Lorin Maazel & VPO - Mahler's 5th & 6th Symphonies

[Scion7]

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The recorded sound is fantastic / quiet surfaces.  It's a very personal interpretation - it's an interesting listen - I prefer Haitink, Morris, etc.

These records have had a very mixed reception - I suppose the general feeling is somewhat indifferent to them:


                       from Gramophone 1992
MAHLER. SYMPHONIES. Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Lorin Maazel. Sony Classical Qi() CD CD48198 (14 discs: 786 minutes: DDD). Notes, texts and translations included.

In the Fifth, Maazel is less passive than might be supposed in the opening movement. What with some excellent playing and a first-rate recording balance, one is tempted to overlook the squarish rhythms. Sample Bernstein with the same orchestra and the defects of Maazel's account are thrown into greater relief. Maazel achieves the impossible by making the Adagietto sound contrived, the finale stiff and uncertain.
In the Sixth Symphony, Maazel is again on Bernstein's turf and the comparison does not flatter him. Maazel, opting sensibly for a steadier tempo at the start, is clean and precise, bringing out the wind figuration in the second group—a not uninteresting effect— but letting the movement sag dangerously in the middle, with very little sense of direction. The third movement fares better, thanks to the natural warmth of the VP0 strings. Maazel's finale convinces at first: very slow for the brass chorale, and then speeding up at 5'12" (though not quite all the double basses are with him). But after the first hammer blow, he seems unable to handle the schizoid nature of the music, and tempos are allowed to sag so that a sudden accelerando is the only means of reaching the next section. With Bernstein, there is strength and intensity to the bitter end; Maazel's protagonist gives up the ghost without a fight.  ~ David Gutman

                    from Classics Today
"They don't like Mahler," Lorin Maazel reportedly said of the Vienna Philharmonic, and this 1983 Fifth would seem to be proof positive of that assertion. The first movement starts well enough, but come the development, with its reticent brass and coldly indifferent strings, you get the impression that the orchestra does its best to play against the music. The second movement opens with precious little of Mahler's requested vehemence, but then Maazel curiously adds his own by exhorting blatty, Shostakovich-like sounds from the low brass shortly before the big chorale, which is so underpowered it never achieves takeoff velocity. Maazel's micromanaging in the scherzo drains nearly all coherence from this enormous movement, despite his schmaltzy waltzing. After a rather placid adagio, Maazel leads a decently jovial performance of the finale but blows the end with brass playing that's far too tame in the chorale and coda.
Now, Leonard Bernstein also confronted the Vienna players' negative attitude toward Mahler, and his browbeating of them during a rehearsal of this very symphony has been famously documented on film. But, by god, he made them play, and his DG recording is a modern classic. Boulez's Vienna performance has its own unique merits as well. Either one of those recordings will satisfy far more than Maazel's, despite its generally decent (if occasionally oddly balanced) recorded sound.   --Victor Carr Jr


                       from the L.A. Times
April 23, 1989|GREG HETTMANSBERGER
MAHLER: Symphony No. 5. Vienna Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, conductor. CBS compact disc, MDK 44782. With the plethora of fine Mahler performances of the last 20 years, it is understandable that some have been overlooked. This should not be one of them. On this fully digital 1983 release, now on CBS' budget "Digital Masters" series, Maazel adopts deliberate tempos in the second and third movements, after a true funebre opening. There is no sense of bogging down, however; greater instrumental detail and structural insights are the listener's rewards. The Vienna Philharmonic is at its best, the engineering spacious and intimate, as appropriate. With 15 tracks indexed and the bargain price, this is highly recommended.

                  from MusicWeb w/Tony Duggan
Maazel is lost at sea too much of the time ...
Maazel ... deliver the notes but are largely empty vessels, all wheels and cogs but little worthwhile movement.

[Sergeant Rock]

The recorded sound is fantastic / quiet surfaces.  It's a very personal interpretation - it's an interesting listen - I prefer Haitink, Morris, etc.
These records have had a very mixed reception - I suppose the general feeling is somewhat indifferent to them:

Although I like Maazel's Mahler cycle in general (especially 1, 2, 4 and 7), 5 and 6 are weak. The Carr is right about the extraordinarily underpowered chorale climax (in both the second and fifth movements). I recall how bitterly disappointed my first listen was. I was with Maazel up to that point in the second movement, enjoying his "fresh" take on the music. But really, the chorale fails to lift off the launching pad and the music never recovers.

Sarge

[eyeresist]

Funny how the critics can't agree at all on exactly why the performances suck.