Chailly/Leipzig/Mahler 9 Blu-Ray

[ChrisH]

This Blu-Ray series has really seen Chailly take a step away from his earlier recordings. This ninth is, in my opinion, is further from his earlier recordings, than any of the other installments. In the included documentary with De Le Grange, they speak of having of getting away from the, "self-indulgence and slow tempos of the past." Chailly also speaks of going back to the Mengelberg scores, he's done this in all the docs, and this time he really disagrees with Mengelbergs intentions with the score. DLG and Chailly also spend a bit of time speaking on how this work  always gets associated with death, and Mahler knowing he was dying. Both were of the opinion that this is more a work about life, and should not be the this romanticized, lush, and sad piece of music. The doc is excellent to watch, it's like two buddies sitting down and just talking.

The concert itself very much reflects what was talked about in the documentary. Tempos are quick, it's quite lean and highly detailed. The climaxes are very well paced, the third in the 1st movement is very impressive. Phrasing is very exact, nothing is stretched out, or lingered upon. The Landler is one of the quickest I've come across, as is the Scherzo which gets quite raunchy. Very well played and full of life. The finale is very optimistic and uplifting, he doesn't even milk the last the notes. Taken as a whole this concert gives a very different feeling and is quite powerful. I also think some may not like what Chailly is going for.

 

[barry guerrero]

Thank you for that thorough review. I'm going to be very curious to hear Chailly's re-think of M7, when he gets around to that one. I know what DLG and Chailly are getting at. However, I have issues with relating slow with death and fast with life. Sometimes slow is just slow and fast is just fast. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. My viewpoint is try to find what works best with what the composer wrote, fast or slow. In other words, take a music driven approach first, and try avoid thinking about whether the composer was happy, sad; dead, alive; in love, out of love, etc. I may very well get this dvd.

[ChrisH]

I'm looking forward to picking up the rest of the cycle, 3 of my favorites, 1,3 & 7. Hopefully we'll also get a 10th and Das Lied, too. I do wish they would release this in an audio only format too.

I don't think DLG and Chailly were being as black and white as, perhaps, I made it out. More pointing out that it doesn't have to be just one way, that there are different ways to approach this music. This performance is pretty much the antithesis of a Bernstein, Tennstedt, Karajan or Abbado. Maybe their comments were pointed more towards the people who are only familiar with the larger names in Mahler conducting? Regardless, it's a good watch.

 A little funny story from it, DLG vividly remembers his first experience with hearing Mahler, it was 1944 in NYC with Bruno Walter conducting the 9th. Having never heard any Mahler before, he somehow thought he was listening to the Mahler 4, and believed so for many years after.

I would say that if you like Alan Gilbert's 9th, then this one would compliment it nicely.

[barry guerrero]

And I don't mean to be so 'black and white' on the topic either. I just feel that there is a bit of an agenda with De La Grange, and that that's not necessarily a bad thing. Since SO MANY people seem to keep gravitating to Mahler's biography and, therefore, view Mahler as a 'tragic' figure, DLG tries to balance them out by pointing out that Mahler was no more a tragic figure than anyone else, and that he generally had a healthy attitude towards life. I tend to agree with that viewpoint, but I think you have to be a tad careful in trying to apply that to the music itself. I'm sort of believer that you have to let the music speak for itself: when it's happy, it's happy; when it's tragic, it's tragic - and various complicated mixtures of those two extremes. I'm a believer that Mahler's biography lived outside of what he was composing at any particular moment.

The proof in the pudding of that viewpoint centers around the sixth symphony, where everybody is so troubled about the fact that Mahler wrote his most 'tragic' symphony during the 'happiest' time in his biography.