placed sections help clarify the lines.

One strong virtue of this recording is not only transparency through the whole orchestra but the coherence and strength of the woodwind choir, which is sadly rare and at least for me, a hallmark of a satisfying Mahler performance.

I did not notice particular mannerisms, Järvi following Mahler's instructions scrupulously, apart from one quibble: In the Scherzo, shortly before number 29, the obbligato horn plays a series of quarter notes ending in three descending notes that land on a C (notated; actual pitch F). At the beginning of this phrase, Mahler writes "nicht riten." and "nicht zurückhalten!" indicating that the phrase should be played firmly in tempo until those three descending notes, finally mark "rit." The horn player slows down a bar or so before he is supposed to. Quite a common contravention of the composer's explicit instructions, and in many performances, it's much more pronounced.

The hornist, Ivo Gass, is otherwise first class in every way. I can also praise the instances when a sustained note shifts between the obbligato horn and the orchestral section; in many performances, the loudness sometimes fades (though *somebody* is supposed to be playing fortissimo throughout the phrase). Here it's performed as Mahler instructs.

Overall, to my ears this is a really outstanding release and I'm looking forward to upcoming installments in the cycle.

Note: My score is the Dover, based on the 1904 C. F. Peters edition.

[barryguerrero]

It could be an issue with my playback equipment, as the low strings sound 'boomy' and not clear enough to me on the Jarvi recording. I do like Jarvi more than Zinman in middle movement Scherzo. But I like Zinman's one minute longer first movement, as well as his one minute longer finale. I like the finale to build up steam on its on, and not sound too pushed. All that busy chugging in the strings gets muddy if they're pushed too hard. And by going a bit slower, it makes Zinman  - and others who do this - sound as though he's really turning up the heat as we're approaching the big brass chorale and the coda. It gives the illusion of accelerating where the trombones do their unison descending scale. With 14 minute finales - such as with Jarvi - it just feels like, "oh, now we're here at the ending". 15 to 15:30 works best for me in the finale. I think the Adagietto was pretty much a tie.

[Roland Flessner]

I do think that M5 is one of Zinman's stronger performances in the set, but something is odd about the SQ throughout, lacking in presence and transparency. I wonder if it's because they were originally recorded for surround sound. I have the SACD disks but I play the Redbook two-channel layer, lacking an SACD player or surround equipment.

In an interview, a Telarc engineer explained that when they record in surround, the primary recording is very dry and ambience is provided by the surround channels. He said that it can't be mixed down to two channel, and that they are really making a separate recording with different mics for that. I've always wondered if RCA tried to turn a surround recording into two-channel stereo for the Zinman set. Their other Zinman/TOZ recordings in plain old stereo don't sound like the Mahler set.

[barryguerrero]

I wondered about that, as I think the very same thing happened when Oehms Classics issued the box set of the complete Mahler symphonies with Markus Stenz. The individual releases were SACD hybrids, but the box set was strictly two-channel. Sadly, there was a noticeable degradation in the sound quality. I got rid of the Oehms/Stenz box for that reason. Wisely, neither Tudor (Jonathan Nott) or BIS (Vanska) did that when they issued their complete box sets.