Customer Reviews

Mahler: Symphony No. 2

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I made the investment of buying the complete Bernstein Mahler cycle a number of years ago. Since then, I have found better recordings of a few (Abbado's fourth, Boulez's first), and certainly different recordings of the second, but none that are so romantic and intense. Abbado's is perhaps a bit more faithful to the score and certainly more operatic (Marilyn Horne's "Urlicht" alone is enough to make you swoon) and Klemperer's is more Germanic. However, after spending a considerable amount of time with these other recordings, I returned to the Bernstein today and found myself completely (and appropriately) overwhelmed. The non-stop outpouring of emotions is splendid. The brass in the New York Philharmonic has a full range of dynamic emotion; on the sweet side, especially the cantabile trumpet in the Scherzo and the trombone in the last movement, and on the forceful the horn calls in the last movement. The percussion is practically flawless and certainly bold. (The long percussion crescendo that precedes the march in the last movement is drawn out over an agonizing 20 seconds in this recording, twice as long as some others, to great effect). The crowning glory is of the Westminster Choir, whose attention to detail is almost beyond comprehension. Breaths in the long, slow, sustained sections are completely inaudible. The achingly slow recapitulation of "Aufersteh'n" (with organ) is not "mere" jubilation, but a solemn, ecstatic prayer for salvation and resurrection. My dwelling on the last movements is not to overshadow the first two movements, which are also excellent. The "Totenfeier" sometimes lacks the edge of Klemperer, but is not lacking in character. The second movement, especially the pizzicato section, is pure Tchaikowsky, as it probably was intended to be. I have listened to this work literally hundreds of times, but have never been moved as much as by this incredible recording.

Like several others who have written reviews here, I, too, was in the audience when this concert was recorded. Unlike the others, I have yet to hear the cd, although I've spent nearly 20 years wanting to hear it and to experience that evening again. It was, by far, the single most powerful musical experience of my life. Just thinking of it brings back the tremendous emotions of that night in April 1987.

Allow me to add some things that no one else who was there has mentioned. Not only were we informed beforehand that the concert was being recorded -- can't say that I remember being given cough drops -- I must say I was in a daze afterward and have been ever since -- but we knew that at the end of the concert, Bernstein would be given the Albert Schweitzer Music Award.

Despite rather extreme poverty, I had treated myself to the concert as a 32nd birthday present to myself. It was worth far far more to me than the month of peanut butter sandwiches that followed. The only seat I could afford was in one of the upper balconies on the right side of the auditorium; I sat close to the railing and could see the orchestra, the soloists and Bernstein from above.

Once the music started, I don't remember moving, blinking or even breathing until the last note played. It was shattering. It was exhilarating. When the music ended, the audience took a collective breath and exhaled very slowly. All around me, I could hear people sobbing. After what seemed like several minutes, but was probably only a few seconds, the cheering started, rolling over me in waves. Before I even knew I'd left my seat, I was on my feet. I glanced at my watch, realizing to my amazement how much time (94 minutes, according to others who have written here) had elapsed. The cheering continued for a good 10 minutes or so. I'm not exagerrating when I say that never before or since have I heard anything like it -- just when you thought the applause couldn't get any louder or more passionate, it grew -- not unlike the end of the Mahler 2nd itself -- and grew and grew and grew in intensity. Wanting to record this night in my memory, I took a slow look around the theater, and saw tears on nearly every face. Everyone was standing; everyone was cheering.

Then, just when we'd forgotten all about it, Bernstein was presented with the Albert Schweitzer Music Award. The applause and cheers started all over again. I do recall looking at my watch as I gathered my things to leave and being stunned to realize that nearly half an hour had passed since the music ended.

The crowd surrounded me as I left Avery Fisher Hall. There was an emotional bond among us. Behind me, I heard someone read my mind, saying just what I was thinking: "This piece should never be performed again. No one could ever come close to this performance."

During the next several minutes as I left the theater and walked up Broadway to my apartment, that same thought echoed around me, spontaneously, it seemed. Everyone who was there seemed to have come to the same conclusion: "No one should ever attempt to play Mahler's Second again." "This was the definitive performance." "It can't be topped." "This was it. No one should ever conduct this piece of music again."

Since that night, I have never again listened to Mahler's 2nd. Not a recording, and certainly not in person. I couldn't. I'd heard the best, and nothing else will do.

I'm placing my order right now. I've waited nearly 20 years to get this recording, and I really don't care how much it costs. It's worth every penny to me.

Leonard Bernstein made the Mahler symphony cycle his own: he re-discovered it, performed it, explained it, and brought about a well deserved revival for the 20th century's greatest symphonist and composer. The Second Symphony is one of Mahler's--and Bernstein's--most important pieces (some may argue most important), and this recording shows just how well LB comprehended the scope of this work. The opening of this symphony needs to be a fierce ball of energy, and that is just what happens here. From the first attack, the NYPO blasts of into one of the most powerful pieces of music ever written. I would love to have been able to have been in Avery Fischer Hall when this was performed: that enormous "fff" ritenuto in the middle of the 1st movement must have blown the roof off the place. The second movement is delicately done; a lovely, elegant reading like none I've ever heard. The Scherzo is just that; an orchestral setting of a "Wunderhorn" song. Christa Ludwig is fantastic singing the "Ulricht". She delivers one of the most religious, meditative performances on record. Then there's the massive, 30-some odd minute finale. It is admiralbly and brilliantly done: when the organ opens up "volles werk" with the final, tremendous chorus, there is one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful moments in all music. This recording may well be Leonard Bernstein's finest triumph: a fantastically balanced, musical reading to Mahler's most important symphony.

Bernstein so closely identified himself with the Mahelr Second that he made three recordings. For a long time two have stood out: the first, from 1963, with the New York Phil. (Sony) and the last, from 1988, from a live concert, also in New York (DG). Sony owns another live concert from 1974 with the London Sym. and the unmatched Janet Baker as soloist in "Urlicht," but it has boomy cathedral sound and is hard to find. Comparing the two major recordings brings out interesting contrasts.

Sony 1963: Bernstein was 45 and freshly arrived at Mahelr when he made this recording. The phrasing in every movemeent has a spontaneous freshness that few have ever duplicated, including Bernstien himself. Nothing is played for rhetorical effect. Tempos are moderate; the orchestra plays beautifully and is captured in spacious sonics at Manhattan Center. The two vocal soloists, mezzo Jennie Tourel and soprano Lee Verona, were Bernstein favorites, but neither is ideal. Tourel sounds mature and doesn't blend well with Verona in the finale; her Urlicht is sincere and moving, however. The professional chorus is excellent but recorded too far back for us to make out the words or for maximum impact.

DG 1988: Twenty-five years later, when Bernstein was 70, he retained the basic shape of his earlier interpretation but slowed it down, by almost 4 min. in the finale, which is quite broad now. Spontaneity has been exchanged for a deeper, more settled view but also some rhetoric. The sound is multi-miked, often close up, and with not as much air around it as for Sony. there is more underlining for emphasis, but not to an extreme. I think the finale suffers fromB ernstein's earnestness to make sure it sounds cosmic, yet even here he applies convincing points--the stupendous coda does sound cosmic. He uses another aging mezzo, Christa Ludwig, for the Urlicht, which she sings beautifully. It's too bad that LB takes two min. longer in this short movement; it sounds funereal. Soprano Barbara Hendricks sounds ideal. The chrosu is also better than on Sony and recorded, like the organ in the finale, with much more impact than before; we canmake out more words thanks to the multi-miking.

As interpretations, I think there is little to choose for the first three movements. After that, Bernstein is more musically fresh in 1963 but captured in more dramatic sonics in 1988. Chorus and soloists are also better in the 1988 set. The later performance ends in wrenching catharsis, and for some lsiteners that will make the difference. Both sets are five-star readings on the highest plane of performance and musicality.

(Since it is full price with no fillers, this DG set might lose out economically, but it has recently been reissued at mid-price in a box set of Bernstein's Mahler.)

I was in Avery Fisher hall when this CD was recorded. I had never heard this work before, but from the first note, I was transfixed by the music. The hall could have burned to the ground around me and I would not have noticed. Apart from a short pause between the first and second movements, the piece was performed continuously. For me, it was the most intense musical experience of a lifetime. Even though I had been attending concerts for years, I had never realized that music could be like this. This CD is a precise rendition of that performance. Every time I play it, I am transported back to that magical moment when I first heard it.

To enhance the recording, the audience was given a special sheet of instructions on how to keep silent. Cough-drops were passed out at the door, and people were asked not to cough or to make any other sound during the performance.

According to the program notes, this recording was to be part of a complete Mahler cycle with Bernstein as conductor. Each performance was to be recorded live. For each performance the conductor selected the best orchestra and concert hall for that particular symphony.

This is a marvelous recording, well worth owning.

Mahler's epic Second Symphony ranks as one of my all-time favourite works of music. I had the incredible joy of performing it about a year ago (fourth oboe--last movement only, alas!), which was one of the most exhilirating experiences of my musical life. This recording is my absolute favourite. Bernstein's best qualities bring out Mahler's best qualities--the tempi are exaggerated, the fortes are really loud, and the pianos are unbelievably soft. There is excitement and power in the first movement alone, but Bernstein manages to drop to nothing at all for a beautiful, serene second movement. Some have complained that his tempo for the Scherzo is too slow, but I think it marvellously brings out the creative orchestration, and adds the bit of humour that Mahler intended. The Urlicht is simply to die for--Christa Ludwig's clear contralo voice floats above a heavenly orchestra sound, lush strings, and Joe Robinson's gorgeous oboe tone (one of my favourite moments in symphonic history) to make the listener thank God that he is alive to hear such music. The finale is performed with such vigour and passion that is classic Bernsein and most appropriate to Mahler. The March section is actually taken very quickly, after a dramatically slow brass intro. The chorus gives a stunning performance, and Barbara Hendricks's voice rising above the "ja auferstein" is straight from heaven.

In other words, if you don't have this recording, and you care a fig about classical music, then may I highly recommend it to you. It is, simply put, glorious.

For sumptuous orchestral and vocal sound, and for stretching of the limits of good taste in expressing every last ounce of emotion in the score, this is a wonderful recording. The final 25 minutes, in particular, are stunning, and, if you like Mahler done this way, totally exhausting. There could hardly be a greater contrast in versions than that between this recording and Bernstein's recently released 1960s recording with the N. Y. Philharmonic (Sony), which is lean and taut and almost driven. This version is magnificent on every dimension, including the recorded sound.

If you've read the many reviews of this performance as I have you will have heard both praise and criticism in almost equal doses. For one, I love this symphony above all others and this performance of it above all others.

There are more cerebral interpretations of Mahler including those of Boulez and Abbado. They emphasize the sublety, structure and harmonic complexity of Mahler, aspects of his symphonies which are often overlooked. However at the core of this work is lyricism, energy and emotion all of which are wonderfully evoked by Leonard Bernstein.

For Bernstein, this recording is the culmination of many memorable performances of this work. His three recordings of this work are all remarkable in their own way but the first two ultimately lead the path to this remarkable 1988 recording. Many memorable live performances of this work also shaped Bernstein's understanding of this beautiful score.

Listen to the lyricism and haunting passages in the softer parts of each movement for they contain some of the most beautiful orchestral phrasing one will ever hear. By the time he made this recording Bernstein had long ago harvested all of the "low hanging fruit" of this work and is introducing us to the sweet nectar from the highest of its limbs.

As other reviewers have pointed out, some of the tempi in this performance are slower than other recordings incluing his prior two. This is because by the time he made this recording, Bernstein had more to bring to each passage of this symnphony than possibly any other conductor has.

The final movement of this work represents the culmination of Bernstein's career as it is part of a culmination of the symphonic form. This performace is an incredible journey through the beauty, majesty, symmetry and emotion that are embodied by Mahler and Bernstein.

Leonard Bernstein is often considered one of the greatest Mahler conductors of our time. Certainly, his authoritative performances of Mahler's works are some of the most intense around (closer to Bruno Walter's open-heartedness than to Otto Klemperer's clear-headed stoicism). Whether you find his interpretations genuinely moving or insufferably over-the-top, there is no denying the passion of his conducting, and the emotion his baton elicits from the orchestras he directs.

No matter what you may think of some of Bernstein's admittedly slow tempos in this performance of Mahler's extravagant "Resurrection" Symphony, by the end there is only one adjective to descibe it as a whole: transcendant. Its Finale is a triumph, and the choral coda will truly leave you in awe. Early on, some listeners might be a little disturbed by the sheer slowness of the first and second movements---the "Funeral Rites" first movement, marked "Allegro maestoso", is transformed into a heavy-handed trudge, while the second movement is more "Adagio" than "Andante moderato"---but once again, as with most of his Mahler performances, Bernstein manages to lead you along by the sheer force of his personality, and by the electricity the performance generates. (It helps that the New York Philharmonic is on top form here, and all throughout the performance, with some especially distinguished wind playing.)

The point is, this blazing performance of a popular Mahler work will leave you overwhelmed by its impact, and I suspect that Mahler himself would not have it any other way. Highly recommended.

Leonard Bernstein made three commercial recordings of the "Resurrection" Symphony, and each time he returned to the symphony it got slower and more exaggerated. Otto Klemperer, not exactly a speed demon in his later years, managed to play through in 79 minutes what Bernstein required 94 to traverse in this set. Everything in this recording is overdone and loved to death, and while Bernstein's total identification with Mahler can't help but pay some dividends, I really feel as though this composer doesn't need quite as much "help" in making his points as the conductor evidently believes. It devolves into kitsch, even if it's kitsch of a high order. Never boring (was Bernstein ever?) but not as true to the letter and spirit of this heaven-storming score as Klemperer, Mehta in his Vienna recording, the businessman-turned-amateur-conductor Gilbert Kaplan--or Bernstein himself in his (still kinda overstated) 1963 recording with the same orchestra.