Recordings of Mahler's 7th

Started by Montpellier, December 15, 2007, 01:13:34 PM

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greg

Quote from: M forever on December 17, 2007, 03:38:19 AM
The Solti recording is horrible.
wow, you really think that?  :o


Quote from: M forever on December 17, 2007, 03:38:19 AM
The Barenboim recording simply astonished me.
hmmmm...... ever since i first heard Barenboim's version of the Rite of Spring (which is the most perfect i've ever heard), i figured that this guy is an amazing conductor. So I'll remember this....  :)

have you listened to the Tilson Thomas recording, M?

M forever

Quote from: Anacho on December 17, 2007, 05:02:28 AM
Thank you for all your insights - gatefully received as Mahler is new territory so I didn't want to be deterred from Marhler by a bad interpretation.  I must have heard chunks glancingly but not made a deliberate attempt to sit through a symphony.  The DVD looks a good bet.  I've been happy with what I've heard of Abbado and Bernstein so I'll choose between them.  The Chicago recording is still around but it's a bit of a hope to get it by Christmas.   

Cheers.       

If that is new territory for you, you should definitely *not* get Bernstein (any of the 3, with the NYP, with the WP on video, and then again with the NYP). Bernstein was a great, great Mahler conductor but his priorities were not necessarily...balanced. He also has a lot to say about the 7th, but as a guide to this very complicated and sometimes puzzling symphony, especially for those who just begin to discover it, none of his recodings, as much as they are real musical trips, are good recommendations. You need a recording which lays out the material clearer and more balanced than Bernstein did. Just to listen to the music, the Boulez recording is actually quite good because it is so balanced. But, surprising as that is for Boulez, he doesn't connect all the dots nearly as convincingly as Barenboim or Abbado (at least in his CSO recording, like I said, I don't know the later ones), he just puts them all in the right places.
Besides, the last Bernstein recording (the one with NYP on DG) has reeeeeeeeeally bad sound. That's not even DG's fault - apparently Avery Fischer Hall really is acoustically nearly dead.

Montpellier

#22
In which case, library be blowed, I just ordered the CSO one from an Amazon marketplace seller.  If it really doesn't work out I can sell it on.  (Trouble is, I've missed the chance to get a score as that site has closed.)  I'm musically broadminded so I'll do just that: listen.  If I get in (musical) trouble, I'll be back...(no, I'm not the governor of California).   

Edit: Dover do a score, £6 + in the UK so I may go for that.

Stonemason

I love the one that I got. Barenboim with Staatskapelle Berlin in 2006. Beautiful sound quality.

alkan

I recently bought the Bernstein VPO box set of the middle symphonies (5,6,7), primarily for Bernstein's version of the 6th  (which is great).      But when I listened to the 7th I was delighted and I warmly recommend it.      This is a symphony of extreme contrasts
and moods.     Bernstein makes the night-music really creepy and bizzare, and the finale is a riot   (the Meistersingers smoking dope).   I think Mahler's 7th is really a work where an "over the top" approach can work very well.     
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.
Harlan Ellison (1934 - )

J.Z. Herrenberg

"and the finale is a riot  (the Meistersingers smoking dope)"

;D
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

PerfectWagnerite

Quote from: Jezetha on December 19, 2007, 09:28:13 AM
"and the finale is a riot  (the Meistersingers smoking dope)"

;D
I don't get it, the finale doesn't remind me the least bit like anything from Die Meistersinger. Where do you hear a Meistersinger reference ???

MISHUGINA

Hey guys I'm listening to Bernard Haitink conducting Royal Concertgebouw from the RCO anthology set and it's pretty good compared with his another anemic recording with Berliner Philharmoniker.

BorisG

Abbado/BPO, Tennstedt, Bernstein/Sony.

Que

Quote from: MISHUGINA on December 19, 2007, 06:57:22 PM
Hey guys I'm listening to Bernard Haitink conducting Royal Concertgebouw from the RCO anthology set and it's pretty good compared with his another anemic recording with Berliner Philharmoniker.

I have no comparisons, but I've been happy with that RCO/Haitink for many years.
One of the best (together with 2 & 3) from the cycle IMO.

Q

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on December 19, 2007, 06:48:05 PM
I don't get it, the finale doesn't remind me the least bit like anything from Die Meistersinger. Where do you hear a Meistersinger reference ???

The main theme is very similar to the Meistersinger motive (which has been noticed by many others, btw). Just listen to the Meistersinger prelude, and then compare it to the theme of Mahler's Finale. The rhythm, the rise in the melody, they are quite similar. So that's why I had to laugh at Alkan's characterization.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

MISHUGINA

Quote from: Que on December 19, 2007, 09:47:00 PM
I have no comparisons, but I've been happy with that RCO/Haitink for many years.
One of the best (together with 2 & 3) from the cycle IMO.

Q

Are you talking about the Philips one? The one I heard is a live concert from this box set:


Montpellier

Quote from: Jezetha on December 19, 2007, 11:22:38 PM
The main theme is very similar to the Meistersinger motive (which has been noticed by many others, btw). Just listen to the Meistersinger prelude, and then compare it to the theme of Mahler's Finale. The rhythm, the rise in the melody, they are quite similar. So that's why I had to laugh at Alkan's characterization.

So...which would go best with the Mahler: Afghan Black or Lebanese Gold?  I'd better give the little guy in the hood outside Sainsburys a couple days' notice. 

;)

Que

Quote from: MISHUGINA on December 20, 2007, 06:58:21 AM
Are you talking about the Philips one? The one I heard is a live concert from this box set:



Yes I was, thanks for clearing that up.  :)
From which year is that live recording?

Q

bhodges

Quote from: Que on December 20, 2007, 02:13:52 PM
Yes I was, thanks for clearing that up.  :)
From which year is that live recording?

Q

Pardon me for barging in (but I love this set).  :D  The Mahler 7 is from Nov. 10, 1969.  Here is a complete track listing on MDT.

--Bruce

Montpellier

Hmm....it arrived this morning.   Not quite sure what to think.  It's big enough that I haven't been able to listen to it in one sitting.   I don't think there's anything wrong with the performance but the symphony itself seems all over the place.     

I know it's nicknamed "The Mad" and I wondered?   The notes don't help in answering this.

Obviously I'll give it another listen as time becomes available but it's going to take some sorting out.   


PerfectWagnerite

Quote from: bhodges on December 20, 2007, 02:34:58 PM
Pardon me for barging in (but I love this set).  :D  The Mahler 7 is from Nov. 10, 1969.  Here is a complete track listing on MDT.

--Bruce
How many from that set has Haitink and Chailly? Almost every Concertgebouw compilation seem to be full of those two. Don't they have enough commercial releases elsewhere?

Wanderer

Quote from: MISHUGINA on December 20, 2007, 06:58:21 AM


That's a very worthwhile set, worth every penny of its rather steep price.  8)

MishaK

Quote from: Wanderer on December 24, 2007, 08:48:07 AM
That's a very worthwhile set, worth every penny of its rather steep price.  8)

Indeed. And I say that even though I got it for a less than steep price when Tower Records at Lincoln Center went out of business.  ;D  Enjoying Vol.4  immensely as well.

greg

Quote from: Anacho on December 24, 2007, 03:46:28 AM
   

I know it's nicknamed "The Mad" and I wondered?   

hm, that's a new one for me....