5 finest Mahlerites

[barry guerrero]

I don't know. Apparently, that odd Klemperer "Resurrection" that some folks here were writing about, pushes close to a hundred minutes.  Z z z z z  z z z z z z z z

[Ivor]

  I've voted , tho' the results are going to be a bit odd when there are significant (for me)conductors missing,and when voters are answering their own question rather than the given one. And when there are so many performers I haven't heard. But then,since I haven't heard them,they can't have had too much impact on me.

  Incidentally,a conductor doesn't have to be wonderful to make a significant impact,IMHO.

  Shame there's no Adler,Flipse,Fried or Kondrashin.

  And, spelling-wise,  it's Mitropoulos baby.



   Ivor

[Leo K]

Agreed about Adler...his M1 and M6 are my favorites for those Symphonies

[barry guerrero]

Sorry, but I think it's a totally irrelevant question in a way. Mahler is now standard repertoire for every orchestra and conductor on the planet. Everybody is in the game these days. Nobody can get a job in a professional orchestra now, without knowing their Mahler excerpts forwards and backwards. I was absolutely dead serious with my original answer, which is that the greatest Mahlerians are the ones who did it the best last night. Tomorrow's greatest Mahlerites will be the ones who did it best tonight, etc.  You can argue with me all you want, but I'm not going to dictate who the five greatest Mahlerians are. I just don't think that there is such a thing.
Barry

[Ivor]

  That's what I mean.

   The question isn't about who we think are the greatest Mahlerians,just whixh ones had the greatest impact on us.

   Haven't heard Adler's M1 (sounds like a British motorway!),just glad someone else has a fondness for that 6th despite its imperfections.

   That's why I'd have voted for Adler had he been in the list. His was the first 6th I got to know,so you can imagine its impact on me was even bigger than that wonderful pic of the hammer-blow in the album cover thread.


    Ivor



   

[Wunderhorn]

Sorry, but I think it's a totally irrelevant question in a way. Mahler is now standard repertoire for every orchestra and conductor on the planet. Everybody is in the game these days. Nobody can get a job in a professional orchestra now, without knowing their Mahler excerpts forwards and backwards. I was absolutely dead serious with my original answer, which is that the greatest Mahlerians are the ones who did it the best last night. Tomorrow's greatest Mahlerites will be the ones who did it best tonight, etc.  You can argue with me all you want, but I'm not going to dictate who the five greatest Mahlerians are. I just don't think that there is such a thing.
Barry

Perhaps it changes with the times and is constantly in flux as you say Barry, but if that were the case Walter and Bernstein would have been forgotten.

[barry guerrero]

No, I don't agree with that logic. There's no need to forget them because they were truly among the pioneers, at least in terms of recordings. Perhaps I need to re-read the original question. My point is that there's almost no way to know who did an outstanding job last night, somewhere in the world, and who didn't. But when one focuses almost exclusively in one direction, you're missing something else that may be equally good in another direction. I just don't think that anybody owns this music; it's too ubiquitous now.

Barry

[barry guerrero]

OK, I've re-read the question, and I think it's a fair one. What we're talking about now is my history, and not who the best Mahler conductors are - let's keep that clear. So - from my past - the five who have had the most impact on me are Bernstein, Stokowski (M2), Inbal, Bertini, and Chailly. Let's not debate their worthiness, because that wasn't the question.

Barry

[tream]

I'm the guy that voted for MTT - please forgive me.

Personally, I like the extreme style....not for everyday listening but I think it gives the music some new life.

To dig myself even deeper into a hole, I look forward to the day that Christian Thielemann does some Mahler....

I don't know about Thielemann (the new Parsifal is pretty good) but no reason to be ashamed of liking MTT in these works, even if Barry doesn't  .

[barry guerrero]

.   .   .   just don't force me to listen to them   

[Logan]

Who said (or wrote) of Lenny that he was always performing a Concerto for Conductor and Orchestra?

   . & '

This reminds me of what a woodwind player in a major European orchestra once told me.  Bernstain was a frequent guest conductor and Mahler was often on the menu.  But whatever was played in a public concert the rehearsals were nothing but a practice run for the conductor's podium gymnastics, facial expressions, and eloquence of arm-waving.  The music was allowed to take care of itself according to her.

I'm not aware of whether or not the same degree of self-absorption characterised his recording sessions.  What I do know is that while I'm prepared to accept the exposure of Mahler's neuroses (I wouldn't be here if I didn't) I won't accept the superimposition of a conductor's neuroses on top of them.

Needless to say I didn't vote for Bernstein.  And I found it difficult to make a choice.  I've been completely swept away by the two Mahler symphonies I've heard live from Tennstedt, but the corresponding EMI recordings are so woefully deficient in the sonics department that the conductor's vision simply doesn't emerge.  So where does your vote go in this situation?

[Ivor]

   That's entirely up to you.

[barry guerrero]

I saw Bernstein several times in the 80's. Perhaps his manner became more restrained in his later years, which is exactly the same observation that many made about Mahler's own conducting. Anyway, what I witnessed, I would not describe as being terribly excessive. When Bernstein made a jesture or move, it was entirely appropriate to what was going on in the music. This is in direct opposition to what I observed with Georg Solti, the one and only time that I saw him conduct:  Mahler 5 in S.F. Solti flicked his wrists all around like some kind crazed madman, but it often times had absolutely nothing to do with what was going on in the phrasing of the music. Solti often times had his head buried in the score (Mahler 5!), while Bernstein never once glanced at the music, as far as I could tell. It also appeared to me that the CSO were greatly ignoring Solti. My observation was that the VPO COULDN'T ignore Bernstein, or they'd find themselves in a different place in a matter of seconds. That may or may not be a good thing, but they certainly weren't playing on auto-pilot. Make of this what you will.

Barry Guerrero

[Damfino]

Re: Bernstein's "gymnastics"

A friend of mine attended a concert conducted by Bernstein here in houston in the early 80's.  I do not remember if Lenny was guest-conducting the Houston symphony or was on tour with another orchestra.  My friend confirmed that Lenny was in typical form, jumping all over the place, at one point, falling off the podium entirely.  Maybe that incident led to a more "restrained approach"?  After all, it is dangerous to fall off a podium.

As to Solti, I always thought he always looked rather spastic in his conducting.

[Wunderhorn]

I don't know about Thielemann (the new Parsifal is pretty good) but no reason to be ashamed of liking MTT in these works, even if Barry doesn't .

I got Thielemann's Parsifal and thought it needed to cut out all the extra stage noises, but other than that, it was fine. Thielemann suffers from bad sound engineers in both his 'Tristan' and 'Parsifal'; it is too bad, because Thielemann is quite good with Wagner and Bruckner : (