Mahler Mania, Rebooted

[aukhawk]

If anything, I may have been among the earlier GMG-Mahler-heads to point out that Boulez has recorded Mahler that goes well beyond the stereotype we might have of him. And, if I remember correctly, a lot of what I stated in my Mahler-Survey was borne out by the occ. blind listening we did here.

In the blind comparison of recordings of the 6th symphony, Boulez was ranked 5th (out of 24) and 5th out of 5 in the final round.
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,20334.240.html
Shortly after that the subject for comparison was the 1st symphony, and Boulez was ranked 13th (out of 24), unlucky not to make it into round 2.
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,20853.140.html
A later blind comparison of the 2nd symphony sadly didn't get past the first round, but at least Boulez was not among the 8 (out of 32) 1st-round fallers.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

In the blind comparison of recordings of the 6th symphony, Boulez was ranked 5th (out of 24) and 5th out of 5 in the final round.
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,20334.240.html
Shortly after that the subject for comparison was the 1st symphony, and Boulez was ranked 13th (out of 24), unlucky not to make it into round 2.
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,20853.140.html
A later blind comparison of the 2nd symphony sadly didn't get past the first round, but at least Boulez was not among the 8 (out of 32) 1st-round fallers.

Hmm... I sort of had thought he might have had higher finishes. I was probably just pleased by comments in general agreement with my takes that Sarge made, which stick to my mind disproportionately strongly. 

[aukhawk]

I wasn't intending to refute what you had written - just putting the information out there for reference 

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Nothing. Quite the opposite, I love Boulez' Mahler. I think his cycle may be the new standard-setter, surpassing Gielen in that respect. At his best he's among the best (1, 5, 6, 7), elsewhere he's at least very good (2, 4, 9), and in 3 he brings unique qualities (x-ray vision) to the work that I happen to love.

If anything, I may have been among the earlier GMG-Mahler-heads to point out that Boulez has recorded Mahler that goes well beyond the stereotype we might have of him. And, if I remember correctly, a lot of what I stated in my Mahler-Survey was borne out by the occ. blind listening we did here. (See post above/below)

But the 8th stinks. It's just atrocious. He hated it and you can hear it. Similar to Haitink's case, who also didn't get the work and couldn't muster a great performance.

Well, I think a lot of the Boulez-stereotypes don't actually fit in Mahler, which is passionate, involving, even warm (1, 2, 5), riveting (6, 7), reasonably long-lined (4, 9)... or where it applies (cool, see-through), it works well (3). But the Eighth is an uninvolved chore, ungladly performed, run down without involvement or insight. It's arguably worse than Solti, because even if Solti (or Rattle) also get it really wrong, the former has great sound and some sort of sportive passion on his side.

Ah right I missed one of your posts outlining you were only referring to the 8th. I haven't ever listened to the 8th enough to have a preference of recording so I can't say anything regarding the matter.

[Biffo]

There is so much to take in here, there has been a lot of activity since I last visited - it is probably best to start with the 8th Symphony. I find this symphony problematic and have done ever since my first encounter with it - Bernstein/LSO for CBS. Quite often I don't get to the end though I did in the most recent version I acquired (as part of a large Harmonia Mundi box of assorted choral works), Ngano and his Berlin forces. In so far as I have a favourite, it is Chailly/Concergebouw. Solti is too fenzied and Haitink just plain dull. I can't comment on Boulez as I don't have his recording.

My thoughts on Boulez and Mahler are that he is fine in the later symphonies but doesn't inhabit the 'Wunderhorn' world of the earlier works very comfortably; I didn't enjoy his No 3 though I see other posters did. The first Boulez Mahler I ever heard was his recording of Waldmarchen coupled with the Adagio from Symphony No 10. The Adagio is a poor performance made worse by using a corrupt edition of the score. Waldmarchen was interesting as it was the first ever recording but I find it goes against the Boulez stereotype by being too emotional, often to the point of being overwrought.

I am obviously not 'most' people. I was introduced to Mahler by a fellow student and his Haitink/Concertgebouw records of Symphonies 1 - 4. This was followed by Solti (No 1) and Kubelik (No 9) borrowed from a record library. The first Mahler I bought was Das Lied von der Erde (Klemperer) and Des Knaben Wunderhorn (Szell). The first numbered symphony was No 5 (Barbirolli/NPO), followed by No 6 (Kubelik/BRSO) - Bernstein (Nos 7,8 & 9) came later as did the Haitink set. Supplemented by Horenstein's No 3 (my first duplication!) these recording formed my impressions of Mahler for many years. The lunacy of multiple CD versions was still in the future.

[Cato]

Many thanks for all the comments!

The Bernstein/N.Y. Philharmonic performance of the Eighth was the first I had heard, and it is a mighty one!  I recall not liking the Solti in comparison with the Bernstein: there seemed to be some "monkeying around" in the recording booth and I found those effects jarring.

I believe this has been offered earlier: a c. 10-minute interview with Pierre Boulez specifically about Mahler:

https://www.youtube.com/v/bfLoQ1fDvEQ

[Biffo]

Many thanks for all the comments!

The Bernstein/N.Y. Philharmonic performance of the Eighth was the first I had heard, and it is a mighty one!  I recall not liking the Solti in comparison with the Bernstein: there seemed to be some "monkeying around" in the recording booth and I found those effects jarring.

I believe this has been offered earlier: a c. 10-minute interview with Pierre Boulez specifically about Mahler:

https://www.youtube.com/v/bfLoQ1fDvEQ

The Bernstein 8th I bought was recorded in London. It followed a live performance in the Royal Albert Hall and the record box rather misleadingly had a picture of that event on the front cover. The recording itself was made in Walthamstow Assembly Hall with, I believe, smaller forces. I recall reading it was an attempt to get a massive sound in a much smaller hall. I always found the sound rather congested and not comfortable to listen to. I have to add this was on LP and not very sophisticated hi-fi. I have recently bought the CBS/Sony cycle in its latest remastering. I have been working my through it but haven't reached the 8th yet; it should be interesting to hear it again after many years and in modern sound and on better equipment.

[aukhawk]

I believe this has been offered earlier: a c. 10-minute interview with Pierre Boulez specifically about Mahler:

"Did you talk to Bernstein about Mahler?"
[smiles] "I think there was an agreement we don't touch this kind of subject."   

[Mahlerian]

In the blind comparison of recordings of the 6th symphony, Boulez was ranked 5th (out of 24) and 5th out of 5 in the final round.
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,20334.240.html
Shortly after that the subject for comparison was the 1st symphony, and Boulez was ranked 13th (out of 24), unlucky not to make it into round 2.
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,20853.140.html
A later blind comparison of the 2nd symphony sadly didn't get past the first round, but at least Boulez was not among the 8 (out of 32) 1st-round fallers.

My sense is that Boulez's Mahler builds over long stretches, so in clips it can sound less than enthralling, while over the course of a movement or a symphony it becomes electric.

[Biffo]

Blind listening can be instructive and occasionally puncture prejudices. I was resistant to Karajan's Mahler for many years. Eventually I bought the 5th Symphony when it became available as a bargain price disc; I didn't enjoy it and never listened to it again. A couple of years ago I downloaded a free app which contained a Mahler symphony cycle (Nos 1 - 9).  It was an eclectic bunch of recordings and had no documentation whatsoever, in some case not even metadata. No 5 was particularly frustrating as it was dramatic performance that had me gripped. I was finally able to access the metadata by transferring it to my PC. The performance was Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, the same performance I had disdained on CD.

[André]

The interview with Boulez is fascinating in many respects, particularly for the lucidity, honesty and candidness of his views. Not to mention his impeccable command of the language - he was even more fluent in German, I think. A master thinker, no less.

When I wrote about the « levitation » I look for in Mahler's music, let me add that I don't find that in « overinterepreted » performances, quite the contrary. Therefore none of Bernstein's recordings makes it to my top 3 for any given symphony. Certainly I am much taken with some (not all) very intense, impassioned performances, whether fast or slow, like those of Scherchen, Barbirolli, Morris or Horenstein.

As a rule, though, my tastes go toward clean, direct, no-nonsense conducting like Haitink's, Kubelik's or even Abravanel's. For some reason they manage (IMHO) to find the right geist in their Mahler interpretations and that arises strictly from their cool, lucid, uninterventionist way with the scores. In sum, I enjoy many different types of approaches, but it's the affection and sincerity that win the day. Intensity is like salt and sugar: too much can ruin the plate.

[Draško]

I've noticed there was a discussion of Tennstedt's Mahler, can't find it now but here's my two cents. I've heard couple of his studio recordings on EMI ages ago and they've made barely any impression but heard recently his live Resurrection with LPO on their own label and was blown away, incredible, the best I've heard in years and definitely one of the best I have ever heard.
It's a superbly dramatic, emotional performance, in Bernstein vein, nowhere near middle of the road. Very slow overall but tension is maintained at all times, tempos are extremely flexible, lyrical passages often slowed down but played with lovely inflections and lots of fine detail, never losing the line. Big moments really let rip. This type of interpretation can sound maudlin and sentimental but this one never does, there is honesty and utter conviction to it, and orchestra really gives their all, kind of playing I think I never heard from LPO. Same goes for chorus. And even recorded sound is pretty spectacular, given that is late 80s live. I generally prefer more propulsive accounts but this one is absolutely worth hearing even to those who like somewhat different Mahler. My definite recommendation.

As for Tennstedt, from this recording, then live broadcast of Boston Bruckner 8th, and the video of Siegfried's funeral march on youtube I'd say he is one of those conductors who is night and day in studio and live.
I most certainly intend to pursue more of his live Mahler, there is more of it on LPO's own label, ICA, BBC Legends and Hanssler. Don't think I'll bother with any of his studio stuff.   

[Mahlerian]

I've noticed there was a discussion of Tennstedt's Mahler, can't find it now but here's my two cents. I've heard couple of his studio recordings on EMI ages ago and they've made barely any impression but heard recently his live Resurrection with LPO on their own label and was blown away, incredible, the best I've heard in years and definitely one of the best I have ever heard.
It's a superbly dramatic, emotional performance, in Bernstein vein, nowhere near middle of the road. Very slow overall but tension is maintained at all times, tempos are extremely flexible, lyrical passages often slowed down but played with lovely inflections and lots of fine detail, never losing the line. Big moments really let rip. This type of interpretation can sound maudlin and sentimental but this one never does, there is honesty and utter conviction to it, and orchestra really gives their all, kind of playing I think I never heard from LPO. Same goes for chorus. And even recorded sound is pretty spectacular, given that is late 80s live. I generally prefer more propulsive accounts but this one is absolutely worth hearing even to those who like somewhat different Mahler. My definite recommendation.

As for Tennstedt, from this recording, then live broadcast of Boston Bruckner 8th, and the video of Siegfried's funeral march on youtube I'd say he is one of those conductors who is night and day in studio and live.
I most certainly intend to pursue more of his live Mahler, there is more of it on LPO's own label, ICA, BBC Legends and Hanssler. Don't think I'll bother with any of his studio stuff.

I think his studio versions of most of the symphonies are fine, even if they don't have the same fire as his live recordings.  An exception is the Second, which I think is rather limp.  The live version you mentioned is immeasurably superior.  (His live Eighth is also much better than his studio equivalent, and the early 80s live Sixth is one of the most intense versions I've heard.)

Still, at his best, Tennstedt was very unlike Bernstein in that his interpretation, while free, doesn't do anything against the text, and he certainly never tries to simplify Mahler's textures to make him a melody+accompaniment composer, which destroys his music.

[Cato]

I have re-listened twice now to the second movement of the DGG Boulez performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony, and I still find it magical, evoking the mystery in both the text and music to a great degree, especially in the last 10 minutes or so.  And throughout the performance the clarity of the lines, remarked upon earlier by several people here, is remarkable...and yes, I followed along with my study score.

I should mention the Boulez performance of the Seventh Symphony with the Chicago Symphony (probably at Carnegie Hall, 2006?), a performance which parallels his incredible Cleveland Orchestra/DGG version.  I caught the former on the radio, and for several split seconds thought I was listening to Webern, when the Scherzo came on!

See:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E5DB1431F932A25751C1A9609C8B63

[SurprisedByBeauty]

I have re-listened twice now to the second movement of the DGG Boulez performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony, and I still find it magical, evoking the mystery in both the text and music to a great degree, especially in the last 10 minutes or so.  And throughout the performance the clarity of the lines, remarked upon earlier by several people here, is remarkable...and yes, I followed along with my study score.

I should mention the Boulez performance of the Seventh Symphony with the Chicago Symphony (probably at Carnegie Hall, 2006?), a performance which parallels his incredible Cleveland Orchestra/DGG version.  I caught the former on the radio, and for several split seconds thought I was listening to Webern, when the Scherzo came on!

See:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E5DB1431F932A25751C1A9609C8B63

Do you know the Ozawa recording of the 8th? Most successful 2nd mvt. I know.

As per M7 & Boulez, I had a cutely similar-ish experience -- well, at least one with the same ingredients: I was listening to rehearsals of the RCO with Boulez conducting. M7 was on the program (and indeed the reason I was there). He rehearsed something else, first; I didn't know what but I assumed it was one of his own pieces. I listened... began to really like it, and thought to myself: Oh Geez, Boulez, you're really becoming an lush romantic on your old days! Turns out it was Webern Six Pieces. 

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I don't quite understand the criticism of Boulez's recording of Mahler's 7th symphony, in terms of the tempo of the first movement. I really love how natural and smooth the tempo changes in the first section, leading up to and including the Allegro con Fuoco. Even though the Allegro con Fuoco is much slower than what one might expect, Boulez actually uses the slower tempo to the music's advantage, bringing out and emphasising the alterations to the original first couples of phrases, like when the strings take over immediately after them. They get a beautifully phrased melody, and likewise the brass countermelody is phrased to complement it without ever overriding it. Sudden homorhythms are given adequate space to breathe, intensifying the dissonant chords where appropriate and further pushing the rather dissonant side of Mahler's music towards not only its temporally distant resolution but a more satisfying one.

Just one of example under the microscope of how he uses tempo to justify a short term resolution to a passage of music:

As Boulez has established a tendency in the introduction to have fluidity in his tempo, he uses it appropriately at bar 92 (zart aber ausdrucksvoll=tender but expressive) to even point out a moment of melody that comments on the introduction of the chromatic gestures of the horns in the previous phrases. The rhythm that Mahler opts for is a two note upbeat, undoubtedly related to other two note upbeats that permeate the entire movement, but specifically recalls those earlier horn gestures and develops their motif by inverting the direction of pitches. It seems to my ears that Boulez slows down a little on those two quavers not just to draw out their melodic importance, not just to make them sound more 'tender but expressive' but as a means of using their melodic importance as a development on the horns' previous chromatically descending gestures. It takes the music in a different direction where Boulez adds rhythmic tension by using the oboes', cor anglais' and clarinets' triplets crotchets to propel the music back to the original tempo he uses for the Allegro con Fuoco. The 'tender but expressive' is performed the way it is for the purpose of being a passage from which Boulez can audibly and naturally build up the tension of the music before releasing that tension into the passage beginning bar 99.

I might also add, that the cello line to which I refer is sometimes played underneath the less interesting melody that is going on in the violins at the same time (SBSO/Dudamel, BRSO/Janssons, Düsseldorf/Fischer, SaarbrückenRSO/Zender). Mahler gives no indication in the score through any Hauptstimme marking or through a difference in dynamic that the cello line is the most important part here, but he does through the register of the cello and thematic relationship to previous material. Also, most other recordings I have heard do not use the reed triplets in the way Boulez does to aid the change of tempo into bar 99, and when a conductor does use those triplets rhythms as a means of transitioning to a more stable bar 99 then the accel happens so late that it compresses and distorts the rhythm so that it is much less audibly another occurrence of the triplet motif such as in Bernstein's 2nd audio recording. Most of the time, however, a conductor simply zips through passages like these where Mahler takes the time and effort to write in a few hints to open up interesting interpretative possibilities.

But in the end, different conductors do different things, and whilst I am not typically fond of the first movement of this symphony played on the slow side I actually find Boulez's interpretation to be one of the more convincing approaches to tempo in any Mahler recording I have ever heard. It never really sounds plodding, it always allows the music to have a bit of breathing space and Boulez uses this breathing space to push and pull a bit at the speed very naturally without having to distort the line ever.

[aukhawk]

A small part of what you describe may be attributed to the very involving nature of DG's "4D" recording style of the mid-'90s - which seems to divide opinion though personally I love it.

I never listen to the outer movements of the 7th but do very much enjoy the middle three, and in these I find Boulez a bit quick for my taste - though the clarity of the recording is just wonderful.  Gielen for example takes the two Nachtmusiken a bit slower, or if I'm feeling hardcore, there is always Klemperer ...

[SurprisedByBeauty]

A small part of what you describe may be attributed to the very involving nature of DG's "4D" recording style of the mid-'90s - which seems to divide opinion though personally I love it.

I never listen to the outer movements of the 7th but do very much enjoy the middle three, and in these I find Boulez a bit quick for my taste - though the clarity of the recording is just wonderful.  Gielen for example takes the two Nachtmusiken a bit slower, or if I'm feeling hardcore, there is always Klemperer ...

They only thing that I could love more in Boulez 7th was, if he had taken the Nachtmusiken still more Italianate. They're so full of Italian opera references... but mostly to music that Boulez probably didn't like... possibly didn't even know. That's where the Abbado II recording score big-time. But his finale is the best, methinks... and the first movement is second only to Barenboim's, and that only on account of the very opening of the movement, where Barenboim gets those 'shuddering dog / starting-a-car-at-30-below' ripples so damn right.

[kishnevi]

They only thing that I could love more in Boulez 7th was, if he had taken the Nachtmusiken still more Italianate. They're so full of Italian opera references... but mostly to music that Boulez probably didn't like... possibly didn't even know. That's where the Abbado II recording score big-time. But his finale is the best, methinks... and the first movement is second only to Barenboim's, and that only on account of the very opening of the movement, where Barenboim gets those 'shuddering dog / starting-a-car-at-30-below' ripples so damn right.

Wasn't the start of the first movement supposedly inspired by the sound of oars in the water Mahler heard on a boat ride ?

[Mahlerian]

Wasn't the start of the first movement supposedly inspired by the sound of oars in the water Mahler heard on a boat ride ?

Yes, he said that oars on the lake by his summer home provided the rhythmic impulse for the opening.

Incidentally, I fully agree with Jessop here; Boulez's first movement may seem really slow at first, and for me there's always a bit of mental adjustment involved in listening to its opening moments, but the momentum he builds over the course of the whole structure is magnificent, and when he reaches the B major section at the climax of the development, it's breathtaking because he has worked to achieve that goal for the last 15 minutes or so.