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Santtu conducts Mahler (Philharmonia Data) / Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (Pentatone) / Mahler Songs (Signum)
★/★★★★☆/★★★☆☆
Though fairly a couple of orchestras now launch concert events on their very own labels, the sphere is fraught with threat. London’s Philharmonia Orchestra has chosen Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony as its second selfie. Huge mistake. The Philharmonia’s model is basically outlined by Otto Klepmperer’s Nineteen Sixties Mahler performances, led by an earth-shattering Resurrection. It stays an eternal benchmark.
The most recent Mahler Second is carried out by a Finnish music director, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, who has incandescent qualities however speaks Mahler clunkily as a international language. The opening motion, although two minutes faster than most, has sluggish tempi and structural frailty. Instrumental solos are highlighted on the expense of textural coherence. One of many two vocal soloists is not sure the place to breathe. This efficiency can’t finish quickly sufficient for me. Did nobody ask the conductor in rehearsal the place on earth he thought this was going?
Fortunately, Semyon Bychkov’s Czech Philharmonic cycle exhibits how Mahler should be completed. The primary symphony affords a travelogue of pre-industrial forests and lakes, interwoven with human disasters. Love and loss of life are inseparable on this panorama. Bychkov downplays the klezmer tune within the third-movement orgy to universalise the horror of women and men dancing themselves drunk after a toddler’s funeral. The Pentatone sound is pellucid and the Czech Phil may give any orchestra on earth a masterclass in Mahler idioms. I await every instalment of this cycle with bated breath.
Kathleen Ferrier was the primary English contralto to sing Mahler with authority, adopted eminently by Janet Baker and recently by Alice Coote and Sarah Connolly. All are magnificent. Connolly’s wealthy, deep tone on Signum Classics units the 5 Rückert Lieder in a valley of shadows, from pitch darkish in Um Miiternacht to solitary daybreak in Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen. Connolly’s Songs of the Dying of Kids are as heartrending because it will get, virtually unbearably empathetic. The pianist Joseph Middleton maintains a therapeutic emotional steadiness. This expertise is not going to depart you.
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Norman Lebrecht is likely one of the most widely-read commentators on music, tradition and cultural politics. He’s an everyday presenter on BBC Radio 3 and a contributor to the Wall Road Journal, Bloomberg, Standpoint, Sinfini and different publications. His weblog, Slipped Disc, is among the many most generally learn cultural websites on-line, breaking unique tales and campaigning towards human abuse and acts of injustice within the cultural industries.
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