Good CT review of PSO/Honeck M3

[Russ Smiley]

http://www.classicstoday.com/review/mahler-3-honeck-pittsburgh/

[John Kim]

Agreed.

This is a stunning M3rd, and it's in its own class.

Honeck makes the brass and percussion very prominent, sometimes to the extent that they almost drown out string & woodwinds.

But his conducting creates a tremendous excitement in many places such as the codas of I. & III. Listen to the tam tam!

It's also beautifully proportioned, played and recorded.

But I also have a soft spot for Stenz M3rd among recent recordings.

John

[barry guerrero]

"Honeck makes the brass and percussion very prominent, sometimes to the extent that they almost drown out string & woodwinds"

But the interesting thing is that they don't!  Unlike the Solti/CSO 'blast-a-thon' performances (I witnessed one live, so people can't say that it was purely Decca's fault), Honeck and the PSO 'time' when to let the brass and percussion stick out, and not at just every available opportunity. Woodwinds are there when you want to hear them (bassoons could be a tad stronger, but that's nearly always the case). The PSO strings are astonishingly good in the finale, and the same holds true for those strings in the famous Adagietto to their recent M5.

I totally agree with the high praise for the Honeck/PSO M3 and feel just as strongly for their M5. M1 and M4 I'm still less convinced by, but they both certainly have their fine moments as well (great finale to M1). More than anything, there's just a dark 'earthiness' and 'grittiness' that I find so totally appropriate for Mahler - a composer fully attuned with nature in both a tangible, physical way, and in an intellectual way (via literature).

[John Kim]

Barry,

I'd love to hear Honeck/PSO doing M6, M8 and M9!

John

[barry guerrero]

Ditto. If they stay on course, their Mahler 6 should be amazing. The strange thing is, that would make it two very good M6 recordings coming from Pennsylvania - the other being Eshenbach/Philly, of course.

[Prospero]

Honeck and the PSO are scheduled to perform the 6th mid-June. So, it's pretty certain there will be a recording from those performances.

For those interested, Honeck is one of the most compelling on screen commentators on Carlos Kleiber in the documentary film on Kleiber: "Traces to Nowhere." I think the film has in the past been on YouTube in segments. Not sure of its current status there just now.

Best to all,

Tom in Vermont