This Eloquence reissue is welcome, if only because it makes available
two decent recordings of important Mahler works at an even more
reasonable price than in their previous incarnation on Double
Decca. In fact it’s more than that. It also provides a neat answer
to what to do with the Third Symphony – rather too long to fit
onto one CD, even in the fleetest-footed performances – and looking
somewhat forlorn and poor value if spread over two CDs without
coupling. In his comparative review
of versions of the Third Symphony, Tony Duggan wrote:
This ... “Double Decca” set ... couples a reasonable
account of the First Symphony with Mehta conducting the Israel
Philharmonic so clinching its bargain status. Mehta’s Third
is a ripe and vivid account, well played and brightly recorded,
though not in the front rank.
... which just about sums up my reaction, too.
Alex Russell recommended that earlier Double Decca set as the
ideal follow-up to his review
of a 2006 concert performance of the Third by the LSO under
Paavo Järvi.
If you’re looking
for budget-price versions of the Mahler symphonies, without wishing
to purchase complete sets, choice is somewhat limited. If you
are prepared to buy the complete set, Rafael Kubelík is your man
on a 10-CD set (DG 4637382, around £60 in the UK) – though advertised
as ‘10 Symphonies’, be aware, however, that No.10 is represented
only by the Adagio. If you want a boxed set with the Cook
completion of No.10, it has to be Riccardo Chailly (12 CDs, Decca
4756686, around £40). Tim Perry recently made the EMI Bertini
set his Bargain of the Month (11 CDs 3402382 – see review.)
Kubelík’s version of the First Symphony, coupled
with Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, used to be available
as a first-class bargain on DG’s Privilege label; it’s still
good value, and it’s still my recommended version, even now
that it has transferred to the more expensive DG Originals (4497352).
At least it now comes with notes, whereas the Privilege issue
had none. This is the benchmark against which I have measured
the Eloquence reissue of Mehta’s performance.
In Mehta’s hands the opening to the first movement
arises delicately from near-inaudibility – if anything, he is
tenderer than Kubelík here – and the tempo and volume grow imperceptibly
(allmählich und
unmerksam,
as the score says) into the faster main section until the music
develops just the right swagger with the echo of the song Ging
heut’ Morgen übers Feld. Mahler is a very interventionist
composer, with plenty of directions as to how the music should
be performed. Wie ein Naturlaut says the direction at
the head of this movement and that is exactly how it develops
here, like a sound of nature. When the trumpets are directed
to enter In sehr weiter Entfernung gestellt, that is
exactly how they sound, as if from a very great distance, but
when towards the end of the movement, Spring bursts upon us,
they really whoop with joy. As far as tempo is concerned, there
is a remarkable degree of agreement: Kubelík takes 14:31 for
this movement, Mehta 14:42.
In the remaining movements, too, Mehta is very
close to but marginally slower than Kubelík’s tempi; only in
the Finale is there any significant discrepancy (18:22 against
Kubelík’s 17:40) The Ländler second movement closely
observes all Mahler’s markings in the score to the extent that
one could almost listen to the performance and predict what
those directions were: the main direction at the head of the
movement, Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell, with
powerful movement but not too quick, very aptly sums up Mehta’s
performance, while the funeral march in the third movement,
to the tune of Frère Jacques or Bruder Martin, also delivers
what it says on the box in its measured stateliness without
dragging – feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen.
The Eloquence notes describe this movement as ‘spooky’, which
very aptly fits Mehta’s performance.
Stürmisch bewegt is the direction at the
head of the score of the Finale and later energisch and
mit grosser Wildheit, and here again, Mehta observes
Mahler’s directions to the letter – this certainly is a wild
and stormy opening until the storm dies down and the performance
again matches the direction to be very song-like, sehr gesangvoll.
The tempest reasserts itself at fig. 22 but bird-song again
heralds the calm after the storm in an almost imperceptible
manner, beautifully realised in this performance, as is the
triumphal conclusion.
Neither the DG nor the Decca Eloquence recording
employs the old nickname Titan for this symphony but
its powerful nature and the impact it had on its first audience
are very well conveyed by both. I enjoyed the Mehta recording
much more than I had expected and I had to play the Kubelík
immediately afterwards to reassure myself that it still (just)
has the edge – and don’t forget that it comes with Fischer Dieskau’s
performance of Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.
The Mehta and Kubelík recordings are of more or
less the same vintage; the Kubelík dates from six years earlier,
but both ADD recordings sound very well in digital format. I
should add that others hear the DG sound differently, finding
it too close and boxy. Tony Duggan much preferred Kubelík’s
live recording on Audite (95.467) in his comparative review
of the First. I note that this and another recent Eloquence
issue which came in the same batch of review discs now use the
SBS encoding formerly employed for the European Eloquence recordings.
I mention this, not because it bothered me at all, but because
I know that this kind of tinkering is anathema to many audio
enthusiasts.
We are spoiled for good performances of the Third
Symphony when, not long ago, only Horenstein’s Unicorn recording
(mid price, UKCD2006-7, also available as a 320k mp3 download
from theclassicalshop.net) was really worth considering – it’s
still one of Tony Duggan’s top two choices in his comparative review
of versions of this symphony. The other is Barbirolli on BBC
Legends BBCL4004-7. Several of the BBC Legends recordings have
appeared on the new Passionato download website but not this
one at the time of writing.
Claudio Abbado has rather cornered the market for
this work – first with the Vienna Philharmonic on a DG import
(4107152, also in a 12-CD box set, 4470232), then live with
the Berlin Philharmonic (DG 4715022) and on DVD with his Lucerne
Festival Orchestra (Medici Arts 2056338). At less than full
price, Haitink’s Concertgebouw recording on Philips Originals
(2 CDs, 4757564, with Das klagende Lied) has also been
consistently well received.
Like Haitink and Abbado, Mehta has recorded the
Third Symphony several times, most recently on a live Farao
SACD recording; his versions may not be quite on a par with
Abbado’s, but he shares a great deal of Abbado’s reputation
for objectivity and Haitink’s with the Concertgebouw for sensible
tempi. If there is little to set the pulse racing, there is
also very little to provoke strong critical rejection of the
kind which in some quarters greeted Haitink’s 1990 Berlin Philharmonic
recording.
Unfortunately, one of the consequences of having
a large and somewhat disorganised CD collection is the inability
always to lay one’s hands on what one wants. At the moment,
the slot where Abbado’s Mahler 3 should have fitted is empty
and I don’t know where the CDs are, so I can’t make the detailed
comparison I’d hoped to. I’m having to work from memory of this
and the Unicorn LP version of the Horenstein recording.
Though he later withdrew the title for the whole
work, Das glückliche Leben, ein Sommernachtstraum, and
the subtitles for each movement, an ideal performance captures
both Mahler’s belief in the joy of life and the dreamlike state
of human perception, as expressed in the Nietzsche poem which
Mahler sets in the fourth movement. That ideal performance,
therefore, must succeed in faithfully rendering the notes and
the directions in the score – the ‘easy’ part – and the sense
of ultimate unreality. Mahler spoke of the work as containing
“secrets so profound they are perhaps glimpsed only in dreams.”
Judged on those terms, no conductor could ever fully succeed;
how close does Mehta come, bearing in mind that Terry Barfoot,
like most other reviewers, felt that his Farao recording fell
some degree short of the ideal (see review)?
That Farao recording is a good six minutes longer
than this earlier LAPO version where Mehta’s timings hover around
the mean of other well-regarded versions. In the opening movement,
at 33:07 he’s right in the middle of Haitink’s Concertgebouw
performance (32:15) and Boulez (33:36) – a remarkable degree
of unanimity over such a long movement and, surely, just about
right: Haitink’s newer Chicago recording at 35:14 and Bychkov’s
(Avie) at 35:12 are surely just a little too slow. DG split
the VPO/Abbado recording of each movement of this symphony into
small segments but, if my maths and my memory are correct, he,
too, takes a tad too long here.
Mehta’s opening is very powerful, achieving just
the right mixture of elation and menace, ably assisted by the
recording – analogue but still very impressive; it would surely
have received a D for demonstration class in the old Stereo
Record Guide. This is no more conventional pastoral music
than Vaughan Williams belongs to that so-called ‘cow-pat school’
or than the poetry of Edward Thomas is just about nettles.
Though slower than Haitink’s Concertgebouw recording,
Mehta is faster than just about every other subsequent performance
and this long first movement never outstays its welcome. Bearing
in mind that he had few templates to work on other than Horenstein’s
version – and Horenstein is actually a few seconds slower, at
33:28 to Mehta’s 33:07 and the Concertgebouw/Haitink’s 32:15
– it’s remarkable how right Mehta sounds here. Mahler originally
intended this opening movement to represent the impact of Dionysus
on the onset of Summer, later changing the tutelary deity to
Pan. Dionysus or Bacchus, of course, was famous for the madness
which he inspired in his devotees – in the Æneid the
rejected Dido raves through the streets in uncontrolled and
destructive behaviour like a follower of Bacchus:
saeuit inops animi totamque incensa per urbem
bacchatur, qualis commotis excita sacris
Thyias, ubi audito stimulant trieterica Baccho
orgia nocturnusque uocat clamore Cithaeron.
[And impotent of mind,
she roves the city round./Less wild the Bacchanalian dames appear,/When,
from afar, their nightly god they hear,/And howl about the hills,
and shake the wreathy spear. IV.300-4, with Dryden’s translation.]
... and Pan gave his name to the word panic,
so this is not meant to be comfortable music and Mehta certainly
gets the point and conveys it to us.
When Summer truly arrives with whooping of horns,
we appreciate it all the more for Mehta’s refusal to sanitise
what has gone before. The only serious criticism I have is that
he does not always hold the various sections of the movement
together without discontinuity, but some of the blame for that
must surely lie at Mahler’s own door. I can’t wholly agree with
the statement in Raymond Tuttle’s notes that this movement never
feels fragmentary thanks to Mahler’s mastery of the sonata form.
Otherwise the notes on both symphonies in the booklet
are accurate and informative – far better than is usually offered
at this price, even including the texts and translations of
Nietzsche’s Zarathustras Nachtlied in the fourth movement
and the Knaben Wunderhorn song in the fifth movement.
In the second movement, tempo di menuetto,
Mehta is a trifle slow at first and inclined to the occasional
hint of Schmalz in places, but this did not seriously affect
my enjoyment of his performance. For the movement overall, he
is a whole minute slower than Horenstein or Boulez, but exactly
equal to Haitink. The third movement juxtaposes the cuckoo of
spring and the nightingale of summer but, again, the music is
hardly Bambi-esque, completely unlike our sentimental view of
the cuckoo as harbinger of spring, or Handel’s Cuckoo and Nightingale
organ concerto. Mahler can hardly have known the Middle English
debate poem between these two birds, once ascribed to Chaucer,
in which the nightingale (and the poet, probably Clanvowe) berate
the cuckoo for his harsh tones, but the mood here is hardly harmonious,
even amid the ‘resolution’ at the end of the movement:
And
than herde I the Nightingale say,
‘Now,
gode Cukkow! go som-where away,
And let
us that can singen dwellen here;
For every wight escheweth thee
to here,
Thy songes be so elenge, in good fay!’
[Than I heard the nightingale say “Now, good cuckoo,
go away somewhere and let us that know how to sing remain here;
for everyone tries to avoid hearing you; your songs are truly
so awful”, ll.111-15]
Maureen Forrester sings well in the fourth movement
but doesn’t efface memories of Jessye Norman’s splendid performance.
Otherwise, Mehta and his performers faithfully convey what Raymond
Tuttle’s notes aptly describe as the near-motionlessness of
this movement, as if we are at what T.S. Eliot calls the still
point of the turning world, caught between the first two
Noble Truths of the Buddha, the truth of suffering and the truth
of the cessation of suffering. The need to get up and change
to CD2 at the end of this movement came as a real wrench, so
deeply involved had I become in the performance. What did we
do in the LP era? A 78s performance of this symphony would have
been a series of wrenches.
In the short fifth movement the contrast between
the California Boys’ Choir and Forrester’s mature voice is well
brought out. I’ve always thought this movement an oddity which
should have been transferred to the Fourth Symphony, where it
would have worked well with other material originally intended
for the Third, but the performers here make a good case for
it.
The Finale again receives a fine performance; it’s
hardly surprising to learn from the ‘home’ of these Eloquence
recordings at Buywell.com that this movement was recorded in
a single take. There is a real danger of any performance of
this movement falling into sentimentality – Mahler’s markings
calmly and with feeling denote the Scylla and
Charybdis into which performances may fall – but Mehta avoids
both pretty effectively. Raymond Tuttle’s comparison with Bruckner
and Wagner (especially Parsifal) offers an especially
apt description of Mehta’s treatment of this elongated slow
movement. At 23:16 he is once again right in the middle of the
range of timings for this movement, from Haitink’s 22:04 with
the Concertgebouw to his 24:03 with the Chicago Symphony and
Bychkov’s surely over-long 25:46. Did the composer of the popular
song I’ll be loving you crib from this movement? If so,
he captured the key to its effective performance: of all St
Paul’s virtues, agápē, caritas or spiritual
love is the greatest.
Once again, as with the First, I was surprised
and pleased in general with Mehta’s performance of the Third
and pleased with the recording quality. If that elusive Abbado
recording doesn’t turn up, this may well become my version of
choice, though I’m also tempted to renew my acquaintance with
the Horenstein, perhaps by downloading it from theclassicalshop.net,
in which case I promise a review of it. If it seems as if I’ve
warmed to Mehta’s performances as the review developed, that’s
precisely what happened as I listened to these CDs.
If you’re looking for bargain versions of the other
symphonies, Klemperer’s version of No.2, the Resurrection
Symphony still sounds very well (EMI 5672352): I’m not normally
a great fan of Klemperer, but I’ll gladly make an exception
for his Resurrection Symphony – despite his deserved
reputation for slow tempi, he gets it all on one CD – and for
his Beethoven (Eroica Symphony and Fidelio) and
his Mozart (Zauberflöte).
For No.4 George Szell is excellent on Sony SBK46535
(with Frederica von Stade and Andrew Davis in Lieder eines
fahrenden Gesellen). I’m going to be unhelpful and reject
all the cheapest versions of No.5 in favour of Bernstein’s mid-price
DG account (4776334 – be warned: this version is also listed
with its full-price catalogue number) and for the later symphonies
I’ll report back when I’ve absorbed the LSO Live versions of
Nos. 6 and 7 from Valery Gergiev: my favourite version of No.6,
Szell again on SBK47654, seems no longer to be available.
I must make one other
recommendation: the Janet Baker/Bernard Haitink version of Mahler’s
Das Lied von der Erde on another Australian Eloquence CD,
4681822.
Brian Wilson
Maureen
Forrester* (contralto); The California Boys’ Choir; members of the
Los Angeles Master Chorale; Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/Zubin
Mehta 
