Mahler: Symphony no 10 / Chailly, RSO Berlin [Import]

Gustav Mahler (Composer), Riccardo Chailly (Conductor), Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Riccardo Chailly
• Composer: Gustav Mahler
• Audio CD (June 13, 2000)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: Decca Import
• ASIN: B00004T769
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #313,534 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Towering, visionary, transcendent., May 31, 2001

By 

Daniel R. Greenfield "Dan" (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Mahler: Symphony no 10 / Chailly, RSO Berlin (Audio CD)

Sir Simon Rattle's recording of Mahler 10 has received many positive reviews, and rightly so. However, this interpretation by Chailly sounds slightly better to my ears than Rattle's. It seems to me to be a little more expressive, with a greater dynamic range. But in fact both are great performances; nit-picking and splitting hairs has never appealed to me.

As for the work itself, its finale has always haunted me, with its muffled drumbeats, its cathartic dissonant chord, and its gently haunting lyric that seems to express so perfectly Mahler's intense love of life and his longing for the infinite. This symphony (as it now stands, thanks to Cooke's noble efforts) has an apochryphal and apocalyptic quality that surrounds it in mystery and depth. It is a monumental work, towering, visionary, transcendent, without a trace of bitterness or self-pity.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most consistent performance of Cooke's version, August 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Mahler: Symphony no 10 / Chailly, RSO Berlin (Audio CD)

I've been listening to this recording all afternoon, and felt no need to take it off the disc player. Compared to the first Rattle recording and the Slatkin/Mazzetti recording, I believe the Chailly beats them both in terms of musical consistency and aural sound quality, respectively. (As a serviceable alternative, I'd recommend the Slatkin, if for nothing else his fascinating Mahler lecture [recorded on a bonus CD] and for the only complete performance of the Mazzetti version in the catalog.)

IMHO, the Chailly/Cooke recording sounds the most Mahlerish. Listening to a friend's recording of Rattle's most recent recording of the tenth, Sir Simon seems to have handled the score's omissions better but now the tempos seem too slow and deliberate for me.

Until something better comes along--or, of course, if Mahler decides to revise the work from beyond the grave--I'd highly recommend the Chailly version.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A polished, energized reading in very good sound, November 24, 2005

By 

Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Mahler: Symphony no 10 / Chailly, RSO Berlin (Audio CD)

If this CD had to stand only on the opening Adagio of the Tenth Sym., the one movement Mahler finished in orhcestral scoring, Chailly would rate barely three stars. This inspired tragic fragment has been performed with much greater intensity by Bernstein, Abbado, and others, compared to Chailly's fairly brisk and glib traversal. He barely pauses to make expressive points.

What makes the rest of the recording notable is that major conductors have been reluctant to touch Deryck Cooke's performing version of Mahler's often sketchy drafts. (I've heard five other reconstructions as well, and all sound inferior to Cooke's, which is hte least intrusive with new ideas.) Only the premiere recording by Ormandy (one of his best performanes, and now newly remastered on Sony) and two by Simon Rattle from Bournemouth and Berlin rival Chailly in execution, and he has the definite edge in sound. Decca's 1988 sonics are detailed and full, overall better than what EMI gave Rattle from Berlin in 1999. Chailly had trained the Berlin Radio Symphony to a high polish by this time, and it is thrilling to hear them attack much of this music.

Chailly conducts with energy and incisiveness in the last four movements. Rattle went one step further and tried to bring these sketches fully into Mahler's emotional world. We will never know if the Tenth would have been truly great--the surviving music is not wholly ocnvincing--but he had a long way to go before it was finished. Every Mahlerian should be grateful for this full-bodied and committed performance, even if it falls short of greatness. Four stars is an average between the poor Adagio and the rest of the reading, which rates five stars.