Accentus Music

Mahler: Symphony No 9 / Chailly, Gewandhaus Orchestra

Accentus Music

$41.99

September 30, 2014

Mahler: Symphony No 9 / Abbado, Lucerne Festival Orchestra

Accentus Music

$41.99

January 25, 2011

Also available on Blu-ray

3464152.az_MAHLER_Symphony_9_Claudio.html

MAHLER Symphony No 9 • Claudio Abbado, cond; Lucerne Fest O • ACCENTUS ACC20214 (DVD: 94:56) Live: Lucerne 8/19-21/2010

EuroArts released a DVD of Claudio Abbado conducting the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in Mahler’s Ninth in 2004, a recording I reviewed in Fanfare 29:2. This new series of Mahler recordings from the Lucerne Festival complements Abbado’s earlier recordings for DG; but for many listeners, among whom I number myself, these DVDs supplant the CDs. Abbado has sometimes been criticized for the detached manner of his Mahler recordings, but the emotional commitment on view at the Lucerne Festival concerts is undeniable.

On this new recording of the Ninth, however, restraint is the order of the day. String sonorities predominate, and in the first movement, there is sweep to the exposition and development, but the brass seems to be reined in, except in the snarling three-note motive in the climax leading to the recapitulation. In the second movement, the jaunty Ländler isn’t heavily accented; Rattle’s EMI CD is more obviously pesante by comparison. The waltz is stiff, almost as though serving as a corrective to its less suave country cousin; there is a tinge of nostalgia to the slow Ländler.

There is admirable precision in the onslaught of fragmented themes in the beginning and ending of the Rondo. This third movement isn’t as emphatic as those by Rattle or Bernstein; the satire here is laid on with a subtler brush. The Trio is gently intrusive and heartfelt, giving way to intrusive and carping winds, then to a final sigh as the Rondo reasserts itself. Restraint is again the watchword in the Adagio finale. These aren’t the emphatic, intense phrases of Bernstein or Tilson Thomas; though there is feeling here, it just isn’t as obviously heart-on-sleeve. This concert introduces an intriguing touch: During the last few minutes, the stage lights are dimmed, becoming a visual complement to the dying moments of the symphony. Abbado now takes these measures very slowly. As the last notes decay, the orchestra sits in silence, Abbado is motionless, and for over two minutes there is no sound, until the audience erupts for what becomes an extended ovation. It’s all quite theatrical, but there is no denying its effectiveness.

Abbado’s is not my ideal Ninth: I prefer the more highly contrasted approach of, most recently, Simon Rattle/Berlin and MTT/San Francisco, and of Bernstein/New York before them. When the performance is at this level of professionalism, however, my preferences hardly matter. Those listeners/viewers seeking consummate musicianship and masterly conducting need look no further. The sound production (stereo, DTS, and Dolby 5.1) is better than those heard on DG’s Abbado CDs, and the video production is crisp and sensible. Abbado in Lucerne: What else needs to be said?

FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

-----

This captures much of the peerless tone-colour, shape, drive and above all those hushed dynamics of [the] performance, awarded what feels like an infinite silence at the end... Abbado's pacing is unrivalled... the mixture of close-ups and wide shots in the final rituals is superb as ever from this team. Finest concert DVD ever? I think so.

– David Nice, BBC Music Magazine [6/2011]

-----

Recorded live at the Concert Hall of the Culture and Convention Center, Lucerne, 19-21 August 2010.

Extraordinary highlight of the program is the additional perspective of the “Conductor Camera”. This special feature offers the option to experience Claudio Abbado from the orchestra’s perspective.

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 95 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Mahler: Symphony No. 7 / Chailly, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig

Accentus Music

$41.99

September 25, 2015

Also available on Blu-ray

Chailly conducts a structural masterclass of the Seventh's first movement, formally considered Mahler’s most ‘problematic’ single movement. He marks an emphatic arrival on the brass cadence to close the first subject around five minutes in, and marshals the luscious second theme like a piece of the new Leoncavallo or early Strauss which Mahler apparently shaped so masterfully even while holding his nose at their frivolous realism.

What really distinguishes Chailly’s Mahler nowadays (from his earlier self but also from most of the competition) is that he pushes through the music with the Italianate passion that Abbado chose to efface over the years. Thus a brighter light than usual is shone on the two Nachtmusik movements, while the shadows run deeper as solo harp, then cello, then flute, then trumpet bring about the second movement’s reprise in a carnival-mask passing of the baton from Bruckner to Webern.

The balance favors trilling flutes and manic percussion but allows plenty of room for that guttural Leipzig brass and bass, which has surely never sounded finer.

- Gramophone

MAHLER, G.: Symphony No. 7 (Chailly) (Blu-ray, Full-HD)

Gustav Mahler
SYMPHONY NO. 7
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Riccardo Chailly, conductor

Recorded live at Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, 27–28 February and 2 March 2014

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 83 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Mahler: Symphony No 6 / Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

Accentus Music

$41.99

November 19, 2013

MAHLER Symphony No. 6 & • Riccardo Chailly, cond; Gewandhaus O • ACCENTUS 20268 (DVD: 86:25 + 18:28)

& Panel discussion with Riccardo Chailly and Reinhold Kubik

A Mahler Sixth in which the Andante movement comes second? And where the last movement has two hammer blows, not the three that Mahler himself included at the premiere)? Well, yes, and those are just two of the things that make Riccardo Chailly’s interpretation of this over-familiar work sound new. Another is the incredibly swift, truly scherzo-like tempo with which Chailly takes the (now) third movement, not at a pace mimicking the first, as usually happens when it comes second.

Some of the mystery is explained in the 18-minute conversation that Chailly holds in the bonus feature. The “wrong” order of the movements (Allegro energico, Andante moderato, Scherzo, and Finale: Sostenuto) is how they appeared in the conductor’s score that was actually published in March 1906. By the time a second score was published in November of the same year, the Scherzo now came second, and this is how it was premiered. In addition, the premiere had three hammer blows in the last movement, not the traditional two; that came later, too. Early in the interview Chailly admitted that he had copiously studied the scores owned by conductor Willem Mengelberg, who had known Mahler and who wrote down all sorts of things, including metronome markings (usually not in Mahler’s symphonies), that he slavishly followed for years. “But now,” Chailly says, “I am no longer such a slave to tradition.” Musicologist Reinhold Kubik of the Mahler Society mentions that when Mengelberg wrote to Alma Mahler about the order of the movements, she said that the Andante came second—and she stuck by that judgment even as late as 1957. Was she wrong? She did mention that he had conducted it that way in a city where he never played this work, but memory is a tricky thing, and the fact that she emphatically insisted that the Andante came second in letters written some 40 years apart should count for something.

Whatever your judgment of these decisions, there is no question that Chailly’s Sixth is simply mind-boggling. The first movement itself is taken at an Allegro that is certainly more energico than I’ve ever heard it before in my life. In a certain sense, this new, brisker tempo rather eliminates the feeling of jackboots marching that most other conductors bring out in it; rather, it sounds like the blind rush of a madman, interrupted by the calmer middle section.

But there is much more to Chailly’s Mahler than just faster tempos. There is a much stronger feeling of organic unity and structure in the music, a more songful legato line in each and every movement, and the playing of the Gewandhaus Orchestra is staggeringly beautiful and dramatically effective. Chailly seats the orchestra the way Mahler himself wanted it: first and second violins split left and right, cellos in the middle right behind them, other instruments spaced out so as to create the balances Mahler so carefully constructed. (Michael Gielen seated his orchestra the same way when he conducted Mahler in Cincinnati during the 1980s.) The “traditional” seating used by most orchestras, Kubik tells us, originated from that used by Leopold Stokowski when he conducted Mahler in America in the early-to-mid 20th century. And in the last movement, which runs 34 minutes, Chailly creates a world-within-a-world. His hammer blows are not just some bangy little hammer on an anvil, but a HUGE wooden mallet that looks like it needed Thor to handle it.

On the podium, Chailly presents the image of an excited schoolboy, jumping up and down, raising his arms and slicing his baton through the air like the drop of a guillotine. Perhaps it is a bit overdone, especially if you are accustomed (as I am) to watching such conductors as Kempe, Böhm, Toscanini, Gielen, and Ormandy conduct, but it doesn’t really seem like an affectation, either. Most of what he does is either in response to the music or in anticipation of how he wants the next attack or the next phrase to go. He is simply emotionally involved in each and every bar of the score, and he wants it just so. Considering the great results he gets, I can’t really find much fault with that. After all, he does ask all the principal wind players to stand up and take a bow at the end.

So often, for me, watching a conductor perform an orchestral concert is a bit like watching paint dry, unless you are a really big fan of conductor X and you want to study the way he moves on the podium, but in this case I found myself completely caught up in watching Chailly and the orchestra because they’re so deeply into what they are doing. In the trailer on this disc for his video of the Fourth Symphony, Chailly mentions that both he and the Gewandhaus Orchestra musicians have come to an understanding of how to best play Mahler: They get involved but always remain in control. “If you let Mahler control you,” he warns, “you’re heading for trouble.” In addition to all this, the high-resolution digital sound is as spectacular as Chailly’s interpretation, capturing the slightest rustle of harp strings and the sound of stays on the oboe with astounding clarity.

Looking at the trailers, there are also DVDs out of Chailly conducting the Second, Fourth, and Eighth Symphonies. The snippets I’ve heard of all of them sound amazing. I recommend looking for all of them, and also awaiting the rest of the series.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 & Des Knaben Wunderhorn / Nelsons, Goerne [Blu-ray]

Accentus Music

~~$41.99~~ $31.99

March 21, 2016

Also available on standard DVD

Andris Nelsons conducted the Lucerne Festival Orchestra for the third time in August 2015, the orchestra’s second summer without founder and guiding spirit Claudio Abbado. The first half of his concert was already a highlight: the baritone Matthias Goerne seemed completely at home in a selection of songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. His warm, dark voice allows him to capture the somber and tragic atmosphere of this music like no one else. Its shaded timbre is most perfectly suited to the work’s melancholy and nocturnal moods, where one can directly experience how an artist of this caliber can bring music to the edge of the abyss. The Lucerne Festival Orchestra, renowned for its unique Mahler sound, had last played Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in the summer of 2004 with Abbado – a flowing, transparent, and ethereal interpretation. Nelsons finds a completely different approach to the work. His Mahler is fiery, expansive, and powerful. In spite of the introductory funeral march, his reading is more positive than tragic, radiating an intense vitality. It is breathtaking to observe the orchestra’s response to Nelsons’s energetic, physical, and emotional conducting style. The relationship between orchestra and conductor is one of giving and taking, nothing else.

Picture Format Blu?ray: NTSC 16:9, Full HD

Sound Formats Blu?ray: DTS HD Master Audio, PCM Stereo

Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

Running Time: 123:12 min

Disc Format: BD 25

Subtitles: German (Original), French, English, Japanese, Korean

Accentus Music

301 products

Mahler: Symphony No 9 / Chailly, Gewandhaus Orchestra

Mahler: Symphony No 9 / Chailly, Gewandhaus Orchestra [blu-ray]

Mahler: Symphony No 9 / Abbado, Lucerne Festival Orchestra

Mahler: Symphony No. 8 / Chailly, Lucerne Festival Orchestra [Blu-ray]

Mahler: Symphony No 8 / Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus

Mahler: Symphony No. 7 / Chailly, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig [blu-ray]

Mahler: Symphony No. 7 / Chailly, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig

Mahler: Symphony No 6 / Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra [blu-ray]

Mahler: Symphony No 6 / Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 & Des Knaben Wunderhorn / Nelsons, Goerne [Blu-ray]

Mahler: Symphony No 5 / Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 / Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra [blu-ray]

Mahler: Symphony No 4 / Chailly, Gewandhaus-orchester [blu-ray]

Mahler: Symphony No 4 / Chailly, Gewandhaus-Orchester

Mahler: Symphony No 2 / Chailly, Oelze, Connolly, Leipzig Gewandhaus

Filter