Going Against Fate

[Jot N. Tittle]

movement I    23.15 min
m 2                14.04
m 3                13.56
m 4                29.49

Total time:  81.14
Recorded:  14-16 May 2007 

According to my calculation, the total time represented by the timings for the movements comes to 81:04. Wonder where the other ten seconds are. Between the tracks? I have noticed this sort of discrepancy on other CD covers.

     . & '

[John Kim]

Like I said, the correct timing for I. is 23'45", NOT 23'15". But that adds 30 sec, NOT 10 sec. as you mentioned 

John,

[brunumb]

Isn't the SACD on two discs ?
I wonder how they managed to squeeze the same performance onto one CD.

[barry guerrero]

My understanding is they CAN make cd's longer than 80 minutes. The problem is that many players - mostly earlier models - don't track beyond 80 minutes.

[Jot N. Tittle]

Now I have heard the CD and seen the DVD once and found them both quite interesting. The CD sound is full and resonant, I thought, with plenty of bass. The DVD is no doubt a good plug for the Tonhalle Orchester and should make Baltimore wonder how they let Zinman go. (Did they let him go, or did they dump him?)

I regret seeing Zinman follow outdated Mahler mythology in his analysis. I thought everyone knew that Alma's creative memory has to be approached with caution. A little work with dates would have shown Zinman that Mahler's daughters playing in the sand could not possibly have been the source of the passage so designated (by Alma). And now we know that Alma herself is the source of the description of her as the most beautiful woman in Vienna. Doesn't anyone look at a photo of her? And Zinman's saying that Mahler's heart valvular deficiency was the cause of his death is particularly disappointing. By now he should know better.

If conductors are too busy with preparations, rehearsals, and touring to do their own research on the composers--which,  no doubt, is the case--they ought to assign someone to keep them up to date. Say, the triangle player.

An extra treat for those who watch the credits at the end is Zinman singing Tom Lehrer's "Alma"--all of it! Remember the lines
          "You should have a statue in bronze
           For bagging Gustav and Walter and Franz."

     . & '

[barry guerrero]

I finally received and watched my copy. I think that Zinman is a fabulous conductor - so musical! Unfortunately, I suppose, the DVD plays too much like an info-mercial for the Tonnhalle Zurich. That said, it's quite evident that they're a truly great orchestra in their current incarnation. Also, the building itself is just gorgeous to like at. I think that all the insights into Mahler's percussion writing - tons of it in the 6th symphony! - is quite fascinating. I like the tuba player; he's quite a character.

Of course, Zinman falls in line with the usual spiel about how M6 is prophetic in regards to Mahler's personal problems. That was the Alma explanation. I personally believe that the 6th had almost nothing to do with Mahler's future biography, and that the "hero" or main protagonist wasn't even himself. I think that it was prophetic of the coming European disasters - disasters on a global scale. I believe that there's even some circumstantial evidence to support such a notion, such as Mahler's "thrice homeless" comment. Regardless, Zinman truly knows the work, and speaks very eloquently about it. I really enjoyed this, and would strongly recommend it for its insights into Mahler's percussion issues alone (among other things).

Barry

[Jot N. Tittle]

Barry--

When you say of M6, "I think that it was prophetic of the coming European disasters - disasters on a global scale," you are apparently in agreement with Tony Duggan, who says in his analysis of M6,

"It has always seemed to me appropriate that the work’s 1906 premiere took place in Essen, the cradle of German heavy industry. All those driving, relentless, militaristic rhythms, mechanistic percussion and harsh-edged contrasts that permeate so much of this work have always seemed, to me, to share kinship with the place where the work was first heard. Here were the foundries and factories that put the iron in The Iron Chancellor and built the guns that would spill the blood in his "blood and iron" when fired in World War One, the cultural pre-echo of whose cataclysm eight years later the work seems partly to illustrate. A case of Mahler the sensitive showing himself in tune with his times, I think. So I believe this symphony is, first and foremost, a twentieth century work. Perhaps the first twentieth century symphony. It breathes as much the same air as Krupp as it does Freud, and its concerns are those of our time because so much of our time was formed in the furnaces of Essen as in the consulting rooms of Vienna."

Listened to with that in mind, M6 becomes a somewhat different symphony--and perhaps clearer.

Very interesting.

     . & ' 

[John Kim]

So, what is their next installment in the cycle? M7th? And when is it scheduled to be released?

John,