Customer Reviews

Mahler: Symphony No. 3 ~ Chailly

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3 star:		(2)
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Only too rarely you come across a recording that hits you instantly with the realization that it is something really, really special; something that will stand as a shining beacon and a merciless touchstone for years, even decades to come; something that is far beyond being merely the next interpretation of a much recorded piece, but that seems to touch the heart and the essence of the music in an unprecedented way. If you're looking at this page, you have found such a recording.
Over the last few weeks I immersed myself in Mahler's Third, a work of which I accumulated a fair batch of recordings over the years. Inbal with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra (Denon), Haitink with the BPO (Philips) and Bernstein with the NYP (DG) have been on my shelves for a while now. Recently, several interesting readings were added: Salonen with the LA Phil (Sony), Boulez with the VPO (DG), Zander with the Philharmonia (Telarc), and now this latest arrival: Chailly with the Koninklijk Concertgebouw Orkest.
Listening to it, the others, notwithstanding their many merits, suddenly seem to be missing the point completely. They may be subtle and well-considered (Zander); viscerally exiting (Bernstein - also rather crude); majestically severe (Haitink); a study in extraordinary sound effects (Boulez); a showcase of orchestral virtuosity (Salonen); or just decent and upright middle of the road music-making (Inbal) - but they do not tap the deeper veins of this phenomenal, almost mythical vision as Chailly and his team do. Right from the start, when the Concertgebouw ambience for once allows you to hear that these are EIGHT horns barging in, I was swept from my feet. The music communicates so powerfully that you just take the phenomenal orchestral playing for granted. Yet the magic of this performance is of course generated by all that the Concertgebouw players can conjure from their instruments (and is then lovingly wrapped up in the sublime acoustics of their hall). Listen to the clarinets, to mention just one example: they seem to adopt a different voice to fit every different movement; balmy and soothing in the Minuet, folksy and insolent in the fifth movement. The trombone soloist in the first movement (who, shamefully, is not credited in the booklet - Ivan Meylemans?) finds unparalleled nuances of expression in his long laments. The horns cannot only produce mellow singing, they can bray as well. There is endless shifting of colour and atmosphere as Chailly carefully moulds and shapes an individual character for each movement. He succeeds completely in keeping the bizarre collage of the first movement together, and clearly delights in its many absurdities. By taking the third movement a little faster than most he infuses it with agitation and a sense of foreboding, separating it clearly from the Minuet and turning it into a natural bridge to the more troubled world of humanity (again, the excellent posthorn soloist is not credited). But there is never the sense of hurrying through that starts to bother me on closer acquaintance with Salonen's reading. And, oh my (or rather, O Mensch), then Petra Lang starts singing. There are no words to describe it - her first syllable seems to waft in from the Other Side itself; the atmosphere is so compelling that you easily overcome a passing suspicion that some words are sung ever so slightly flat. Meanwhile you can actually hear the undulating septuplets from the celli, and the oboe finds a solution to Mahler's impossible demand for a glissando that is as good a `Naturlaut' as any, without lapsing into the intrusive extremes made fashionable by Rattle.
The fifth movement is `keck' indeed, the powerful singing of the choruses punctuated by the persistent rhythm of the opening tune, that bounces through the orchestra almost throughout. The climax, that sudden gathering of clouds, is harrowing, and the choir swells tremendously - reminding us that Mahler preferred to perform this piece with 400 singers.
Like several movements in this work, this one too ends on a fermata that Mahler wants `lange'. Yet most conductors barely extend it beyond a full bar. Chailly does, producing uncanny suspense and making the transition into the glorious adagio as heartrending as it can be. The sustained inwardness of the Finale's first pages is breathtaking and will definitely sustain a lump in your throat. The slow, final buildup is captivating and exhilarating, but never forfeits the innate nobility of this piece the way it does with some others.
Chailly's meticulous attention to dynamic markings is a key to the success of this version. Every accent, every smallest ebb and swell, is faithfully played as written, breathing life into the music. Of course, Decca can be trusted to record all this to perfection - there is ample detail and the balancing is almost perfect (the harps may be a little forward at times, and the double basses just a tad too distant?); in fact, this disc is very much in the demonstration class (though there is one nasty glitch at nr. 6 in the third movement, where for a brief, unsettling moment the first violins suddenly move to the opposite side of the stage...).
It is kind of the company to offer a fill-up as well, though Mahler's peculiar potpourri of Bach is of musicohistorical rather than musical interest, I would say - an exercise in changing tastes, though possibly also a healthy antidote for `authenticized' ears?
It has been a very long time since I heard a recording that had me gasping with so many delights, while at the same time drawing me into the music so completely. It simply left me staggering with joy. This is, in my humble opinion, the only recording of this piece you will ever need.

It's like a shouting contest! I've never heard the first movement done so amazingly well, infused with so much color and life, so perfectly phrased and balanced and paced -- all the wonderful dark colors are beautifully apparent, and so much tender loving care is taken in each instrumental solo. I have more than a few recordings of this work (Bernstein, Solti, Leinsdorf, Horenstein, Boulez, Salonen, Tilson Thomas, Tennstedt, Mitropoulos, Abbado) and have listened again to all of them since getting this disc just to verify my admiration for this performance and to reconfirm this as my new recording of preference. The second and third movement are wonderful. Petra Lang (unknown to me until now) does the best I've ever heard for the fourth and fifth movements. The final (sixth) movement has never before made me cry -- it's really gorgeous, done more well in more ways than anybody other. I really can't recommend these discs highly enough... The bonus/filler is Mahler arranged Bach Orchestral Suite miscellany -- good performances, interesting, but it's the spectacular symphony that'll have me coming back again and again.

As part of a series of Mahler recordings that has seldom been very engaging as of yet and what I may have assumed was just a recording of Three to finish a cycle, this release has had me for the most part scratching my head in disbelief. The Third Symphony of Mahler, perhaps more than any of his other most lengthy symphonies, has attracted poseurs, who seem to get by relatively unscathed by taking it on. More trouble usually ensues from taking on either the Second, one of the middle symphonies or Ninth.

Whereas when Chailly has tended to draw heavily upon the luminosity of sound he can get out of Concertgebouw, the ultimate impression left with the listener has been one of lyrical passivity, here it becomes for him at least more of a means to enhance his putting forth the exploratory and progressive aspects of the Third Symphony, than not.

Chailly has very specific ideas about the Third Symphony, thoroughly preconceived, absorbed and worked out, with idyllic playing from the Concertgebouw, with perhaps on purpose a little Slavic tint to the sound (making one think of Chailly's new assignment to Leipzig) in what is top form for this ensemble at least nowadays. The tonal richness and mystery of this interpretation seems to invoke the tradition of the symphonic poems of Liszt, in contrast to the more obviously Dionysian strivings and bombast, in so invoking allusions to Liszt, of the successful, yet more positively, classically conceived Solti/CSO recording twenty years ago.

Among slow, broadly paced first movements, this is in the stereo/digital era the most effective one I have heard yet. There are risks taken here, just most of which pay off. Seldom has it been that the portrayal of nature in its frozen, inchoate state has built up for itself as convincing illusion as here. The concept built here Chailly seldom breaks from beginning of the movement to the end, in all the gradual process, as heard here, of the breaking free from this state - more gradual and poetic than on any other recording I have heard. By contrast, Abbado/Vienna PO is also very slow for both outer movements, yet every detail, beautiful as one might find many, is spotlit to the extent that most sense of line and form is lost. Chailly again only seems to get momentarily derailed in the storm retransition by pushing it a little too hard and letting ensemble go a bit awry; this lapse taken within, but only within the larger or grander scheme of things however ultimately seems to make nearly perfect formal sense and logic.

Chailly makes liberty for the bucolic good cheer of some of this music to burst forth, most notably in the upper winds as the 'summer marching in' at 13 minutes in is on the cusp of entering one of its more climactic phases, and then the open, almost brash revelry from a full complement of horns (16:32) right before a particularly plaintive trombone arioso midway in (and beautifully played by Ivan Meylemans). So it also goes in the rowdy wind playing for the Rabble episode and battery of fanfares that jubilantly close the first movement, so much in contrast with the feeling of stasis of what has preceded - the illusion of no movement early in the piece but with line beautifully sustained throughout. Alexander Kerr's concertmaster solos, including duet with principal horn, are handled sublimely, on one or two occasions, following a moment of insecurity or two in string tremoli. No documentation that it is Kerr, as opposed to Vesko Eschkenazi, but I make a good educated guess here (and had the luxury of meeting Kerr en route backstage in Cincinnati the weekend he was appointed there, two years before his move to Amsterdam).

Anything that one could further ask for is a little more resolute quality to a few rhythms, especially in the major seventh triplet fanfares in the trumpets, but accompanying rhythms are always very solid underneath, and deep sonorities always indulged to the best purposes. Low pedal points, for instance, in contrast to very light sonorities spaced very high above, are all recorded, with everything else, so well here to be sublime.

A relaxed, but never dragging pace takes over the opening movement of Part Two of the symphony. The Mendelssohnian tracery of middle sections is all captured in high relief, including a little of a demonic quality to muted trumpet intonations and chords beneath five minutes in. Drowsy triplets from high flutes and strings are also sublime, and inform a perfect, entirely naive and believed ending to fairy tale in sound.

Much bucolic good cheer naturally informs all of the third movement, contrasted with sweet but hardly ever sentimentalized posthorn solos (Fritz Damrow). The Beethoven Fifth parody for the trio sections is played with equal relish, and the awkward downward chromatic octave runs in the brass succinctly integrated into the whole, practically as skillfully as on a live Van Beinum recording I have just become acquainted with, and which has remained in my mind's ear while listening to all this recording. Van Beinum is a little more open, vulgar, about some rustic carousing, gestures he draws out of his strings, but Chailly isn't far behind.

Petra Lang runs Maureen Forrester (on both the Van Beinum and soon to be reissued Haitink) a very close second for the two vocal movements. The quiet mystery achieved and with perfectly achieved natural upward portamenti from solo oboe (a practice I do not favor, from the results I have heard on other recent recordings), orchestrally, is aurally arresting, and allows Lang's plaintive solos ample room to blossom in the most facile way possible. Chailly plays the fifth movement robustly, but with no lack of charm, and with both facile and distinctive separation between imported Prague women and local based childrens' choral groups.

The crowning glory here is the final Adagio, which Chailly plays moderately and with perfectly realized hymnal solemnity and mystery, eclipsing what his two Dutch predecessors have simply achieved here. Somewhat unusually, but entirely right is that Chailly makes more out of the first of the two biggest climaxes in this movement, the great striving up to it reflecting back on the first two symphonies, whereas usually the nodal point (and the loudest moment in the finale up to that point) immediately preceding the flute/piccolo solos that usher in the coda does. The coda is sustained in such a way that none of it all the way to the end or any of what has preceded it is played for bombast. Strongly enough enunciated references the Weh motif (from Klagende Lied, used in the first two symphonies) is also made sublime. He also spells out very naturally thematic and complementary harmonic spacing links with the closing Adagio of the Ninth.

The Bach Suite, with crisply articulated continuo (composed by Mahler) by Annelie de Man and resonant organ accompanying (Richard Ram) makes for icing on the cake. Mahler's mastery of polyphony, when he wrote the Third wasn't near as complete as after he started writing the Ruckert symphonies. He waited until after the Ninth to compile this suite of excerpts from Bach's Second and Third Orchestral Suites. Chailly lushes out his sonorities and points rhythms in respectful manner, all for one movement in beautiful homage to the memory of Willem Mengelberg, who first recorded eighty years ago the Mahler Air on G String with the orchestra for whom the suite was written - the New York Philharmonic. Chailly almost makes it seem that this set or the journey on which he has led us would not be complete without inclusion of the Bach as afterthought. As later in life Bach's critics increasingly made his music out to be too conservative, its means of technique and expression revealed the path ahead for composers several to many generations later, Mahler no exception.

Like Sinopoli on DGG, who finds so much deconstructionist logic to the form and expression of the Third Symphony, in so effectively putting it across, Chailly also pushes the bar a considerable distance further out than do other interpreters, in presenting it as well. It is such a challenge that the composer himself would have welcomed having us face as we listen to his music, in either case, and why this set, in addition to the Sinopoli (not available separately now), gets my highest possible rating.

If, like me, you consider a recording of something as huge and all encompassing as Mahler's 3rd to always be something of a compromise - a gesamtkunstwerk of conducting, orchestral execution, singing, and sound quality - then you might come to the same conclusion as I: this is the best overall M3 to date. Yes, there are things that could have been just a tad better - the mezzo being one of them (Petra Lang). But you won't hear better or more detailed accompaniment underneath the mezzo either. In fact, I've never heard an M3 where what the mezzo was doing, and what the orchestra was doing, was so well integrated as here. Maybe that's because Decca's fine recording quality brings things into sharper perspective, I don't know. Also, the coda to the third movement (scherzo) could a bit more grand in scope. But everything else about the scherzo is darn near perfect, including the distance and pacing of the offstage trumpet solos - the so-called posthorn. Just listen to how fabulous the Concertgebouw woodwinds sound at the start of the scherzo - it doesn't get any better than this. Chailly's first movement is a huge tour-de-force, capturing just a collosal amount of dynamic range and orchestral detail. Nope, there's no need to hype this recording - the evidence is all there. All six movements are really well done, which is rare. In the finale, Chailly progressively lengthens each of the symphony's final three chords. That's such an obvious thing to do! - why hasn't anyone thought to do that before? Yep, it's not perfect. As always, some minor details could still be better yet. But I also can't think of any other recording that gets so little "wrong" (nothing, really), and so much right. If you're going to get this, regardless of how you're playing it back, get it in the DSD upgrade, which is the SACD/CD hybrid version, . Decca has priced it the same as the regular version.

This, to me, is the finest Third I've ever heard, notwithstanding Bernstein's magnificent recorded performances. It also has been stunningly recorded. The Langsam in the sixth movement, the first of all Mahler's great, piercing adagios, may be his best. (I know that when I next listen to, say, the adagio in the Fifth, or the last movement of the Ninth, I'll take that back, but that's how I feel right now.) It will break your heart while enchanting your mind and ear. Whatever. Get this at once!

From the first note of the tumultuous opening, Mahler breaks new artistic ground in his Third Symphony. The piece is an absolute landmark in the symphonic literature, completely reconceptualizing the rhetoric and structure of that genre. Not only the length and the number of movements are dramatically expanded, but more importantly the discourse is expanded as well.

Nothing like the first movement had existed before. Of it, Mahler himself said "It has almost ceased to be music. It is hardly anything but sounds of Nature." The other movements also move in wildly new directions; the second, third and fifth movements make wild juxtapositions between light and dark, far beyond what any other composer had imagined. Listen to what is nominally the scherzo--but it is so much more than any previously existing scherzo. Mahler alternates fast music which itself moves between darkness and light, with a heavenly moment of stillness played offstage by the posthorn, a type of bugle.

In the fourth movement, a setting of a poem by the German philosopher Nietzsche, Mahler uses an innovative approach that emphasizes tone color over melody. This movement, too, has almost ceased to be music; at least, music as it had been known up to that time. There's almost no movement at all, either harmonically or melodically. The whole is cast in an eerie and mournful immobility, reflective of the desire for joy in a sorrowful world expressed in the poem. I've heard many recordings of this symphony, and contralto Petra Lang does the nicest rendition I've heard. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra performs on this disc, lead by Riccardo Chailly. The work places extreme demands on the orchestra (Mahler actually travelled with his own trombone soloist when he conducted this around Europe!) and this performance, while not my very favorite, is quite impressive. (I'm bowled over by the hyperbole of the first reviewer--my experience was not as ecstatic as his, alas.) It seems that Chailly restrains the brass a bit and so the climaxes are not quite as glorious as some other recordings, such as those attained in the recording by Jasha Horenstein with the London Symphony Orchestra. Nonetheless, Chailly's tempi and phrasing are excellent, and his ability to control and shape these huge, elemental movements commands respect. Especially thrilling is the primordial trombone solo from the first movement, played by Ivan Meylemans.

There's an odd bonus on this CD. It contains a suite of Bach's music arranged by Mahler for the New York Philharmonic. It's a curiosity, nothing more; Mahler's arrangement mostly consists of combining two movements each from Bach's Second and Third Orchestral Suites, and thickening up the orchestration of the originals somewhat. There's none of Mahler's quirkiness, no stopped horns or moaning cor anglais or thundering trombones; and there's no real reason to listen to this instead of Bach's original. I was somewhat interested in how the Air on a G string seemed to have influenced the finale of the Third Symphony. Imagine it stretched to infinity, and you have the beginning of that movement.

One final note: the programme notes on the disc, by Donald Mitchell, disappoint me. Mitchell is of course a pre-eminent Mahler scholar, but here he reads his own interpretation into the music far too much. There's something about how the piece first presents the evolution of life (not so far off from what Mahler himself originally wrote about Pan awakening, but not right on the button, either), then the evolution of music. This one's a real stretch--Mitchell's trying to make something of the Minuet and the Scherzo, but the minuet is no Baroque or Classical minuet and this is just Mitchell's own fantasy. It's clear, if you need a program, what Mahler was thinking of; he originally provided titles for each movement. It's also clear that Mahler preferred his audience to interpret the piece for themselves--he withdrew that same program. If you need Mitchell to tell you what the music is "about", you haven't understood it, and these notes are better ignored.

Rick Chailly has "tamed" the mighty Mahler 3rd. In his hands it rests quietly, a docile beast, a shadow of its former powerful, massive self. It is well-mannered and won't scare the guests. It is polite and thanks you for listening. It prefers knitting and Antiques Roadshow to snowboarding and bungee-jumping. But is this really a good thing?

This is a peculiar performance. Everything is played absolutely perfectly; the Concertgebouw demonstrates why it is one of THE best orchestras on the planet. The sound is very clear and natural, and miking this massive opus is no easy feat. Yet despite all that it has going for it, ultimately this Mahler 3rd is let down by the fact that the conductor has nothing to say and imparts no discernible personality. Just to make sure I wasn't in a bad mood or some such when I first listened to it, I listened twice more--most recently just this morning--and then put on Bernstein's NYPO recording from the 1960s immediately afterwards--Wow, what a difference! Lenny gives an intensely personal and iconoclastic reading to this work. The reading is stamped with personality, viewpoint, and parts gave me chills they are so intense and deeply-felt. (At the same time, Bernstein keeps total control over this huge, sprawling beast, the longest symphony in the mainstream repertoire.) The present recording is more anonymous. Some would argue that it's "detached," and after decades of histrionics, detached isn't a bad thing when it comes to Mahler. Yet Pierre Boulez's recent recording is also cool and objective, yet I still get a viewpoint--one that's cool and objective. (Despite that, Boulez's Mahler cycle overall has disappointed me, but there are a few gems, and this is one.) Detachment itself is a style, in other words. With Chailly I just hear him keeping the piece together, which he does very well. But I don't get any commentary beyond that. This is a very un-prickly, middle-ground Mahler 3rd. The iconoclastic qualities that make Mahler Mahler are missing here. Seriously, it almost sounds like (very good) film music--superbly well-played but able to blend into the background. And Mahler should not blend into the background.

If you like your Mahler well-recorded and technically well-played, with no viewpoint inserted from the conductor, then this may be for you. But there are other excellent-sounding recordings out there that are far better (for all its difficulties, this piece doesn't seem to lack for great recordings). I'd take either Bernstein (DG or Sony), Boulez, Haitink (an early studio on "Originals" and his live with the Berlin Phil, now sadly out of print), Mitropoulos, Horenstein, the first Abbado (with Jesse Norman), Salonen, and probably half a dozen others over this CD. Again, it's not so much anything is *wrong* with it as simply there are so many better versions, easily available, to choose from. I'd start with Bernstein from the 60s, but if you must have state of the art sound both Boulez and Abbado/Norman will do nicely--just depends if you want a cool beverage or a hot beverage. But at least both of those are served "on the rocks." Nothing rocky about this recording here.

My greatest joy in life is finding new songs to enjoy for their majesty, tranquility, and melodic articulation. The most enjoyable part of this song is listening to it with Super Audio Surround that almost literally puts me in the front row of a concert where I listen to the bellowing of Ivan Meylemans as he gives me the blasting trombone part that gives me the atmosphere of all things that are held in vile disgust but must be listened to for their sheer beauty and magnificence. The strings and voices of this recording melt into my mind like caramel on the tongue with such sweet sound that I can enjoy the symphony more than if it was of a person whose voice just seemed off and that distracted me from the music. This CD has given me a great recording that I would instantly recommend to anyone who enjoyed trying all aspects of classical and romantic music.

An outstanding recording.
Have the stereo and MC recording. Enjoy both equally.
What is wonderful is the organ like quality of the final movement.
I have owned many Mahler 3's.
This seals my search for a great Mahler 3!!!

I've already listened to Esa Pekka Salonen's version of the third symphony of Gustav Mahler (the only one I listened until now). For me that was a great version, despite the fact that Salonen likes fast tempi and I'm a huge fan of slow tempi.

Chailly's read of this symphony is superb! and it takes a tempo slower than the read of Salonen, He conducts in a magically manner that makes you to concentrate in each step of the symphony.

Mahler's 3rd is a narrative symphony (also called "the creation symphony") and each movement has the following initial ideas:

1st: Pre Life Planet (great trombone Solo from Ivan Meylemans)
2nd: What the flowers in the meadow tell me
3rd: What the wild animals in the forest tell me and first human feelings (Great posthorn solo from Fritz Damrow)
4th: having encountered humanity in its many musical landscapes, we now penetrate its very soul
5th: The evolution of man and womankind from pre life to attainment of ultimate love
6th: In this movement Mahler unleashes the phenomenal sound of the full orchestra to celebrate the concept of love (whether God's or Man's is ours to decide)

At last, this CD is a must buy and, if you are a fan of Gustav Mahler like me, don't waste your time and buy it.