Mahler: Symphony No. 5 [Hybrid SACD] [Hybrid SACD - DSD]

Gustav Mahler (Composer), Michael Tilson Thomas (Conductor), San Francisco Symphony (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: San Francisco Symphony
• Conductor: Michael Tilson Thomas
• Composer: Gustav Mahler
• Audio CD (October 10, 2006)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Hybrid SACD - DSD
• Label: Sfs Media
• ASIN: B000ICLU0E
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #140,765 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Actually, the sound is exceptional and the performance near the best, October 18, 2006

By 

Jonathan Angel (San Francisco area) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mahler: Symphony No. 5 [Hybrid SACD] (Audio CD)

This situation begs for an alternative review. The first review here characterizes Michael Tilson Thomas' recording of Mahler's 5th as a " tepid run-through by an uninvolved conductor and a bored orchestra," yet he also criticizes the performance for excessive rubato and other micromanagement.

Well, you can't have it both ways. This is like criticizing a car for driving blandly, like a Toyota Camry, and at the same time darting all over the road like a 20-year-old Porsche. Whether rubato and fetishes about various detail are excessive or not is a matter of opinion (see later), but it's a fact that a conductor can't pull them off by being "uninvolved."

Like my predecessor, I'll "start with the engineering." Among other considerations, the San Francisco Symphony has commendably used Super Audio CD (SACD) encoding for its entire Mahler cycle. (This is despite the naysayers who dismiss SACD as an irrelevant commercial failure.) That they did so is symptomatic of the general commitment to audio quality in all these recordings.

I am a former recording engineer, and listened to this disc using a SACD player, whose output was fed to high-end stereo separates and studio monitor speakers. I also listened to the standard CD layer, ripped to an iPod Nano. Worst-case, i.e. on the Nano in stereo, the recording was almost as good as its best competitors. (I guess I should have said, there are many other great recordings of Mahler's 5th symphony.)

Best-case is SACD, where like others of its ilk this disc provides audio quality that is riveting. Handled with care, SACD comes closer to live music or a master tape, and the difference is not subtle. Here, there is depth, excellent orchestral balance, and an immersive sense of acoustical space. (And to any critical music lover who says SACD is too costly to bother with, decent players -- which also play DVDs -- are easily available for $200 or less.)

Now to the music. In the overall framework of a negative review, my predecessor actually cites many exceptional qualities of this performance, and there I agree with him. Tilson-Thomas is steeped in Mahler and as for the orchestra's response, they do what he wants on nearly a Chicago Symphony level. (They can't match the Berlin Philharmonic's virtuosity, but then what other orchestra possibly could except God's own?)

As a Bay Area native who rarely attends SFSO concerts, I was prepared to dismiss the orchestra's contribution as second-rate, and I was late to jump onto the Tilson-Thomas Mahler bandwagon. But when I did, his recordings confounded my prejudices -- and this one is no exception.

A conductor whose name is practically synonymous with Mahler -- especially the 5th -- is Leonard Bernstein. Lenny is a conductor you have to hear, but personally I prefer a more literal approach, without infuriating agogic distortions. Let Mahler make his own points, don't bother with special pleading.

Examples of more straightforward Mahler 5ths would be the (wonderful) recordings by Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado. Yet returning to Tilson-Thomas' disc after these reveals him to be "Bernstein lite," a conductor whose flexibility is noticeable but never annoying, always true to the score. Even in the famous Adagietto, which to my mind needs a clear-eyed "innocent" approach, MTT pulls it off.

As a Mahler fanatic, I would hate to live without 5ths by Abbado, Bruno Walter, and perhaps others. Bernstein's Vienna Philharmonic 5th is also one I wouldn't be without. When you're talking about music on this level, no one performance can be "best."

To my mind, MTT's 5th will delight both those who are new to this music and those who know it well. There's a sense of occasion and electricity about this 5th; in fact, I instinctively feel that it will still be remembered in 50 years, long after most others have been forgotten

The only demerit on this disc is the SACD price. To me, the audio quality is worth it, but this very same recording is available on iTunes for just $10.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lyrical, refined Mahler Fifth, one of MTT's best efforts, March 17, 2007

By 

Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mahler: Symphony No. 5 [Hybrid SACD] (Audio CD)

Michael Tilson Thomas can come off as a lightweight who skates over the surface of a score without plunging into its emotional depths. But to turn that accusation on its head, he is a refined musician with a sense of detail and delicacy rather than power and drama. The ideal Mahler conductor needs to possess both halves. A shortage of visceral impact has made me shy away from MTT's Mahler cycle, but this Fifth is stunning. The recorded sound alone qualifies for raves--I've never heard such naturalness and warmth in the Fifth. But more importantly, the Mahler Fifth suits this conductor's temperament.

The music operates between extremes, ecstatic storming of the heavens and funereal gloom, manic outbursts and hushed quiescence. Its extremism tempts conductors to bombard us with garish effects or to twist the musical line into contortions to prove how profoundly affected they are. MTT takes the course of moderation, and where Barenboim, for instance, tortures the score with crude over-statement, Tilson Thomas takes every opportunity to point out the delicacy of quiet passages. Add to this the alert, sensitive playing of the SFSO, and the chemistry works--I paid attention from beginning to end. (For those who keep tabs, the Adagietto takes 10:48 min. here and is performed without overtones of grief. MTT extracts a dreamy wistfulness that is quite lovely.)

Good as tis CD is, Mahler has inspired other great eprformances that transcend this one, from Karajan, Barshai, Abbado, Barbirolli, and the all but forgotten Sir Rudolf Schwarz, a Nazi-era emigre who made a career in London and whose Mahler Fifth on Everest is the performance of a lifetime.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pouring oil on the waves ..., November 4, 2006

By 

Pater Ecstaticus (Norway) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mahler: Symphony No. 5 [Hybrid SACD] (Audio CD)

The Michael Tilson Thomas Mahler cycle with the San Fransisco Symphony Orchestra is now nearing completion with a generally satisfying reading of the Fifth Symphony. The whole cycle will in a whole and on itself make a nice little stack of colorful, nicely polished, technically outstanding performances. Most of the time the playing is distinctive, with smooth ensemble playing, sometimes 'rising above the notes' in wonderful performances. Up to now, I find the First, Sixth and Seventh stand out as especially excellent.
But however gorgeous the sound and however beautifully polished and refined the ensemble playing, I find that these performances sometimes gloss over too much, or better: do not evoke enough, the anxiety and raw emotion - the sense of 'heart and nerves laid bare'. This is especially the case here, I think, with this recording of the Fifth Symphony, where as a result of going for a beautiful sound and for smooth ensemble playing, I think maybe too much oil is poured on the waves ... Especially in Mahler's Fifth, the conductor should stress the outrageousness of this music, where different voices in the orchestra are constanly vying (as in: shouting, crying, pleading ...) for attention, almost independently from each other sometimes.
The Adagietto, when we have finally arrived there, doesn't at all feel like the logically and emotionally needed (contrastingly different) 'arrival after much turmoil'. And above this, the orchestral playing as such leaves me quite cold here also, which is a shame. Although I must say that it does sound very tender here, so I am cast to doubt again ... (And appreciation of the Adagietto does't have anything to do with the tempo, because in one of my favorite recordings of the symphony, namely the one by Benjamin Zander on Telarc, the same piece is quite a bit (more than 2 minutes) faster [8:33], but it does make the heart strings of this particular listener resonate.) Also, the Part II Scherzo isn't as dizzyingly mesmerizing as should be, I believe. Maybe also because it is played a bit slowly here (taking up more than 19 minutes) and without much tension, too relaxed (like the whole of Part I as well, actually), after which the emotionally dry Adagietto almost feels a bit gratuitous, I am sorry to say (because it is quite a pity).
This performance misses out something on the 'soul' of this music. At no point does this recording really 'lift off' and come alive as many other recordings of this symphony (or, for that matter, as other recordings in this cycle), like (among others) the ones by Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic (1947), Benjamin Zander and the Philharmonia Orchestra (2000) and Bernard Haitink's zestful live-recording with the Concertgebouw Orchestra (Eurovision Christmas Matinee concert, 1986).
I believe that this recording does fit in nicely with the rest of the Tilson Thomas/San Francisco Mahler cycle and as such it is a safe buy for collectors (of which I am certainly one). But on itself it is not at all a prime recommendation for this recording, however gorgeous the orchestral playing and the recording as such. (Be warned though, that there is a little glitch/wobble in the sound of the stereo-layer of this CD at [5:03] during the 5th movement - a pity and a shame, especially for this kind of money). For that it just sounds too uninvolved emotionally, lacking tragedy, tension and drama. Maybe the conductor is on an altogether different plane of thought here, like in his recording of Mahler's Ninth Symphony, which - notwithstanding the music's heavy connotations of leave-taking - breathes a same kind of 'emotional detachment' as this recording of the Fifth. This may be a result of some unique vision, I don't know, but I'm afraid I do not really follow here - at least, not for the moment.
Anyway, this recording does take a bit to get used to (and maybe a whole different mind-set), compared with what I am used to and with what I love and have come to expect with this music. But maybe I'll start to like it more and more during years to come, when a recording, so to say, 'grows on you', which can indeed happen sometimes. So for the moment I can only listen and learn (this complex music does of course need intellectual engagement as much as emotional evolvement), and hope that the effort and money will ultimately be well spent ;-)