Mahler Mania, Rebooted

[Madiel]

Thank you for the tips. I might see what happens if I sample some of those other versions - particularly Nagano as I'd already read some other comments that suggested that one might be a sufficiently different approach to elicit a different response.

[knight66]

I hope the Nagano turns the piece on for you.

Mike

[Madiel]

Okay, maybe it's just because I'm listening via my computer speakers rather than a CD with headphones, but Nagano's choir and soloists are already irritating me a little less. Well, except the tenor soloist is booming out a little bit.

EDIT: Nope, doing a quick side-by-side comparison on Spotify confirms that at the very least I prefer the choir on Nagano. As much as anything that might be because the instrumental parts are heard more strongly.

[bhodges]

Yes, do try another version. Have not heard Nagano yet, but comments (like Mike's above, and from other friens) are quite positive. I also like Sinopoli and Tennstedt, and (especially) Chailly, particularly for the spectacular sound quality.

Solti's was the first version made with the sound quality that the symphony requires, but I find his tempos a bit too driven; other conductors allow Mahler's lines a little more breathing room.

--Bruce

[knight66]

There is a live Tennstedt that is terrific, much more organic than his studio version which disappointed me.

Mike

[Ken B]

Never have liked Mahler's 8th at all. For me, the only downside to what is, otherwise, an excellent, and rewarding, musical journey.

I cannot stand 8. Partly it might be my liking for small scale, Symphony of 200 I might have been able to stand
I haven't heard Solti's or Rattle's either -- and I own them.

[kishnevi]

Part of the problem with the Eighth is the size and scope of the work:  you have several hundred people performing a contrapuntally complex piece of music that can last almost an hour and a half, so it's easy for a conductor to not be able to nail down every single element needed.

I don't know of a recording I would consider a complete home run.  Nagano and Wit come close.  So does Tilson Thomas and Chailly on CD.  But everyone has a moment or two or four in which the excellence gets a scratch on it.  MTT, for instance,  has a baritone who seems to chew up the words in his solo towards the start of Part II.   John Shirley-Quick does the same thing to Solti--although Solti is not a favorite of mine.

I suppose I'd suggest one of the four I mentioned as possibles.  Also be aware that I specified Chailly on CD because his DVD version (with the Gewandhaus) is a rather boring affair.  (So is Dudamel's DVD.)   That's a little puzzling, in fact, because the DVD of the Second Symphony is a top notch affair--performed and released at the same time as the DVD of the Eighth, and with more or less the same forces.

[ibanezmonster]

My problem with Mahler's 8th is that while I really, really like bits of it, I don't like the whole thing.
The beginning of the second movement is great, and so is...

http://www.youtube.com/v/4GuyifwENck


The beginning and 3:30, the note at 3:41, 4:40, 5:00... this is Mahler. This is what makes his music my favorite thing in the world. It always seemed to me like in this symphony he would weave in and out of using the Mahler notes, while in the 9th symphony he solidified his language to where it is a constrant stream of Mahler notes in the first and last movements. And which Mahler symphony is my favorite and least favorite? (despite the fact that I still really like it). Yep...

[Leo K.]

The Antoni Wit M8 on Naxos is my current (favorite) top choice. The work is a hard nut to crack, but over time I've come to embrace it because of Wit's account, and also Gergiev's amazing account at St. Pauls Cathedral.

[Ken B]

Part of the problem with the Eighth is the size and scope of the work:  you have several hundred people performing a contrapuntally complex piece of music that can last almost an hour and a half, so it's easy for a conductor to not be able to nail down every single element needed.

I don't know of a recording I would consider a complete home run.  Nagano and Wit come close.  So does Tilson Thomas and Chailly on CD.  But everyone has a moment or two or four in which the excellence gets a scratch on it.  MTT, for instance,  has a baritone who seems to chew up the words in his solo towards the start of Part II.   John Shirley-Quick does the same thing to Solti--although Solti is not a favorite of mine.

I suppose I'd suggest one of the four I mentioned as possibles.  Also be aware that I specified Chailly on CD because his DVD version (with the Gewandhaus) is a rather boring affair.  (So is Dudamel's DVD.)   That's a little puzzling, in fact, because the DVD of the Second Symphony is a top notch affair--performed and released at the same time as the DVD of the Eighth, and with more or less the same forces.

And which, Jeffrey, is your preferred technique for a root canal?

[Cato]

Concerning Mahler's Symphony #8:

One can detect a certain willfulness in the concept: yet musically the two-movement structure is similar to other two-movement sonatas or symphonies, e.g. Beethoven's last Piano Sonata and Prokofiev's Second Symphony.

It is possible that the texts mask the structure for some people: one could try ignoring the texts and simply treat the voices as additional instruments.  On the other hand, such a listening experience would lessen the richness of the initial concept, i.e. that an ideational link exists between the Veni Creator Spiritus of Hrabanus Maurus and the last part of Goethe's Faust, which the musical development binds together, if one listens carefully.

Certainly when dealing with issues as large as the Cosmos and Divinity as Love and Humanity's roles, one can understand why Mahler wanted a large orchestra.

To be sure, a case can be made for addressing such wonders in subtle ways, but Mahler obviously did not choose such a path.

[Karl Henning]

Well, I ought soon-ish to revisit the Eighth.  Why, I think I even still have the score . . . .

[Leo K.]

I blame my initial hatred of the M8 on Solti's famous cso recording. It took me years (and more pleasant recordings) to hear the beauty of the M8 and discover love for it. Obviously, no one has to love it, I'm not trying to preach here

[jlaurson]

The Antoni Wit M8 on Naxos is my current (favorite) top choice. The work is a hard nut to crack, but over time I've come to embrace it because of Wit's account, and also Gergiev's amazing account at St. Pauls Cathedral.

Agree with that (largely) and your reaction to the Solti.


Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.8 (Part 1)



Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.8 (Part 2)

For a while, the Mahler Eight with Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic on Naxos was the only recording (easily) available in the U.S. that comes close to Ozawa's splendor. Classics Today sings its praises loudly (then again, Classics Today sings "The 5 Browns" praises loudly, too) and indeed, it is a grand, a weighty, a magnificent reading. The timings are incidentally similar to Ozawa's: 6:25 for "Alles Vergängliche," 23:56 for "Veni, Creator Spiritus"—although minutes and seconds rarely tell the whole story about any Mahler symphony. Wit knows how to handle large orchestral forces: His 2000 recording of Messiaen's Symphonie Turangalila (with the Polish Radio SO) was the disc that turned me on to Naxos as a high quality in label in the first place; a Turangalila to hold its pride of place against Chung (DG) and Nagano (Warner). The Mahler meanwhile is well paced (at just under 81 minutes the Naxos engineers were sadly unable to fit it onto one disc, eating up the Naxos price advantage), this is the kind of "Continental" interpretation I need to hear in the Eighth.

Unlikely relief comes from Valery Gergiev (LSO Live, SACD). Having found his Mahler thus far aimless, pointless, and of little interest, my hopes for his Eighth were low. It's easy to exceed low expectations, of course; there are politicians who have made careers of doing nothing else. But Gergiev's live recording from July 2008 enjoys the natural reverberation of St Paul's Cathedral instead of the small, dry acoustic of the Barbican Hall. His crony-ist all-Russian selection of singers acquits itself well enough, the London Symphony Orchestra performs with routine, jazzed up by a touch of dedication. Gergiev is fairly quick (77 min.), especially considering that he has to deal with more natural reverb than other conductors, but it is evidently a mistake to assume a direct correlation of length, breadth, and atmospheric momentousness.

[Madiel]

It is possible that the texts mask the structure for some people: one could try ignoring the texts and simply treat the voices as additional instruments.  On the other hand, such a listening experience would lessen the richness of the initial concept, i.e. that an ideational link exists between the Veni Creator Spiritus of Hrabanus Maurus and the last part of Goethe's Faust, which the musical development binds together, if one listens carefully.

Well, I've already noted that the Nagano reading was immediately a bit more appealing, simply because the voices were treated a bit more like additional instruments, in terms of the balance.

I've already observed in the Mahler 2 blind listening, also, that a reading which placed the voice very much to the forefront in Urlicht was not to my liking. One of the attractions of Mahler to me is his very skilful and colourful orchestral scoring. It's definitely my preference to avoid the voices dominating the texture. And indeed, some of the linkages between the movements are in the instrumental parts, not the vocal ones.

[Wanderer]

Concerning Mahler's Symphony #8:

One can detect a certain willfulness in the concept: yet musically the two-movement structure is similar to other two-movement sonatas or symphonies, e.g. Beethoven's last Piano Sonata and Prokofiev's Second Symphony.

It is possible that the texts mask the structure for some people: one could try ignoring the texts and simply treat the voices as additional instruments.  On the other hand, such a listening experience would lessen the richness of the initial concept, i.e. that an ideational link exists between the Veni Creator Spiritus of Hrabanus Maurus and the last part of Goethe's Faust, which the musical development binds together, if one listens carefully.

Certainly when dealing with issues as large as the Cosmos and Divinity as Love and Humanity's roles, one can understand why Mahler wanted a large orchestra.

To be sure, a case can be made for addressing such wonders in subtle ways, but Mahler obviously did not choose such a path.

Words of wisdom.

I see I'm in the minority here that hasn't struggled with this work; in fact, it's been one of the reasons I loved Mahler when I first listened to his music oh, so many years ago. The second-part Faust setting always makes me think how awesome a fully-fledged Mahler opera would be.

Segerstam, Nagano and Wit are my top favourite renditions; the most memorable version I've heard recently being a surprisingly good Gergiev, it easily being the most memorable rendition in his otherwise quite problematic Mahler cycle.

[knight66]

I had no problem either and it was the first of his symphonies I encountered. I did learn it by singing in Chorus when I was 18, so perhaps just listening would have been more challenging. The one I cannot crack is No 3, where I don't get the relationship between the movements, it hits me as random. I rarely listen to it all the way through.

Mike

[Ken B]

I had no problem either and it was the first of his symphonies I encountered. I did learn it by singing in Chorus when I was 18, so perhaps just listening would have been more challenging. The one I cannot crack is No 3, where I don't get the relationship between the movements, it hits me as random. I rarely listen to it all the way through.

Mike

I find that about 3 too.

[knight66]

Mahler wanted to convey everything in the world and by the end of the third movement I feel he has succeeded and time to finish already. Sheesh!

Mike

[Roberto]

Words of wisdom.

I agree! Mahler 8 is not my favorite Mahler symphony but I like both recordings I have: Solti on Decca and Inbal on Denon. (Although they have chosen different approach.)

The one I cannot crack is No 3, where I don't get the relationship between the movements, it hits me as random. I rarely listen to it all the way through.

I love the first three movement of the 3rd but last movement is always too long for me...