Mahler by Tennstedt.

[oscar]

I would like to know which are the better Mahler recordings conducted by Klaus Tennstedt.  I see that lately several live ones are being published.  Are these to be preferred ?

cheers,

Oscar.

[alpsman]

Oscar,

I think that a major problem with Tennstedt's Mahler is the playing of the LPO( not idiomatic playing and technical insecure).This is something even  Brits reviewers think about. And the recordings per se are not distinguised.
Recently I heard again the 3 and found nothing special about it.

I have but not hear yet a M5 live from Tokyo thar have some reputation.
Also if anyone think to afford Tennstedt's Mahler, he might considere the Japanese edition of EMI recordings.

[mahlerei]

Tennstedt's Mahler hasn't worn as well as I expected it to. That said, I remember snapping up the LPs as they were released and enjoying them immensely. Nos 3, 7 and 8 struck me as the best of the lot but his live Mahler 5 (on the HMV label here in the UK) and the Legends Mahler 7 are in another league altogether. On DVD his Mahler 1 and 8 is a very fine pairing, too.

Make no mistake, Tennstedt was a very good Mahlerian and a very generous man to boot. Those of us who saw him here in London during his illness will have some idea of his strength in adversity. As for writing off the LPO as 'unidiomatic' I'm sorry but I can't agree with that.

[John Kim]

Among the Tennstedt-led Mahler recordings, I like

M2/LPO **1/2
M4/LPO ***
M5/LPO (studio & live) ***
M6/LPO (live) ***
M8/LPO ***
DLVDE **1/2

John,

[sperlsco]

I would like to know which are the better Mahler recordings conducted by Klaus Tennstedt.  I see that lately several live ones are being published.  Are these to be preferred ?

cheers,

Oscar.

I am a big fan of live Tennstedt.  With the exception of the M8 DVD, Tennstedt's live recordings are far preferable to his studio ones.  In fact I put his live M1 (Chicago SO), M5, M6, M7 (all LPO) in my first tier of favorites.  There is a level of intensity and excitement in all of those that is completely absent from the studio recordings. 

[barry guerrero]

l think that the two-disc "Great Recordings Of The Century" (EMI) reissue of Tennstedt's M4/M8 is pretty darn by any standards. At least his M8 has plenty of organ. Pretty good cast too. He takes the scherzo to M4 much quicker than usual, and I like that too. Norrington makes the argument that the scherzo really should be conducted in 1 (one beat to the bar, instead of three). I think he's on to something there.

[perotin]

M5 2011 96kHz/24bit EMI studio remaster
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD5099970561753

[ChrisH]

Don't forget his Mahler 5 with New York; you can get it in the very expensive Mahler Broadcasts box set. It's my favorite 5th of Tennstedts'.

[Penny]

At the beginning of my discovery of Mahler back in 1991 or 92, I had the great privilege of seeing Tennstedt conduct M6 at Warwick.  It was a great performance but how the orchestra followed his beat I do not know to this day.  He seemed to be all over the place.

[Prospero]

There are a number of underground live Tennstedt Mahler performances from NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and perhaps Cleveland. The sound on the Philadelphia 9 and 7 is very good, and a NY 6  outstanding.

I attended a Mahler 6 with the LPO in London in April 1983 that was probably the greatest single orchestral performance I have ever heard. My wife said it was the greatest performance she had ever heard, but she was so overwhelmed she said she didn't want to hear the 6th again for at least 20 years.

We all thought we were going to die, along with Tennstedt.

[umbernisitani]

There's a big EMI Tennstedt box containing three of his live recordings as well as the studio cycle (live M5 from 1988, live M6 from 1991 and live M7 from 1993).  I find them to be both interpretatively and sonically superior to the studio performances.  Quite often his studio performance sound contrived (the plodding finale of his studio M5 for example), and at any rate they were ill-recorded by Tennstedt's unwilling producer John Willan who didn't like Mahler.  Those live performances are mostly notably broader than the studio ones (even though the live M5 finale is much faster than the studio one), and they never fail to amaze me for their broad sweep, sensitivity, drama and spontaneity, as if the music was just composed at that moment.

The LPO plays almost perfectly during those live performances and sounds so much more powerful and translucent than the studio ones.  (The brass section really flexes their muscles during the climaxes!!)  I'd like to single out the 1991 Sixth, a positively terrifying reading with passion and darkness equaling--even surpassing--that of Lenny in his VPO recording for DG.  The hammer blows are only second to Levi on Telarc in terms of sheer presence.  A very broad performance, certainly (91 mins), but always devastatingly effective.  Most delightfully, it does not sound deliberate at all.  My absolute favorite Mahler 6, bar none.