MAHLER Symphony No 2 (Nelsons)
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Gustav Mahler, Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: C Major
Magazine Review Date: 08/2019
Media Format: Blu-ray
Media Runtime: 110
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 748 908
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphony No. 2, 'Resurrection' |
Gustav Mahler, Composer
Andris Nelsons, Conductor Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks Ekaterina Gubanova, Contralto Gustav Mahler, Composer Lucy Crowe, Soprano Vienna Symphony Orchestra |
Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra, "Nobody knows |
Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Composer
Andris Nelsons, Conductor Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Composer Håkan Hardenberger, Trumpet Vienna Symphony Orchestra |
Author: Peter Quantrill
Though the Viennese attitude to Mahler was also notoriously equivocal – especially when the composer stood in front of them – the orchestra put heart and soul into this Resurrection Symphony, and Nelsons lets them play. The opening funeral rites come with lashings of rubato, drenched in schmaltz. Both outer movements grind to a halt at the big moments. The spell cast by Ekaterina Gubanova’s restrained ‘Urlicht’ is rather broken by a sticky violin portamento in the closing bars, though her solo contributions and well-contrasted duet with a radiant-sounding Lucy Crowe form the high points of an account that privileges grandeur over moment-to-moment tension. Even modestly boosted to around 75 voices, the Bavarian Radio Chorus are impeccably focused but at least one size too small for the kind of overwhelming finale Mahler had in mind.
Such a festival-event Resurrection presents but one angle on a many-sided symphony, but it’s imbued with a vulgarity and showmanship that can’t be detached from Mahler’s high-minded ideals for the piece. The Andante and Scherzo are both done deliberately and ‘straight’, their oblique relationships with archetypes unexplored. Protracted to the limits of sense, the climactic ‘Auferstehn’ hymn is accompanied by a very electric-sounding organ, which also turns a cheap and shiny glare on the final chord: not very Salzburg.
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