Friday, 11.27.09, 6:00 am
Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.6 (Part 3)
This continues Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.6 (Part 2) from Thursday, with a discussion of more “Mahler 6” recordings I particularly cherish.
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Those who find Benjamin Zander’s approach too willful probably take better to a gentler approach to the Sixth. They should be sent to Boulez first, but if they still prefer more beauty and serenity, they will want to explore the category of recordings by Abbado, Jansons and Iván Fischer. Claudio Abbado’s most recent recording with the Berlin Philharmonic has been hyped, hailed, and awarded. The Gramophone and The Financial Times both raved about it. It wasn’t much to my liking when I reviewed it and it isn’t now. It’s good and excellently played and it’s mild and gentle, genteel and polished—and unfortunately also quite listless, if not comatose. Not much better is Mariss Jansons’ first recording on the LSO live label. Again an excellent and high standard of playing that ultimately lead no further than momentary pleasure; possibly less. His new, very similar, recording of the same work—this time on the RCO live label—sounds slightly better but still has the same effect on me with its rounded corners and politeness. The one recording that aims for beauty and long lines and good behavior but immediately involves and shakes you up is Ivan Fischer’s with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Scherzo third, like all the above… ditto two Hammerblows, but with rhythmic insight and feeling that it is a complete joy. In SACD- or regular sound, this is a winner and one of the finest Sixths recorded. It merits mention that Fischer’s decision to place the Scherzo third came after he performed the symphony both ways, alternating, while on tour—and only then decided which way he should prefer to record it.
Karajan’s DG recording of the Sixth is his third-to-last Mahler recording and, along with the second Ninth, his best. Mahler was a composer to whom Karajan found only late in life… and ‘the later, the better’ fully applies to his Mahler recordings (the two to follow were the special accounts of the Ninth) and this one could be in a category of its own. The approach to ‘sound’ that he drilled into the Berlin Philharmonic, the insistence on absolute perfection (at least whenever in the recording studio), that polish, that well-oiled machine… it all works towards a truly spectacular Mahler experience. Surely on the clean side of the raw-genteel divide, it is probably the most propulsive of the “drool-free” versions. It is a little short on any particular Mahler-flavor but it more than makes up for that with its numerous other qualities. If you don’t have the splendid Christa Ludwig Rückert-Lieder and Kindertotenlieder from his studio recording of the Ninth, you can get them on this disc, also.
You’d think that the one Symphony that should be most suited to Valery Gergiev would be the Sixth: With a stubble, crumpled suit, dark, bloodshot eyes, the smell of liquor from the long night before still lingering, ruthless and wild and with unwashed, unkempt hair. (That’s my ideal vision of the Sixth, not a description of Gergiev’s appearance.) All the greater my surprise to hear Gergiev’s Sixth—part of his Mahler Cycle with the LSO on their own label—to be a tame (if not quite emaciated) performance. Even if Gergiev had gone for Scherzo-Andante and three hammer blows, instead of the (now) standard Andante-Scherzo/Two, this would not qualify for inclusion among the raw, driven Sixths. I prefer it just slightly over Mariss Jansons’ all too refined Sixth with the same orchestra from just a few years earlier, but it’s far too middle-of-the-run for inclusion among my favorites.
It was with great anticipation that I listened to the brisk live recording (73 minutes; an 18 minute Allegro) of George Szell’s with the Cleveland Orchestra (Sony). But the sound is muffled, the interpretation tame, the execution without heft, and everything feels a bit middle-of-the-road. Quick, live, and also on the side of understatement, rather than exaggeration, is Rafael Kubelik—the live performance on Audite showing him at his self-effacing best in Mahler. I’m not quite convinced by an even faster interpretation: that of Kyrill Kondrashin (65 minutes! 16 ½ minutes for the Allegro). In direct comparison, faster is usually more appealing. But in the opening movement Kondrashin doesn’t get his feet on the ground to establish the necessary weight and force. That’s too bad, as he would have been another conductor I’d have thought capable for the necessary clenching violence that so tickles me here. I’d not want to miss the performance for the mad Scherzo alone, though.
Michael Tilson Thomas (S-A) and Simon Rattle (A-S) both offer very fine Sixths and I admit being a bit surprised in both cases: In MTT’s case because his mix of elegance and beauty would seem to offer little more in the Sixth than Abbado or Jansons… except more re-touching and rubato. But what he delivers is a broad, colorful performance with wildly changing, often slow tempos, and exclamation-mark ritardandos. It must have been a harrowing night for the audience to listen to this onslaught on September 12th, 2001… and brutally appropriate. But preserved on disc, it cannot ultimately live up to the momentous moment it presented then and doesn’t challenge, among the SACD competition, Fischer and Eschenbach.
As it turns out, I enjoy Simon Rattle’s recording (EMI), nearly as broad but zanier, a good deal more than Tilson Thomas’ or Haitink’s most recent one. It is among those Mahler recordings of Rattle that are under-, rather than over-rated, and it could fit either in either category of the two approaches between which I distinguish: either on the lenient side of brutal or on the bleak side of moderateness. Sonics are not its strong suit, but for three movements it competes with the best. Haitink, like Tilson Thomas, isn’t a conductor whose 6th I’d be looking to if I wanted to get my teeth knocked out. That’s incidentally not what he does, in his recent, fourth commercial recording. With the CSO, on their own label CSO Resound (SACD), he takes one of the most leisurely approaches to this symphony I’ve heard. His 90 minutes beat even MTT’s 87 and gets a right dark varnish on the work. The sound of the orchestra (and recording) is wonderfully round and plump, enhancing especially the impression left by the percussion and low strings. If only it generated a little more excitement it would be easier to recommend it. 
The font used in the title is “Bernhard Bold Condensed”
Mahler 6 Choices: “Rough-Hewn”
1. Benjamin Zander, Philharmonia Orchestra, Telarc
2. Pierre Boulez, Wiener Philharmoniker, DG
3. Jonathan Darlington, Duisburger Philharmoinker, Acousence
4. John Barbirolli, New Philharmonia Orchestra, EMI
5. Mitropoulos, WDRSO, Greatest Conductors of the 20th Century / Urania
6. Michael Gielen, SWRSO, Hänssler
6. Christoph Eschenbach, Philadelphia Orchestra, Ondine
Mahler 6 Choices: “Beauty”
1. Iván Fischer, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Channel Classics
2. Herbert von Karajan, Berliner Philharmoniker, DG
3. Simon Rattle, City of Birmingham Orchestra, EMI
4. Rafael Kubelik, BRSO, Audite
Mahler 6 SACD Choice
1. Benjamin Zander, Philharmonia Orchestra, Telarc
1. Iván Fischer, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Channel Classics
2. Christoph Eschenbach, Philadelphia Orchestra, Ondine