This was my review posted on the Mahler-List:
The tenor tuba was flawless. Already from the beginning I saw idle
players "head-waving" to the music. They do enjoy this. There were
some intonation issues in the woodwinds in the first movement, so they
re-tuned afterwards.
Rattle tends to slow down more than I at first found comfortable and
he likes to "milk" the slow portions of the music. But I was in the
mood for _underlined_ romanticism. I often read that Rattle tends to
emphasize details; being "fussy" about them. I can see that in his
conducting style when he takes great care to signal many section
entries, but I found the result very satisfying nonetheless.
The woodwinds in the second movement were splendid.
The scherzo had a pulse, which made the numerous changes of the melody
through the instrumental sections quite fluid. He slowed down for some
moments here as well; *very* much so in the last minute or so, which
felt wrong to me, as if the movement just were never to finish. I
guess his idea was to have the music "relax" before the next movement,
a kind of fade-out.
The Nachtmusik II was noticeably shaped to contrast between the
"loving" music and "threatening" one. Rattle liked the result and
thanked his players noticeably.
The finale was played quite straight I'd say, but my knowledge of the
score is far from the point, where such an argument would carry much
weight. I would also argue, that he didn't go for parody, letting the
music play out what it is, which, for me at least, is a kaleidoscope
of music in Vienna, as Mahler perhaps encounters it when he arrives
back in the city after the summer holidays.
The seating for the strings was interesting: as Zinman in Zurich,
Rattle had V1-Vla-Vc-V2 (with the Kb behind Vc).
It was also the last concert of one double bass player who was
introduced by Rattle (in German) after the concert. He played for "44
years and one day".
I found the sound quality amazing for such a live broadcast: I watched
it in 720p HD stream which has a 192 kbps AAC stereo stream. I didn't
notice any congestion in the loud passages, not even on bass drum
rolls. The picture, which is MP4 encoded at 2,5 Mbit/s does contain
noticeable artifacts.
They use different lenses, than what I usually see in concert
broadcasts. They focus only in the middle and get blurry outwards. I
heard the technical term just recently for such lenses used in motion
pictures but it eludes me in the moment.
Topic: M7 Rattle/Berliner Season Opener Webcast (Read 10596 times)