Customer Reviews

Mahler: Symphony no 10 / Chailly, RSO Berlin

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Mahler's fragments of what was to be his Tenth Symphony contain some of the composer's most wrenchingly beautiful writing - and some sketches that obviously the composer would have re-thought had he survived to complete this gargantuan work! Yet thanks to musicologists (such as Deryck Cooke in this version) Mahler's intact Adagio first movement, his basically completed second movement, and the notes for the remainder of the work have been studied and orchestrated and allow us to experience the closing of life of one of the major symphonists in history.

Of all the numerous versions of this reconstructed work none comes out as the definitive one: just when you think Simon Rattle's live recording with the Berlin Philharmonic is the pinnacle, along comes a live performance in a concert hall (young Daniel Harding guest conducting the LA Philharmonic in the wondrous acoustic of Disney Hall) and all bets are off. This recording of Ricardo Chailly with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin has warmth and power and a sweeping vision, despite the occasional lapses in the Cooke realization of Mahler's fragments, that certainly puts it among the higher-ranking versions.

For the true Mahlerite it is probably important to have multiple recordings of the various performing versions as conducted by a variety of conductors to find out exactly what Mahler was saying and crying and sighing as his life ended. And this performance by Chailly should definitely be among them. Grady Harp, November 2004

This recording of the Mahler 10th is now over 20 years old, yet it still holds up nicely for me, compared to Rattle's 1995 (?) Berlin Phil performance and the initial playing of this wonderful work by Wynn Morris dating from the later 70's. Recorded in Jesus Shrist Church in Berlin with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of that great city, Chailly clocks in at 78:45. Rattle is a bit swifter at 77:22 and Morris pleasingly less hurried at 79:52. The story behind the Mahler 10th is by now well known to listeners all over the world, so I won't go into that topic. The interpretation and playing IS a topic for discussion, however.

The first movement adagio very early on brings us, at about 5:25 thru 7:00, to a short passage in F-sharp that, displays a grand passionate seperation between full strings and brass, emphasis on horns, and culminates with full orchestra at 7:00, before the troubled mood enters. This music is composed and played with an aching sense of beauty that is, perhaps the best I've ever heard. I suspect it might have even took the composer's breath away. It certainly did mine, and I'd like to hear it again and again. The use of metal and wood mutes in brass and wind parts is just right! The tempo is very leasurely and expansive but not sluggish. The pacing is sheer rapture to the ears. The bass fiddles are strongly plucked, perhaps a bit too strongly. The ending is very lovely and so gentle. With nearly 53 more minutes yet to go, we're confident there are more beautiful moments coming.

The 2nd movement Scherzo #1 runs a hearty 11:53 and is robust and rythmic with a great bouncy feel. There is a nice youthful touch to this music with a well expressed fullness of life. The triumphant horns, oddly, hearken back to the opening of the 3rd Symphony, not in themeatic similarity, but in spirit, positive and energetic. Full of promise. Strange at this point in Mahler's life.

Movement #3 is the quick and dark Purgatorio. Mahler , by this time , had already converted to Catholicism, hence the title of this sinister and certainly less than sunny 4:22 movement, which runs like yet another scherzo. Once again, there are fine uses of mutes, particularly for Brass and plenty of snarling notes for color. The ending is crisp and clean.

The 4th movenmt, marked Scherzo #2 opens with brash and crashing notes and displays the same strong rythmic pulse of Scherzo #1. It will be contrasted with the heavenly Finale.
The Finale begins with about 2 minutes of ominous rumblings accented by hard and dramatic thwacks on tympani and bass drum. At about 2:01, the horns lead us into a very passionate theme played quite warmly by the RSO Berlin, with a solo flute leading the way, then taken up by high strings and plucked harp; we can already see the genius behind this composition. Two beautiful adagios serving as bookends for the three inner movements. Some have questioned whether this is more Cooke than we think, but I feel it's significant and mostly Mahler. The Goldschmidt brothers have stated that NO new melodic lines were composed, and that they and Cooke simply produced a performing version of the Finale, as indeed they did for the whole symphony. At about the 6:15 mark, things start to sound a bit ominous and unsettled again, until about 10:53, when the principal theme returns, even more pasionate than before , principaly stated by a horn and trumpet duet, leading into warm, lush full orchestra. It is as though Mahler has regained his confidence in life and the future, as indeed he was making plans for his up coming visit to America and performances in New York City. So, what's Mahler without pain? At 12:15, the orshestra cries out of its heart and sends us into a negative idea that seems to doom us to the end. A long pedal point on trumpet gives one the impression of never ending negitavism, but at 14:14, confidence returns with a sweet, pastoral serenade starting on winds and passed off to a rich and gentle horn choir then to our full orchestra again and all seems to be leading us to a satisfying and loving conclusion. If it's true that Mahler was only saying good-bye to the tonal world of the early 20th Century, then we can hear that in these notes. If, however, as scholars have stated and, as I objectively believe, Mahler's heart was breaking due to Alma's infidelity, then we can most certainly hear and feel the pain AND love all through this magnificent work. A man rarely allows outsiders to get a glimpse of his inner heart. Women share their feelings and intimate thoughts with everyone, including Oprah Winfrey. God made us that way. The genius of this 10th Symphony is that the composer can express his feelings to the masses AND to individuals, like myself. And, he can do this simultaniously!! A trully remarkable feat. This is a glorious reading by a first rate Mahlerian conductor with a heartfelt and devoted performance by the Berlin Radio Symphony. I can't reccomend it more highly than I do. I said in a review of the Mahler 2nd with Haitink and the Chicago Symphony that upon Daniel Barenboim's decision to leave the Windy City, that I asked God for Haitink 1st, then Chailly 2nd as new Musi Director. Well, we didn't get Chailly, but we did get Mr Haitink as principal conductor for 4 years. It's pleasing to me to see such fine judgement from the CSO administration. Perhaps, if I pray just a little bit harder, Mr. Chailly may come to us in the future. God only knows. If you act fast, you can pickup this reading from Amazon for around $10-$13, or, even better, the complete cycle with 1-9 and the Concertgebouw Orchestra and this version of #10 new or like new, again from Amazon, for #50-$53. I predict these recordings, and in particular the 10th will remain on everyone's highly reccomended list for many years to come.