Happy Mahler Birthday 2017!

[AZContrabassoon]

I hope all you Mahlerites out there enjoy your favorite composer today. Every year on July 7 (or starting early on the 6th) I listen to the complete works of Mahler, choosing different sets and recordings as necessary each year. This time I did something fun - I pulled out the FIRST recording of each work I ever bought. Sometimes that means dragging out an old LP, but mercifully most of them are on CD. So this year it was:

Das Klagende Lied - Boulez on Columbia - the first recording with the Waldmarchen restored.
Symphony 1 - Horenstein/LSO
Symphony 2 - Walter/NYPO
Symphony 3 - Horenstein/LSO
Symphony 4 - Maazel/Berlin Radio Orchestra (lordy that Nonesuch LP sounded horrible!)
Symphony 5 - Solti/CSO
Symphony 6 - Barbirolli/Philharmonia

That's as far as I've got. Now on to...

Symphony 7 - Klemperer - ugh! Such a tough recording to love, or even like. So s l o w...
Symphony 8 - Wyn Morris on RCA
DLVDE - Walter on Sony
Symphony 9 - Walter on Sony
Symphony 10 - Morris on Philips

For songs - Szell and Barbirolli

Hopefully I'll get done around midnight!

Have you read this:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/mahler-said-his-time-would-come-the-question-now-for-me-is-when-it-will-go/

[barryguerrero]

yeah, Gus, what he said: happy birthday. Prosit!

Zum geburtstag, viel gluck,

zum geburtstag, viel gluck,

zum geburtstag, (rit.) langes leben .    .     . 

zum geburtstag, viel gluck.

[Settembrini]

What a great piece by Michael Tanner in the Spectator. "For nowadays Mahler is unavoidable — putting on a Mahler symphony is the surest way to fill a concert hall." That's exactly why the Concertgebouw, for instance, is going to organise yet another Mahler Festival in 2020. Not because they care about that meaningless 'Mahler tradition' in Amsterdam, but because it sells tickets. Looking and this ridiculous profusion of mostly second rate recordings and performances by both professional and amateur orchestras, not just in the Netherlands, I can't help but feel sorry for the man who famously said that tradition is laziness.

Tanner is right as well when he says "for the symphonies, up until the last, are all flawed, in different ways," but, personally, that's why I love Mahler so much (and why Tanner doesn't).

[barryguerrero]

Oh please, it's not an either/or type case. One can desire to continue a 'meaningful' Mahler tradition AND sell tickets - they're not exclusive. More to the point, selling tickets is a necessity ANYWHERE. The Concertgebouw - ranked the greatest overall orchestra in the world (which is truly meaningless!) - has had its own fair share of financial issues.

Permit me to ask you a question - not because I'm trying to put you on the spot - but because I would like you to really think it through. If someone offered you an all expense paid vacation to Amsterdam (flights, room and tickets) for the 2020 Mahlerfest, would you really turn it down because you think it would be meaningless? I certainly wouldn't.

Also, have you truly listened to all those recordings you're labeling as a meaningless; establishing a new tradition of laziness in the process?  Some of them are very good - much better than a lot of stuff from the past. But as to be expected, some of it is better than others. And you're right, not every community orchestra and third rate orchestra (and most third rate orchestras CAN truly play these days) should be recording Mahler. THAT SAID, I have a Mahler 1 with the S.F. Youth Symphony that's really very good, recorded on tour in Berlin. In fact, I like it better than several big-name recordings of M1 that I've heard. I certainly like it better than the MTT/SFS M1.

A real laziness, in my opinion, is labeling the glut of recent Mahler recordings - which are greatly slowing down now, by the way - as 'meaningless' when one hasn't taken the time to truly cull through them. That's lazy! (and I'm not that you are someone who hasn't culled through things - we don't know each other).

[Settembrini]

To anser your questions:
1. I would turn down an all expense vacation to Amsterdam because I live in Amsterdam and I wouldn't go to that ridiculous Mahler Festival if you paid me. The prospect of hearing the New York Philharmonic perform Mahler under Jaap van Zweden is enough reason to go on a vacation as far away from Amsterdam as I can. In addition, the RCO isn't a better 'Mahler orchestra' (whatever that means) than any other first tier orchestra, their so called Mahler tradition is a gimmick, perpetuated for marketing purposes.

2. Yes, as a music critic for a Dutch music site and magazine I have heard practically every recent Mahler recording, even if I have no desire to do so. And yes, most of them are perfectly superfluous and second rate. Believe it or not, it's not laziness, it's my job and it can be hard work.

[barryguerrero]

i.e. jaded! (and perhaps understandably so)

Why do I say that?   .   .   .   I don't have to listen to them for a living (I turned that down!), and I LOVE hearing new Mahler recordings that come out, regardless of the source.

Why?   .    .   because sometimes really good recordings come from the most unexpected sources, do they not? For example, the Dausgaard/Seattle S.O. Mahler 10 (Cooke III) is outstanding! Who would have thought that? I agree that the big major names, such as the Concertgebouw, have their off days and don't always live up to their reputations. I think that's to be expected to some degree. I'm not crazy about a lot of Mahler that comes from Chicago. That's just me.

Anyway, send me those tickets to the 2020 Mahlerfest!   

[Settembrini]

I don't see why someone who listens to recordings (semi)professional has to be jaded. I tend to listen to new recordings without knowing who the conductor and orchestra are beforehand. What you call jaded, I call being critical.

If it turns out I don't get tickets for the Mahler Festival in 2020, don't worry, I'm sure the Concertgebouw will organise another one in 2025, and 2030, and 2035, etc.

[barryguerrero]

OK, fair enough. I had forgotten that we had talked about this Amsterdam stuff previously on the M2/Concertgebouw topic.