The live Barenboim M7 from the fest is simply fantastic. I think this and his commercial recording are among the finest contemporary accounts of this work I have heard. The live version is more aggressive than his studio version...it reminded me of Scherchen's dark account from Toronto, without sacrificing the beauty, but nothing is 'pretty' or 'romantic' in this live Barenboim. In many ways, it's the darkest or most aggressive I have heard, at least in the first three movements. I have also thought this aggressiveness as signifying the forward motion of life, as some interpet the M6. Indeed this performance, more than I've heard in other performances of the 7th, is like a sister to the 6th. Barenboim doesn't strike me as 'interventionist' though...I am no expert at knowing the score, but my impression (based on what Barenboim claims in an interview) is that he follows the score instructions closely.
This brings me to my impression of his live M9 heard a couple nights ago. Again, I have not heard such a radically dark performance of this work before. I had previously enjoyed Gielen's studio M9 for it's 'modern' Berg-like expressionist precision, but Barenboim goes farther in Berlin. The word 'dark' is my perception, but 'aggressive' is probably more accurate. His live version, and his studio to a lesser extant, brings a raw energy to this score I've not really heard. Because of the speed, there are some similarities to Walter's '38 version, but mostly I feel Barenboim brings his own stamp to this work that is highly interesting and deeply moving. The Adagio is one of the best I have heard, and the most deserved, or won after the ordeal of the previous movements. The Rondo Burlesque is complex, savage and bitter...again, based on what I've read in a Barenboim interview (which I post below) I don't sense Barenboim has an 'aggressive' agenda...this is based on his study of the score, and what comes out during the performance could very well be accurate of Mahler's intentions for this work (although I won't claim this to be fact, just an impression).
A reviewer on the M-List stated his dissatisfaction with this performance, claiming that Barenboim was lost in the 1st and last movements of the score...here is a quote from that reviewer:
Whilst there is no reason why this should be true (in other words, I
am speculating), in a peculiar way Barenboim seems a little lost
within an inferential Mahler legacy based on those conductors whom he
most tries to emulate. Furtwangler did conduct some (early) Mahler,
but left no recordings of the symphonies; Asahina did not conduct the
entire Mahler canon (it seems critical to me that Barenboim's first
foray into Mahler was the Fifth, a symphony Asahina did not conduct,
and he made such a mess of it. On the other hand, both his Seventh
and Ninth seem quite close to some of Asahina's performances of these
two works), and Celibidache who did not conduct any of the Mahler
symphonies at all. Which all makes me wonder whether we get to see
the real greatness (or otherwise) of Barenboim as a conductor: where
in other composers he can almost muster a good performance because he
is able to reconstruct something from the past, in Mahler he is very
much on his own, following instincts I personally find unconvincing.I strongly disagree, and feel Barenboim has found, or is discovering his 'own' path to Mahler through Mahler's scores.
On the M-List Zoltan translated the gist of an interview with Barenboim:
Here's a short review of what Barenboim said in an interview
broadcasted after the concert (translation from German).
Regarding Mahler's works being in the repertoire: all Mahler
symphonies are so well orchestrated, so effective, so different in the
symphonies, that the concertgoers like it almost as Beethoven's, even
when not played good.
Barenboim was, and still is annoyed about, when speaking about
Mahler's music in terms of neurosis, schizophrenia and Sigmund Freud,
not musical ones (unlike Beethoven, Brahms, Bartok, Boulez or Mozart),
thus reducing him to a non-musical dimension.
Mahler is the first symphonist, who makes dynamic changes not per se
to the whole orchestra, and that might be because he was a conductor
(he gives an example, where a few instruments group do a decrescendo
from ff, while an other makes a cresc to ff, all playing the same
note, thus you have always the same loudness, but the tone colour
changes). And that's one aspect which is not brought out enough.
He doesn't like the word "interpretation": composers need musicians
who'll bring the music to life from a paper full of black dots. Of
course, it's possible to do that in 1000 different ways. In Bach,
there are no tempo or dynamic marking; there's one fugue in the whole
Well-Tempered Clavier which has a tempo marking: largo. Thus,
objectively, you can do what you want. Such things are not possible in
Mahler; when there's a piano, one has to look organically to it: what
kind of piano is it, how does it relate to the music? The markings
help to understand, but it should not distract from making oneself
think about it.
In the Eroica, you hear the whole theme after the two opening chords:
then in the development you can see bits and pieces developed. Mahler
uses bits and pieces at the begin of the 9th, and develops from then
on, building layer upon layer on it (unlike Bruckner). At the end of
the ninth, when one would think about death, as some say Mahler had,
he would've made the music go back to little pieces, but that's not
what happens, the musical line is endless!
When you play the first chord of the 7th, you have to hear the end of
the piece too as a goal: the first chord is a question -- it's not a
b-minor; it has a G#! When you look forward you see how it *has* to,
or how you have to play it to become a harmonic, positive last
movement. Thus you can't play the last movement on itself; or you
could, but that would make it something else!
Chromaticity is ambiguity in music [citing Wagner with the
Tristan-chord], thus when the last movement of the fifth and the
seventh has less chromaticity, it's without "musical" ambiguity (not
to mistake it with the real-life meaning of ambiguity), thus you see
it as a "positive" ending.
If you have one foot in the 19th, one in the 20th century as Mahler
has, you can not only go from 19th to 20th century, but back too! As
it happens in the 9th!
Autobiographical moments? Of course it's interesting to know how a
composer has lived, but when a work is composed, it's only in the
composers head. When you bring the music to life it has a whole other
"biography".
I didn't speak with Boulez yet about who will conduct which work in
two years in the next cycle with the Staatskapelle in Vienna and New
York. I'm fascinated by the 3rd, never conducted it, but hope to do
so.I haven't heard Barenboim's M5 in Berlin yet (I haven't seen it uploaded yet), but here is a poster from the M-List who writes:
A friend of mine, who is also a conductor, just returned from Berlin,
where he attended several concertos conducted by Barenboim.
My friend was amazed at Barenboim's M5. He did not like B's M7 that
much, preferring his commercial recording and could not attend to the M9
concert as he had to come back. But M5, he said, was the experience of his
life. The last movement, of M5, in his opinion, was incredible. All the
instruments could be heard and the movement was played powerfully, as he told me on
the phone. He said that in his opinion, this was the best version of M5 he
had ever heard (and, yes, we both attended Dudamel's M5 in Caracas 3 years
ago). 
Topic: Barenboim/Boulez at the Festtage 2007 in Berlin (Read 10992 times)