Customer Reviews

Mahler: Symphony No. 3

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Abbado is a great conductor who has a not-entirely-undeserved reputation as an unsteady Mahlerian. But he has always shown a real knack for Mahler's 3rd, and this earlier digital recording with the VPO, Norman, et al. is a case in point. It is one of my favorite Mahler recordings, in spite of having one of the *ugliest* cover designs in existence.

Apart from keeping an audience awake for a 100-plus minute symphony, I think the biggest challenge for anyone interpreting this piece is finding the right balance between its musical and emotional depth and its thrilling showmanship; lean too much one way and the piece becomes too heavy and ponderous, too much the other way and it's a pretty good movie soundtrack but a mediocre symphony. Abbado and the VPO find just the right balance, especially in the first movement, which they manage to present as thrillingly dramatic without being just flashy.
Norman is wonderful, especially in the fourth movement; I can't think of a better performance of this movement on any level.

My only two complaints (besides the horrid color-scheme of the cover art) are about the 3rd and last movements: the posthorn solos in the former have little presence at all. It sounds as though the trumpet soloist, not content with going offstage, decided to keep going down the street to a nearby Vienna cafe and play his solos from there. The last movement, although lovingly and intensely played, is taken a bit more slowly than I would like, something that Abbado doesn't do to me very often.

Still, that isn't a lot to complain about in a piece of this length and size. This is quite simply the best Mahler 3rd in my opinion, and the answer to anyone who says Abbado doesn't get Mahler.

Mahler's 3rd symphony is one of his most dynamic symphonic pieces, and this recording brings this incredible work to life through a realistic and true reading of the score mixed with a tremendous amount of musicianship. Jessye Norman is stunning, and the choral work is superb. Abbado works so well with this orchestra, and this is my favorite recording of this incredible and vast work.

I first heard this recording in Madrid a few years ago, and since that time I have listened many, many times. One never tires through repeated listenings. What an orchestra! What a conductor! What a soloist! A brilliant and stunning recording!

Great musicians can excel even themselves, and that's the case with this 1982 recording of the Mahler Third under Abbado. I had carelessly assumed that Abbado's superb live recording with the Berlin Phil. from 1999, despite some sketchiness in the sonics (it was engineered on the spot in London by the BBC), showed that this conductor had grown as a Mahler interpreter.

I was wrong--Abbado didn't need to grow. This is a stupendous performance in terms of musicality and insight. We are inside Mahler's sound world from the first bar, and there is magic and mystery, tears from childhood and rollicking joy, that only Bernstein's first recording from New York could hope to match. But Bernstein didn't have the Vienna Phil., playing so superbly it defies description, and he didn't have the miraculous sonics that DG somehow contrived so early in the digital era. Abbado, like Karajan, favors extremely hushed pianissimos and thunderously loud fortissimos, both caught here to amazing effect. In fact, the one flaw for many listeners will be how to find a single volume level that can capture the polar extremes in dynamics. Other reviewers have already extolled Jessye Norman, a mesmerizing soloist in the Nietzsche poem from the fourth movement. My only reservation is htat the extremely slow last movement is a bit cool and detached compared to Bernstein.

I want to apologize silently to Abbado for overlooking this accomplishment. He can be a variable condcutor, but on this occasion he reaches the very heights of Mahler interpretation.

Claudio Abbado draws the right dose of drama and lyrical playing from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in this stunning interpretation of Mahler's 3rd Symphony. Undoubtedly this is one of Abbado's finest Mahler recordings, surpassed in quality only by his legendary Mahler 7th with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and perhaps by his relatively recent recording of Mahler's 2nd Symphony, also with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Jessye Norman is splendid during the fourth and fifth movements. The fine sound quality is undoubtedly helped by the Musikverein's warm acoustics. Others may prefer Bernstein's or perhaps Haitink's recordings, but I suspect most will agree that Abbado's account of Mahler's 3rd Symphony remains the finest contemporary recorded version.

There are not very numerous live performances of Gustav Mahler's 3rd symphony (even in the big cities) - not only because of its duration and number of needed musicians. When I heard it for the first time I wasn't a real joy for me to listen to it (everything seemed to be just an "effect", a little bit superficial), but after studying the score and listening to many recordings of this great opus (Bernstein & NYPO, Solti & CSO, Mehta & LPO) I think that this symphony is one of his best.
I bought this CD just a few weeks ago and I have to say that this particuliar CD is simply the best recording avaiable on market. Everything fits together: The fantastic acoustic of "our" Musikverein in Vienna (of course I'm a little bit patriotic...) with the VPO (and their so-called "Wiener Klangstil", their special way of playing) are just perfect for Mahler's piece. And of course, Claudio Abbado and Jessye Norman do the rest...

There are not very numerous live performances of Gustav Mahler's 3rd symphony (even in the big cities) - not only because of its duration and number of needed musicians. When I heard it for the first time I wasn't a real joy for me to listen to it (everything seemed to be just an "effect", a little bit superficial), but after studying the score and listening to many recordings of this great opus (Bernstein & NYPO, Solti & CSO, Mehta & LPO) I think that this symphony is one of his best.
I bought this CD just a few weeks ago and I have to say that this particuliar CD is simply the best recording avaiable on market. Everything fits together: The fantastic acoustic of "our" Musikverein in Vienna (of course I'm a little bit patriotic...) with the VPO (and their so-called "Wiener Klangstil", their special way of playing) are just perfect for Mahler's piece. And of course, Claudio Abbado and Jessye Norman do the rest...

If some one points a gun at my head, forcing me to pick 1 recording out of all those heart-and-soul performances of 1 symphony out of the 10 master pieces by Mahler, this is it. The Abbado/VPO combo is just perfect. The Italian opera conductor in Abbado inserts the the right dose of Drama and colorfulness into VPO's superb tonal ballance. The recording was very well engineered (given the technology available then). It captured so much detail and every single instrument was very well defined. If an almost-2-hour-long symphony doesn't turn you off, this is a must have for you.

Very well presented Work superb Conducting,& Orchestral playing the Solist & Choir great.

Thomas M Shanks

Although this Abbado may be the best recording, it is not the best performance. That credit will likely always go to the old Horenstein performance with the London Symphony. IT is one of those things so rare, no one will even discount it!