DG-DVD
This production is filmed on location and captures the essence of Renaissance Italy sublimely. Swirly mist rising from darkened canals and cloaked figures in dimly-lit alleyways certainly heighten the power of the piece. A young Pavarotti, who effortlessly sings the Duke of Mantua, even climbs a tree. This is Jean-Pierre Ponnelle at his best. His Rigoletto, Ingvar Wixell, is touching in his portrayal and sings the role with aplomb. Edita Gruberova is a sensational Gilda and Chailly and the Vienna Philharmonic are on cracking form.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Beethoven- Complete Symphonies on DVD
Beethoven Symphonies- BPO/Karajan
While the performances arc highly polished, these are really collectors' items. There is very little visual variation, and I found myself waiting in vain for a long shot of the whole orchestra, particularly at climactic moments. The discs don't make use of the most fundamental of DVD features: there is no menu, so you can only access individual movements by scrolling through each of the preceding ones.
While the performances arc highly polished, these are really collectors' items. There is very little visual variation, and I found myself waiting in vain for a long shot of the whole orchestra, particularly at climactic moments. The discs don't make use of the most fundamental of DVD features: there is no menu, so you can only access individual movements by scrolling through each of the preceding ones.
Beethoven: Complete Symphonies- BPO/Karajan
On Beethoven complete symphonies:
Beethoven Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 2; Symphony No. 3; Symphony No. 4; Symphony No. 5; Symphony No. 6; Symphony No. 7; Symphony No. 8; Symphony No. 9Gundula Janowitz (soprano), Hilde Rössl-Majdan (alto), Waldemar Kmentt (tenor), Walter Berry (bass) Vienna Singverein, Berlin PO/Herbert von Karajan
Label: DG Complete Beethoven Edition
Cat No: 453 701-2 ADD 1963
Run Time: 331:54 (5 discs)
Performance: ****
Sound: ***
One may feel that DG missed a golden opportunity here to offer a complete cycle featuring conductors such as Böhm, Jochum, Carlos Kleiber and Gardiner. Nonetheless, faced with a straight choice between their three Karajan cycles, I would probably opt for these Sixties performances. Current tastes may favour smaller-sized orchestral forces which place the first and second violins on opposite sides, a greater equality between the wind and string sections and a more consistent observation of all Beethoven’s repeat marks, but Karajan’s beautifully manicured interpretations compel admiration, not least for the outstanding playing of the Berlin Philharmonic. Erik Levi
Beethoven: Complete Symphonies (Karajan Gold) Berlin PO/Herbert von Karajan
Label: DG
Cat No: 439 000-2 DDD
Run Time: (20 discs, also available separately, 439 001/20-2)
Notionally to mark the 85th anniversary of Karajan’s birth, Deutsche Grammophon has re-released 20 CDs under the banner of Karajan Gold, available together or individually (also on DCCs), and consisting of the Eighties recordings of the conductor’s central orchestral repertory. Many of these were widely felt to be less than satisfactory when originally issued, especially the Beethoven symphonies, with an opaque and reverberative sound that marred the climaxes, and DG seem to have been prompted into developing a new remastering process, the grandly named ‘Original-Image Bit-Processing’. The results are indeed fairly impressive, removing the shrillness from the strings and clarifying the orchestral texture, in particular rendering the woodwind warm and immediate, so that now these recordings can stand direct comparison with their earlier counterparts. Those who found the 1977 Beethoven cycle oppressively slick might be more sympathetic to these accounts, recorded relatively quickly and in long takes: there is an unexpected spontaneity here, and the seamless Karajan sound is relaxed to the extent of allowing greater local detail and dynamic contrast, while (of course) retaining a magisterial rhythmic and structural control. Particularly fine are the intensely felt Eroica (439 002-2), coupled with the Egmont Overture, and an expansively Romantic Eighth (439 005-2), with the Fidelio and Leonora No. 3 overtures and a monumental Coriolan (Performances ***** Sound *****). The First and Second (439 001-2) are somewhat patchy, however, and the soloists in the Ninth (439 006-2) don’t quite match those in either the 1962 or 1977 DG versions (Performances **** Sound *****).
Beethoven Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 2; Symphony No. 3; Symphony No. 4; Symphony No. 5; Symphony No. 6; Symphony No. 7; Symphony No. 8; Symphony No. 9Gundula Janowitz (soprano), Hilde Rössl-Majdan (alto), Waldemar Kmentt (tenor), Walter Berry (bass) Vienna Singverein, Berlin PO/Herbert von Karajan
Label: DG Complete Beethoven Edition
Cat No: 453 701-2 ADD 1963
Run Time: 331:54 (5 discs)
Performance: ****
Sound: ***
One may feel that DG missed a golden opportunity here to offer a complete cycle featuring conductors such as Böhm, Jochum, Carlos Kleiber and Gardiner. Nonetheless, faced with a straight choice between their three Karajan cycles, I would probably opt for these Sixties performances. Current tastes may favour smaller-sized orchestral forces which place the first and second violins on opposite sides, a greater equality between the wind and string sections and a more consistent observation of all Beethoven’s repeat marks, but Karajan’s beautifully manicured interpretations compel admiration, not least for the outstanding playing of the Berlin Philharmonic. Erik Levi
Beethoven: Complete Symphonies (Karajan Gold) Berlin PO/Herbert von Karajan
Label: DG
Cat No: 439 000-2 DDD
Run Time: (20 discs, also available separately, 439 001/20-2)
Notionally to mark the 85th anniversary of Karajan’s birth, Deutsche Grammophon has re-released 20 CDs under the banner of Karajan Gold, available together or individually (also on DCCs), and consisting of the Eighties recordings of the conductor’s central orchestral repertory. Many of these were widely felt to be less than satisfactory when originally issued, especially the Beethoven symphonies, with an opaque and reverberative sound that marred the climaxes, and DG seem to have been prompted into developing a new remastering process, the grandly named ‘Original-Image Bit-Processing’. The results are indeed fairly impressive, removing the shrillness from the strings and clarifying the orchestral texture, in particular rendering the woodwind warm and immediate, so that now these recordings can stand direct comparison with their earlier counterparts. Those who found the 1977 Beethoven cycle oppressively slick might be more sympathetic to these accounts, recorded relatively quickly and in long takes: there is an unexpected spontaneity here, and the seamless Karajan sound is relaxed to the extent of allowing greater local detail and dynamic contrast, while (of course) retaining a magisterial rhythmic and structural control. Particularly fine are the intensely felt Eroica (439 002-2), coupled with the Egmont Overture, and an expansively Romantic Eighth (439 005-2), with the Fidelio and Leonora No. 3 overtures and a monumental Coriolan (Performances ***** Sound *****). The First and Second (439 001-2) are somewhat patchy, however, and the soloists in the Ninth (439 006-2) don’t quite match those in either the 1962 or 1977 DG versions (Performances **** Sound *****).
Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
In early May of 2008 I started exploring Mozart's Le Nozze again. My main goal this time was to explore how different ensembles of casts, orchestras and conductor read it. Here are the reviews from BBC music magazine, and then my own views:
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Cecilia Bartoli, Sylvia McNair, Andrea Rost, Cheryl Studer, Boje Skovhus Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna PO/Claudio Abbado
Label: DG
Cat No: 445 903-2 DDD
Run Time: 169:48 (3 discs)
Performance: *****
Sound: *****
The choice here would seem to be clear-cut: between a big-budget, starrily cast, ‘traditional’ reading, under the direction of a conductor more attuned to late 19th- and 20th-century expressionismo, and a more modest, home-grown affair in the capable hands of one of our leading Mozartians. Life, however, is never that simple. For one thing, Abbado and the VPO are clearly au fait with the insights of the period-instrument movement. Every bit as deft and transparent as Mackerras and the SCO, the richer sound and polish of the Viennese players is just too hard to resist. For all Mackerras’s skills in tapping the Mozartian essence, the SCO can’t help but sound anaemic in comparison. Abbado, at one with his singers, also displays a more acute sense of theatre; Mackerras’s often undercharacterise. The exceptions are his Figaro (Alastair Miles) and Bartolo (Alfonso Antoniozzi). Otherwise Abbado wins hands down, with Sylvia McNair’s impish Susanna an absolute delight, Boje Skovhus every bit the virile young Count, and Cheryl Studer a touching, dignified Countess. The DG is the one to go for then (released mid-September), despite Mackerras’s added bonus of a substantial appendix of replacement numbers (not all by Mozart – and it shows!). Antony Bye
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gundula Janowitz, Edith Mathis, Hermann Prey, Tatiana Troyanos; Deutsche Oper Berlin Chorus & Orchestra/Karl Böhm
Label: DG
Cat No: 449 728-2 ADD (Reissue)
Run Time: (3 discs)
Performance: *****
Sound: *****
Poised between the old certainties of the ‘great German tradition’ and the new freedoms/bonds of historically aware performance, Böhm’s 1968 Figaro still manages to steer its middle course rather well, spirited enough for those repelled by the weight of the Furtwängler/ Klemperer approach, but with enough expressive input and teleological drive to cater to those for whom today’s period performers seem impossibly lightweight and aimless. With no weak links amongst a stylish, largely German cast (among whom I would single out Janowitz’s radiant Countess, Prey’s laddish Figaro and Fischer-Dieskau’s dangerous-to-know Count), this is ensemble opera at its best and continues to justify its honoured place in the catalogue. Antony Bye
MozartMozartLe nozze di FigaroIldebrando d’Arcangelo, Anna Netrebko, Bo Skovhus, Dorothea Röschmann, Christine Schäfer; Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopenchor; Vienna PO/Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Label:
DG
Cat No:
477 6558
Run Time:
189:56 mins (3 discs)
Performance: **
Sound: *****
With these forces, how could anyone possibly make a hash of this Figaro? Not, it seems, by accident.This superb cast alone should outweigh most conceivable problems. You might perhaps find Counts and Countesses to match Skovhus and Roschmann, or a less black-voiced basso Figaro than D’Arcangelo; but surely none better. Even the hype-allergic could only applaud Netrebko’s Susanna, McLaughlin’s Marcellina, Schäfer’s Cherubino, and the rest of the ensemble. Ensemble it is, too, to an extent rare in such jetset festival stagings, with a genuine sense of interplay. Except that the interplay is consistently weird – either lifeless or agonized.These days, one automatically suspects the producer, but it’s eminently clear that Harnoncourt is driving the process. This is one of the slowest, most turgid Figaros since Klemperer’s famous disaster; but unlike Klemperer, witty beneath that granite exterior, Harnoncourt leaches every trace of Da Pontean wit and Mozartian sparkle out of the music, so systematically it has to be deliberate. Why? The man himself confidently assures us that Figaro is witty ‘only in the sense of intelligent’ and that playing it as fast-moving comedy ‘degrades Mozart to the level of a second-rate Rossini’. Whether composer or librettist would agree is seriously doubtful; but disregarding that – as fashion demands – does this approach actually work?Best answered, perhaps, by the DVD (see review, p84). But even if this intrigues you, I’d suggest you listen more widely – Gui, Giulini, Solti, Jacobs – before you risk good money. Michael Scott Rohan
I also listened to:
Le Nozze Di Figaro / Marriner / St. Martin-in-the-Fields / Van Dam, Hendricks, Raimondi, Popp, Baltsa, Lloyd, Palmer, Baldin
Hendricks is a great Susanna. Her reading fits the impish Susanna, her sonorous agile vibratos works great with thie operatic role. Van Dam is a a great lyric Baritone, Raimondi a nasty count.
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Cecilia Bartoli, Sylvia McNair, Andrea Rost, Cheryl Studer, Boje Skovhus Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna PO/Claudio Abbado
Label: DG
Cat No: 445 903-2 DDD
Run Time: 169:48 (3 discs)
Performance: *****
Sound: *****
The choice here would seem to be clear-cut: between a big-budget, starrily cast, ‘traditional’ reading, under the direction of a conductor more attuned to late 19th- and 20th-century expressionismo, and a more modest, home-grown affair in the capable hands of one of our leading Mozartians. Life, however, is never that simple. For one thing, Abbado and the VPO are clearly au fait with the insights of the period-instrument movement. Every bit as deft and transparent as Mackerras and the SCO, the richer sound and polish of the Viennese players is just too hard to resist. For all Mackerras’s skills in tapping the Mozartian essence, the SCO can’t help but sound anaemic in comparison. Abbado, at one with his singers, also displays a more acute sense of theatre; Mackerras’s often undercharacterise. The exceptions are his Figaro (Alastair Miles) and Bartolo (Alfonso Antoniozzi). Otherwise Abbado wins hands down, with Sylvia McNair’s impish Susanna an absolute delight, Boje Skovhus every bit the virile young Count, and Cheryl Studer a touching, dignified Countess. The DG is the one to go for then (released mid-September), despite Mackerras’s added bonus of a substantial appendix of replacement numbers (not all by Mozart – and it shows!). Antony Bye
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gundula Janowitz, Edith Mathis, Hermann Prey, Tatiana Troyanos; Deutsche Oper Berlin Chorus & Orchestra/Karl Böhm
Label: DG
Cat No: 449 728-2 ADD (Reissue)
Run Time: (3 discs)
Performance: *****
Sound: *****
Poised between the old certainties of the ‘great German tradition’ and the new freedoms/bonds of historically aware performance, Böhm’s 1968 Figaro still manages to steer its middle course rather well, spirited enough for those repelled by the weight of the Furtwängler/ Klemperer approach, but with enough expressive input and teleological drive to cater to those for whom today’s period performers seem impossibly lightweight and aimless. With no weak links amongst a stylish, largely German cast (among whom I would single out Janowitz’s radiant Countess, Prey’s laddish Figaro and Fischer-Dieskau’s dangerous-to-know Count), this is ensemble opera at its best and continues to justify its honoured place in the catalogue. Antony Bye
MozartMozartLe nozze di FigaroIldebrando d’Arcangelo, Anna Netrebko, Bo Skovhus, Dorothea Röschmann, Christine Schäfer; Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopenchor; Vienna PO/Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Label:
DG
Cat No:
477 6558
Run Time:
189:56 mins (3 discs)
Performance: **
Sound: *****
With these forces, how could anyone possibly make a hash of this Figaro? Not, it seems, by accident.This superb cast alone should outweigh most conceivable problems. You might perhaps find Counts and Countesses to match Skovhus and Roschmann, or a less black-voiced basso Figaro than D’Arcangelo; but surely none better. Even the hype-allergic could only applaud Netrebko’s Susanna, McLaughlin’s Marcellina, Schäfer’s Cherubino, and the rest of the ensemble. Ensemble it is, too, to an extent rare in such jetset festival stagings, with a genuine sense of interplay. Except that the interplay is consistently weird – either lifeless or agonized.These days, one automatically suspects the producer, but it’s eminently clear that Harnoncourt is driving the process. This is one of the slowest, most turgid Figaros since Klemperer’s famous disaster; but unlike Klemperer, witty beneath that granite exterior, Harnoncourt leaches every trace of Da Pontean wit and Mozartian sparkle out of the music, so systematically it has to be deliberate. Why? The man himself confidently assures us that Figaro is witty ‘only in the sense of intelligent’ and that playing it as fast-moving comedy ‘degrades Mozart to the level of a second-rate Rossini’. Whether composer or librettist would agree is seriously doubtful; but disregarding that – as fashion demands – does this approach actually work?Best answered, perhaps, by the DVD (see review, p84). But even if this intrigues you, I’d suggest you listen more widely – Gui, Giulini, Solti, Jacobs – before you risk good money. Michael Scott Rohan
I also listened to:
Le Nozze Di Figaro / Marriner / St. Martin-in-the-Fields / Van Dam, Hendricks, Raimondi, Popp, Baltsa, Lloyd, Palmer, Baldin
Hendricks is a great Susanna. Her reading fits the impish Susanna, her sonorous agile vibratos works great with thie operatic role. Van Dam is a a great lyric Baritone, Raimondi a nasty count.
Mahler Symphony No.2
My views about Rattle's performance of Mahler's 2nd symphony, from May 12, 2007.
Mahler: Symphony No.2
CBSO
Simon Rattle
1990
Performance: *****
Sound: ****
I found this performance very interesting. The first thing that caught my attention was the slower tempo compared to other performances I had heard (Klemperer, Abbado). Bernstein’s is slower than the latter performances but Rattle’s version sounds more sonorous. Slower tempo gives him a wider field to focus on the coloring of sounds. The opening bass is expansive and sonorous. Also his focus is more on the melodic line than the transitory motivic shifts in orchestration that characterizes Mahler’s orchestration. The effect is something very new. The closing of the first movement (the chromatic descent), however, sounded artificial to me. I liked the more “resoluto” fast ending of Abbado better. Of note, are the nicely audible harp notes within the movement and at the end of the movement. The first movement is long enough to occupy the first CD of the two CD set.
The sound is not as good as Bernstein’s DG recording, and Abbado’s first DG recording in 90s. The violins sound dull and the orchestra sound a bit remote altogether.
Rattle is very successful in creating the anxious atmosphere of the last movement. I specially liked the way he interpreted the crisis/climactic moment with stressing the bass drums. The finale’s organ is spectacular.
Penguin guide names this performance a “key” performance. But I am not sure about this. Sound-wise it is not as good as previous performances. Performance-wise it’s another reading, but is it better because it is newer and we are used to older performances?
Mahler: Symphony No.2
CBSO
Simon Rattle
1990
Performance: *****
Sound: ****
I found this performance very interesting. The first thing that caught my attention was the slower tempo compared to other performances I had heard (Klemperer, Abbado). Bernstein’s is slower than the latter performances but Rattle’s version sounds more sonorous. Slower tempo gives him a wider field to focus on the coloring of sounds. The opening bass is expansive and sonorous. Also his focus is more on the melodic line than the transitory motivic shifts in orchestration that characterizes Mahler’s orchestration. The effect is something very new. The closing of the first movement (the chromatic descent), however, sounded artificial to me. I liked the more “resoluto” fast ending of Abbado better. Of note, are the nicely audible harp notes within the movement and at the end of the movement. The first movement is long enough to occupy the first CD of the two CD set.
The sound is not as good as Bernstein’s DG recording, and Abbado’s first DG recording in 90s. The violins sound dull and the orchestra sound a bit remote altogether.
Rattle is very successful in creating the anxious atmosphere of the last movement. I specially liked the way he interpreted the crisis/climactic moment with stressing the bass drums. The finale’s organ is spectacular.
Penguin guide names this performance a “key” performance. But I am not sure about this. Sound-wise it is not as good as previous performances. Performance-wise it’s another reading, but is it better because it is newer and we are used to older performances?
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Beethoven Piano Sonatas: Barenboim on EMI-DVD
Review from BBC Music Magazine:
Beethoven
Complete Piano Sonatas
Daniel Barenboim (piano); plus Lang Lang, Alessio Bax, David Kadouch, Saleem Abboud Ashkar, Shai Wosner and Jonathan Biss
Label: EMI
Cat No: 368 9939 (NTSC system; LPCM stereo; 16:9 picture format)
Run Time: (7 discs)
Performance: ****
Sound: *****
At the end of this six DVD marathon, lasting about 17 hours, there is no question about one thing: Daniel Barenboim is a great teacher. The last two DVDs, of master-classes that he gave in Chicago in 2005, demonstrate that to magnificent effect. In them he has six highly gifted pianists, including Lang Lang, already famous, and Jonathan Biss, well on the way, and listens intently as each of them plays a movement of one of the sonatas. Few listeners will have many complaints about these performances, but Barenboim, in a remarkable display of encouragement combined with critique, gently takes them apart and, playing passages himself on a second piano, gradually convinces the pianists of the necessity of a whole range of adjustments, technical and interpretative. He doesn’t try to get them to imitate him, but to realise more fully the conception of the piece which he intuits that they have. It is a masterclass above all in teaching, and also a rebuke to easy listening; he really persuades the viewer as well as the player that every note counts, and the balance of every note in a chord, and so on. These long, exhausting sessions – slightly less than an hour per student – set a standard in concentration and seriousness.The first four discs, filmed in Berlin’s Staatsoper, has Barenboim performing the complete sonatas. He is not one of those pianists, such as Richter, Arrau, Kempff, Gould, whose recitals are added to by being watched. Largely expressionless, and with short podgy fingers, he is better heard than seen. Even then, I found that what he said about the sonatas was more illuminating, more moving, than his performances of them, which seem, often, too much to be further lessons. Spontaneity, which he rightly insists is crucial, after all the thinking has been done, is often lacking. Even in the early and most straightforward ones he seems to be intent on drawing our attention to this detail or that. And in the most difficult sonatas, such as the Hammerklavier, Op. 106, he takes some surprisingly leisurely tempos which suggest not only that he wants us to hear everything but that the horrible technical demands of the works are now slightly beyond his reach. There is more to be learnt here than enjoyed. Michael Tanner
Beethoven
Complete Piano Sonatas
Daniel Barenboim (piano); plus Lang Lang, Alessio Bax, David Kadouch, Saleem Abboud Ashkar, Shai Wosner and Jonathan Biss
Label: EMI
Cat No: 368 9939 (NTSC system; LPCM stereo; 16:9 picture format)
Run Time: (7 discs)
Performance: ****
Sound: *****
At the end of this six DVD marathon, lasting about 17 hours, there is no question about one thing: Daniel Barenboim is a great teacher. The last two DVDs, of master-classes that he gave in Chicago in 2005, demonstrate that to magnificent effect. In them he has six highly gifted pianists, including Lang Lang, already famous, and Jonathan Biss, well on the way, and listens intently as each of them plays a movement of one of the sonatas. Few listeners will have many complaints about these performances, but Barenboim, in a remarkable display of encouragement combined with critique, gently takes them apart and, playing passages himself on a second piano, gradually convinces the pianists of the necessity of a whole range of adjustments, technical and interpretative. He doesn’t try to get them to imitate him, but to realise more fully the conception of the piece which he intuits that they have. It is a masterclass above all in teaching, and also a rebuke to easy listening; he really persuades the viewer as well as the player that every note counts, and the balance of every note in a chord, and so on. These long, exhausting sessions – slightly less than an hour per student – set a standard in concentration and seriousness.The first four discs, filmed in Berlin’s Staatsoper, has Barenboim performing the complete sonatas. He is not one of those pianists, such as Richter, Arrau, Kempff, Gould, whose recitals are added to by being watched. Largely expressionless, and with short podgy fingers, he is better heard than seen. Even then, I found that what he said about the sonatas was more illuminating, more moving, than his performances of them, which seem, often, too much to be further lessons. Spontaneity, which he rightly insists is crucial, after all the thinking has been done, is often lacking. Even in the early and most straightforward ones he seems to be intent on drawing our attention to this detail or that. And in the most difficult sonatas, such as the Hammerklavier, Op. 106, he takes some surprisingly leisurely tempos which suggest not only that he wants us to hear everything but that the horrible technical demands of the works are now slightly beyond his reach. There is more to be learnt here than enjoyed. Michael Tanner
Mahler Symphonies: Bernstein on DGG-DVD
Here's the review from BBC music magazine:
Mahler
Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 2; Symphony No. 3; Symphony No. 4; Symphony No. 5; Symphony No. 6; Symphony No. 7; Symphony No. 8; Symphony No. 9; Symphony No. 10 ; Das Lied von der ErdeSoloists & Choirs; LSO, Israel PO, Vienna Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein
Label: DG Cat No: 073 4088 (NTSC system; dts 5.1; 4:3 picture) Reissue (1972-77)
Run Time: (9 discs)
Performance:*****
Sound: ****
The music-making on these DVDs is timeless, of a passion and a precision that are unique and unsurpassable. Yet the visuals, captured in vigilant detail by Humphrey Burton, come very much from an era when, from the orchestra’s point of view, showing your feelings was anathema (and many of these players had seen where excess displays of emotion might lead). As a telling rehearsal of the Fifth Symphony reveals, Bernstein’s extreme expressionism, a mirror of Mahler’s own, met with some scepticism from a dour, nearly-all-male Vienna Philharmonic; yet in performance, the frightening intensity etched into the conductor’s sweat-drenched face finds its way into the sound and style of these unsmiling players. Bernstein’s approach, never loosely self-indulgent, is unpredictable: the Fourth Symphony is as fast and light as the Third is slow and heavy. For Bernstein, the more energetic the tragedy, the more he relishes it: broad smiles abound as he conducts with his shoulders in the lightning marches of the Sixth or as he bounces in the grim waltz at the centre of the Seventh – perhaps the most electrifying performance of all, and certainly the one in which Viennese warmth brings the biggest gains, winning over both Bernstein’s New York recordings on CD. Outstripping all else in lacerating expression, though, is the finale of the Ninth, where the VPO visits Berlin and a young, if sporadic, audience, replaces the fossilised crowds of Vienna’s Musikvereinsaal. The harsher sound of the Israel Philharmonic gives us a tough Lied von der Erde lit by the incandescent emotion of Christa Ludwig. Janet Baker’s very different poise in the Resurrection Symphony communicates religious awe in Ely Cathedral, with the LSO burning for Bernstein and camerawork soaring heavenwards to the octagon. Not everything is perfect: dodgy Vienna brass intonation sours the Fifth’s finale and the Eighth features a disastrous mezzo among an otherwise world-class solo line-up (Unitel’s Salzburg alternative is preferable). But Bernstein’s disciplined genius makes everything, whether or not you agree with it, compelling viewing, and his talks – including a brilliant impromptu session on Das Lied von der Erde, fags in hand – are equally mesmerising.
David Nice
Mahler
Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 2; Symphony No. 3; Symphony No. 4; Symphony No. 5; Symphony No. 6; Symphony No. 7; Symphony No. 8; Symphony No. 9; Symphony No. 10 ; Das Lied von der ErdeSoloists & Choirs; LSO, Israel PO, Vienna Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein
Label: DG Cat No: 073 4088 (NTSC system; dts 5.1; 4:3 picture) Reissue (1972-77)
Run Time: (9 discs)
Performance:*****
Sound: ****
The music-making on these DVDs is timeless, of a passion and a precision that are unique and unsurpassable. Yet the visuals, captured in vigilant detail by Humphrey Burton, come very much from an era when, from the orchestra’s point of view, showing your feelings was anathema (and many of these players had seen where excess displays of emotion might lead). As a telling rehearsal of the Fifth Symphony reveals, Bernstein’s extreme expressionism, a mirror of Mahler’s own, met with some scepticism from a dour, nearly-all-male Vienna Philharmonic; yet in performance, the frightening intensity etched into the conductor’s sweat-drenched face finds its way into the sound and style of these unsmiling players. Bernstein’s approach, never loosely self-indulgent, is unpredictable: the Fourth Symphony is as fast and light as the Third is slow and heavy. For Bernstein, the more energetic the tragedy, the more he relishes it: broad smiles abound as he conducts with his shoulders in the lightning marches of the Sixth or as he bounces in the grim waltz at the centre of the Seventh – perhaps the most electrifying performance of all, and certainly the one in which Viennese warmth brings the biggest gains, winning over both Bernstein’s New York recordings on CD. Outstripping all else in lacerating expression, though, is the finale of the Ninth, where the VPO visits Berlin and a young, if sporadic, audience, replaces the fossilised crowds of Vienna’s Musikvereinsaal. The harsher sound of the Israel Philharmonic gives us a tough Lied von der Erde lit by the incandescent emotion of Christa Ludwig. Janet Baker’s very different poise in the Resurrection Symphony communicates religious awe in Ely Cathedral, with the LSO burning for Bernstein and camerawork soaring heavenwards to the octagon. Not everything is perfect: dodgy Vienna brass intonation sours the Fifth’s finale and the Eighth features a disastrous mezzo among an otherwise world-class solo line-up (Unitel’s Salzburg alternative is preferable). But Bernstein’s disciplined genius makes everything, whether or not you agree with it, compelling viewing, and his talks – including a brilliant impromptu session on Das Lied von der Erde, fags in hand – are equally mesmerising.
David Nice
Mahler Symphony No.1
I missed the recent performance of CSO's Mahler 1st, under Bernard Haitink. However, I heard a lot about it through Chicago Mahlerites, which inspired me and so, I embarked on another round of Mahler listening endeaver.
I started with Haitnk's M1 with BPO in 1990s. This is now available on DVD.
I started with Haitnk's M1 with BPO in 1990s. This is now available on DVD.
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