This is the last and the best of the three new Mahler
recordings by Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra that
have been released by DG in 2002. I have already reviewed the Third
Symphony:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/July02/Mahler3_abbado.htm
and the Seventh:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Oct02/Mahler7_Abbado.htm
and now here is the Ninth. Whilst all three came out
in quick succession and in uniform livery their provenance is very different.
The Ninth under review was recorded from two concert performances at
the Berlin Festival in September 1999. The Third came from a single
concert performance in London one month later and was produced by the
BBC. Both of these stayed in the DG vaults for three years before their
release this year. The Seventh, on the other hand, was recorded from
performances in Berlin in May 2001 towards the end of Abbado’s tenure
as BPO Chief Conductor. What they all have in common, however, is that
they are Abbado’s second recordings of these works. I had a lot to say
about conductors revisiting earlier works on record in my review of
the Seventh and in that case could see no reason why it was felt necessary
for Abbado to re-record that piece. Where the Third Symphony was concerned
I enjoyed and much preferred the new to the old and in the case of this
Ninth I feel much the same, though it is more marginal.
Abbado has always been a fine interpreter of this symphony,
itself a lucky one on record, but in this second recording I prefer
a greater sense of pressing forward in strategic passages of the first
and third movements especially. It makes for a slightly tougher and
rather more astringent view of a work too often taken to be a long farewell
and very little else. His earlier Vienna Philharmonic recording was
unique in his first Mahler recordings in that it too was taken from
"live" performance. However this time I think I can hear a
greater sense of the "live" experience coming across and this
will always find favour with me and I suspect many others. There is
a price to pay for this, though. The engineers in the Philharmonie in
Berlin are less sure of themselves than their predecessors were in Vienna’s
Musikverein. The Berlin acoustic is very different too: less warm, more
analytical, though not entirely lacking in atmosphere. The result this
time brings some quirks of balance, most especially in the first movement
where there is highlighting of solo instruments – harp and cor anglais
especially – and what appears to be some "limiting" at climaxes
where clinching fortissimos shy away a little where they should punch
home. So this is a much more manipulated sound picture all through.
Overall it’s a close-in balance and the feeling is that you are sitting
in the stalls quite close to the platform. Yet, as the performance went
on, I found that I came to value this sound picture as so much of Mahler’s
inner detail is plain for all to hear with enough air behind the instruments
to give perspective. So I found this sound balance surprisingly good
for home listening with the caveats mentioned.
The first movement impresses with a fine unity of purpose
from first bar to last and as such I think counts as a fine achievement
repaying repeated listening. Even in passages where the music is just
a series of fragmentary daubs you are aware of the strong symphonic
undertow beneath it. So, in all, Abbado’s intellectual grasp is formidable,
but I’m aware that some Mahlerites might complain that this is at the
expense of emotional power to be found in recordings by other conductors
like Bernstein (DG D 201182), for example, with the same orchestra,
also "live" in the same hall. I would counsel caution in taking
this as a minus point, though. There is a tradition in the performance
of this movement that maintains a stoic face is just as valid.
Klemperer is the best representative of this approach in his great EMI
recording (EMI 5 67036 2) though it must be said that Klemperer’s more
austere, plainer sound palette reinforces this idea and his overall
tempo is slower than Abbado’s basic andante comodo. Though I
think Abbado is closer to what Mahler intended. Abbado’s ability to
extract a degree of sweetness in some the passages of repose, the lebwohl
passages of the movement, as we might call them, make a fine counterpoise
to the tougher, harsher passages where the brass snarl and the strings
dig in vividly. In these passages Abbado does soften his tone, but it
may take you until the end of the movement before you quite realise
it has taken place, as this conductor is always careful with his contrasts
which are never too sharply delineated. You have to listen hard to an
Abbado performance as there is never the instant gratification of a
Bernstein or a Rattle, but the dividends are maybe even greater. In
the recapitulation after the great central crisis in this first movement
listen to as good a summation of what has gone before as any you will
hear in other recordings - beautifully argued, shorn of seedy sentimentality,
very satisfying. What wonderful solo horn playing in the great duet
between that instrument and the flute too. They may be highlighted by
the sound balance, as indicated earlier, but with playing like this
it hardly matters.
The two central movements are firstly remarkable for
the stunning, virtuoso playing of the orchestra. This may be "live"
but there are very few examples of insecurity in this playing. But this
virtuosity is never just for its own sake. It always serves the music
and Claudio Abbado’s purpose for it. The second movement scherzo reflects
every colour Mahler paints it in with the close recording rendering
every detail clear, woodwind especially good. Abbado observes but doesn’t
force on us the three tempi markings that Mahler indicates and this
may disappoint some who, as with the first movement, prefer their contrasts
sharper, therefore pushing home a more emotional approach. However,
after the first movement’s understatement of contrasts, this corresponding
approach here fits and is another example of "through-thinking"
on the conductor’s part that demands attention from the listener and
therefore engages more. The listener must also do some work in Mahler
too, remember. Because, just as in the first movement, where Abbado
marked up a sweetness where appropriate, here in the second movement
too he is aware of a gentle world-weary quality in those falling lebwohl
phrases once again. Likewise in the third movement Rondo-Burleske the
close recording allows for Mahler’s crucially important counterpoint
to be followed accurately and so this then contrasts with the nostalgic
tone of the central interlude. Abbado delivers this sweetly and simply,
linking it with the lebwohl moments in the first two movements
and looking forward to great elegy of the last. But it’s in the final
section of the third movement where I believe Abbado justifies himself
triumphantly. If this movement is ultimately about depicting a sweet
world seen to be self-destructing then Abbado pulls that effect off
in the way that, like Horenstein used to do, he slowly increases the
tempo until at the end you are on the edge of your seat.
The last movement reflects and justifies Abbado’s overall
approach in again subtly matching stoicism with a world-weariness that
never descends anywhere near sentimentality. There is a deep and rich
string sound that can swell out to a glorious mass and then ebb down
to gossamer threads when needed. The latter especially in the intimate
passages that have about them the air of chamber music with all the
players listening to each other carefully. Notice also the excellent
use of portamenti in the string playing here. The main climax
is a paean to the entire symphony but it stays, characteristically for
Abbado, within any overt grandiloquence and seems to come from within
the texture. The coda is sustained beautifully too. It is never stretched
on the rack as it sometimes is, always it maintains this conductor’s
sharpness of focus and, I think, is unusually aware of the link to Mahler’s
Kindertotenlieder.
For reference versions you must turn first to studio
recordings by Haitink (Philips 50 464 714), Barbirolli (EMI 7 63115
2), Walter (Sony SM2K 64452), Klemperer (EMI 5 67036 2) and perhaps
Boulez (DG 289 457 581-2). Comparable, though very different as a live
recording, is Bruno Walter's first recording in 1938 (Dutton CDBP 9708)
which is of equal stature to ones by Horenstein (BBC Legends BBCL 4075-2).
For me this is the best of the three new Mahler recordings
from Abbado in 2002. In playing and interpretation it takes its place
among the finest and I recommend it warmly.
Tony Duggan
see also Tony
Duggan on the Mahler Symphonies
Berliner Philharmoniker/Claudio
Abbado