Customer Reviews

Mahler: Symphony No. 6; Piano Quartet [Hybrid SACD]

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

 

 

Christoph Eschenbach is a master at clarifying lines some conductors find confusing in the big complex symphonies, so it is no wonder that he is able to present us with a performance of Mahler's very personal Symphony No. 6 that stands with the most solid and yet transparent. And despite recent grumblings about the Philadelphia Orchestra's regard under his direction, this recording is one of the very finest of this symphony. Eschenbach's decisions about the order of the movements (staying with the original Mahler idea of placing the Scherzo as the second movement instead of the alternative - Mahler induced - placement of the Andante as the second movement, the latter being a preference by this listener) are sound when the entire symphony is heard.

The amazing aspect of this recording is the return of the lush strings sound so long associated with the 'Philadelphia sound' and Eschenbach makes fine use of this mellow burnished tone to set off the many introductions of extraneous instruments such as the cowbells etc. The overall approach to the symphony sounds more in favor of the raw climaxes than the contemplative moments, but in the grand sweep of the work this just makes sense.

As an added bonus on this 2 CD set is the Piano Quartet Movement In A Minor which though a student work of Mahler's it none the less displays his penchant for folk lines and extended development of themes that were to mark his work in coming years. Eschenbach and members of the Orchestra give a fine performance of the work. The only problem with its inclusion is the placement after the last movement of the symphony, a time when the emotions are big, making the Quartet seem less powerful. But that is a personal view and for this listener it is, in the end, a welcome addition to the Mahler library. Grady Harp, January 07

I would never conduct Mahler six the way Eschenbach does here. Yet, I too am totally won over by this recording. Perhaps the lion's share of the credit has to go to Philly. When Eschenbach deviates from the score - or my ideas of how the piece should go - he does so in a most unarming and convincing manner. Let me put this another way: Michael Tilson Thomas also finds new and unusual places to suddenly slow down, or do a big piece of rubato (the Alma theme). Yet, MTT's decisions strike me as being mostly thoughtless and annoying. With Eschenbach, I find myself saying, "oh, that's different, but it works". I also think that Philly is darn near ideal for this piece; more "Slavic" sounding than "Austro-Germanic". That means hefty low strings; strong low brass; solid percussion; piercing trumpets; uniformly dark sounding horns; piercing clarinets; loud bassoons, etc. And then there's that incredible violin section, which - to my ears, anyway - seems to have lost little since with their salad days with Eugene Ormandy.

As far as I'm concerned, Gramophone magazine can keep the Abbado/Berlin Mahler 6. Berlin is like an overgrown chamber orchestra with a great violin section. Philly is like a big, fat symphony orchestra with a great violin section. Choose your weapon wisely - consider the piece. Also, to be fair, the sonics are simply better here.

In this recording, Eschenbach repeatedly has his players do things that I tend to find irksome. He's one of those conductors who seem to think Mahler's "nicht eilen" means "slow down", whereas it only means "stick to the tempo, for as an experienced conductor I, Mahler, know very well that orchestra's tend to rush in passages like this". He also doesn't mind ignoring tempo indications altogether, or instigating tempo changes several bars before the point where the score has them. Every second transition is preceded by a huge ritenuto, some in the first movement so quirky that I got the feeling the score was missing a beat. Yet halfway through I was ready to throw the score aside altogether and just wallow in all the beauty, power, emotion and sheer musicality. In spite of (or maybe even thanks to?) the liberties they take, Eschenbach and the Philadelphia O plumb the depths of this music in a way few others have achieved, least of all the recent, much overrated Abbado. You need to turn up the volume to benefit from the full effect of this recording, and even then the first movement may strike you as just a tad too genteel. But it's "reculer pour mieux sautir". The Scherzo is raw and dark and its lonely, desolate ending is deeply affecting. The Andante gets simply the most beautiful performance in any of the 11 recordings I know of this work, Chailly, Barbirolli, Bernstein, Karajan, and MTT among them. It acquires a prayerlike quality and a deep sense of mystery, the strings even contriving to realize Mahler's peculiar request to play "ohne Ausdruck" (without expression) - and that's a compliment. The sprawling finale is firmly held together, and combines waves of increasing power with passages of quiet repose that for once sound as more than an excuse to give the players a moments rest. The placement and sonorities of bells and cowbells are perfectly judged. Throughout, the sounds emanating from the orchestra are breathtakingly beautiful, and fortunately the recording allows the listener to hear almost everything.

The recording is indeed a wonder in itself. It was made in the excellent Verizon Hall - live in concert, as occasional stiffled coughs soon make clear. Yet it leaves almost nothing to be desired. The bass is rich and present, tuba and bass drum coming through spectacularly. And the hammer, well, I seriously wonder whether it didn't damage my headphones; it may not sound like the stroke of an ax, as Mahler imagined (more like a bomb exploding), but its effect is overwhelming. There is bite to the brass, the horns are well-defined, and the woodwinds are not covered up by the strings the way they are in Berlin. The timpani are a bit boomy, and harp, xylophone and celesta sound rather distant, but that's about as much as there is to complain. Except of course for the applause that is left in at the end. Why?? Here's a piece where after the final chord all you want is silence (indeed, no applause would be the greatest token of true appreciation in concert, even), but no: the hollow pizzicato has barely sounded out or there are the hollering bravo's. Weren't these people listening at all? Inevitable in a concert hall, I suppose, but why leave this in on CD? It's completely pointless. Nevertheless: if you're looking for a top-choice modern Mahler 6, buy this disc (and get the rarely recorded early Piano Quartet as a bonus!); just make sure you have your remote handy towards the end.

This is an absolutely stunning Mahler 6. Quite simply: great sound, great playing and a winning interpretation by a conductor who understands Mahler. This certainly beats recent accounts by Thomas and Abaddo. All four movements have ideal tempos, though Eschenbach is very flexible and knows where to let it breath. Although the andante is liesurely in tempo it is incredibly moving and never drags. The hammer blows in IV are like a bomb blast. Too often we have to settle for poor sound or a dull interpretation, but here we have a great American orchestra and a top recording team. Don't miss it!

Another disc in Ondine's refreshing series with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach. Mahler's Sixth, possibly because of its classicism in comparison to most of her sisters, lends herself to readings that would otherwise appear un-Mahlerian. Among US orchestras it is the Cleveland Orchestra that has given us two superb examples that, in spite of their differences, can be considered as falling within this broad `classicist/structural' approach. Cleveland did a very fine job first with Georg Szell (CBS) and, later, with Christoph von Dohnanyi (Decca).

The new recording by Philadelphia /Eschenbach takes a different route. It is certainly neither structural nor austere in its approach. It might be better compared with more impulsive performances, being a journey of discovery rather than a structural rendering. In the first movement, after some passages of great intensity, Eschenbach tends to over-sentimentalize the so-called Alma theme. The Andante gets an intimate and wonderfully played reading. The Finale is, I think, one of the most convincing on record. Still, in the Finale's opening bars one misses the tremendous aesthetic effect achieved by the Berlin Philharmonic in Karajan's recording (DG). All said, Eschenbach's is a reading that might appeal to most contemporary Mahler audiences.

Having endured the kind of personal vendetta that Philadelphia usually reserves for sports teams and Santa Claus, Christoph Eschenbach has decided to leave the backwater of American culture rather than abide the backbiting and vindictive agendas of Peter Dobrin and the snitches among the orchestra who sit upon their Board. More's the pity, especially for Philly and its once legendary sound. It's not as though their recent fortunes have been easily won. Never mind that Eschenbach managed to restore a recording contract (with Ondine, no less!) that the blue collar mentality of the last vestiges of the union encumbered orchestra had lived without for more than a decade. Never mind that Eschenbach had formed a fiscally creative and fecund relationship with Lee Annenberg at a time when neither the Orchestra Board nor the Orchestra itself could forge one (they'll learn not to cross Mrs A one of these days, and Dobrin, for his part would have been sent packing from the Inquirer for his hissy fits had Triangle still owned the Inq). Never mind that the Orchestra on both its Asian and European Tours was hailed as they haven't been since the days of Ormandy and Muti (and for the record, Sawallisch was a terrific conductor, but never quite got the orchestra out of its blue collar doldrums {case in point, their embarrassing Premier of Rautavarra's Eighth}, in fact he was disgusted with the pettiness that was the stock in trade). No, what mattered was that Dobrin and a handful of peevey prima donnas didn't like Eschenbach's rehearsals, his efforts to consider the classical repertoire in different time signatures, and that he strode to incorporate more contemporary commissions and works than Philadelphia is in anyway noted for.
Even this concert was lambasted when it occured last November. You can hear for yourself what an inspirational reconsideration of Mahler's Sixth and the Piano Quartet was delivered and recorded. This is a must-have for any Mahler enthusiast. This ranks with the equally provocative considerations by Esschenbach's contemporaries, Chailly and Rattle, and far surpasses the over the top renditions delivered by Bernstein, who, to my ears, made everything sound like an overture to West Side Story. Oy.
No, instead, the third movement in particular delivers a Mahler of ambiguous design, where the emotional tract is never cloyingly sweet (Bernstein), but full of an undercurrent that is edgy and compelling. The recording engineers on this disc should be heralded for the incredible way they have captured the nuances that Eschenbach evoked from this underworked orchestra. The Orchestra should give a careful listen to this disc and shed a few tears - they have kissed away what could have been a remarkably strong dialectical relationship, hoping as I'm sure they do, that Riccardo will return to embrace them. Not likely. The quicker this band becomes more influenced by the influx of brilliant Asian musicians, and discards the slovenly constituencies of its past line-ups, the brighter and more creative its future will become. For Eschenbach, he'll just have to make due with living and conducting in Paris. Let me see, Paris, Philadelphia, Paris, Philadelphia, hmmmm, what a quandry!
NOT!
The extra zing to this is Eschenbach's effort with the Piano Quartet. Embracing, in the words of Robert Fripp, a "small, mobile and intelligent unit", Eschenbach and his colleagues deliver the definitive version of this piece. This is stand on your chair and applaud stuff! The intimacy of the recording is so wonderful you can nearly hear the fingers touch keys, bow strike strings. And the effort all the way through is a passionate and dedicated commitment. Brilliant! As a coda to what had been several years of incredibly dimwitted criticism, Eschenbach has let his music answer all questions. Need I say more?

I purchased this release in great anticipation, given the glowing reviews it has received. Eschenbach is a fine Mahler conductor, at least those performances I heard him do, years back, when he was with the Houston Symphony.

Having recently heard live (and in a very good seat) Hans Graf and the Houston Symphony do the 6th, in what was one of the *great* performances of any Mahler I have heard live or otherwise, I hoped to have something equally good for home listening. I regret to say this release isn't it, at least for my tastes.

One of the Amazon reviewers said "I would never conduct Mahler six the way Eschenbach does here." Neither would I. Eschenbach is noted for taking unusual approaches in his interpretations, and pulling them off. For me, in this release, he did not. At one point, I even found my saying out loud, "why?!". This was at one point in the scherzo where he slows it down so excessively that, for me, it kills the momentum. And, some of what makes, for me, a great Mahler performance is staying in "the zone", by maintaining the broad arch of the music, and its forward momentum.

That said, there is much in this performance to admire, too, and I heard details in spots that I have probably not heard before. Special mention should go to the principal tuba player. Arnold Jacobs would be proud. And, overall the quality of the playing is quite good.

I'm also not 100% sold on the approach the audio engineers took. The sound seems a bit too covered, probably due to distant mike placement and hall reverberation. The recording was probably live. A few muffled coughs can be heard here and there, but that didn't bother me anywhere as much as Eschenbach's approach in sections.

A professional musician once told me that "Eschenbach was a great conductor until he discovered he was a great conductor". I'm sad to report that that quote went through my mind more often than I would have liked while I listened to this performance.

Graf in his performance used the original three hammer blows. Eschenbach uses the revised two. I believe Mahler removed the third out of superstition only. I find the use of the third hammer blow to be shattering, and makes the tragic finale far more effective. I wish Eschenbach had used the third blow, too, and I recommend to all who perform to this work to at least consider using the third blow.

For those interested in a recording of the 6th with both versions, I recommend the Zander. It's a fine performance, too, and overall a better one that this one to boot, IMHO.

If you are interested in hearing a great Eschenbach performance, I strongly recommend his Brahms 1st Symphony with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. That *IS* a great performance. If you have any interest in modern music at all, an absolutely fantastic CD to get is the Rouse 2nd Symphony and Flute Concerto.

The date was Saturday, October 17, 1998; the place - Chicago, IL, where I sat in the terrace at Symphony Center for Eschenbach's Mahler 6th with the Chicago Symphony. Simply put, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.....the most unbelievably intense, shattering performance of the Mahler 6th, and hands down the most thrilling performance of ANY WORK that I have ever attended.

Ten years later a friend sent me a tape of the radio broadcast of that performance (and, in fact, WFMT used THE VERY performance I had heard as their source); not only did the radio recording confirm my impressions of the live performance, but listening to it is almost as powerful and exhausting as having sat through it live 10 years earlier!

When I spoke to Eschenbach after the performance, I told him that it was as if Mahler himself were on the podium PROJECTING THE MUSICAL THOUGHTS AND SOUNDS IN HIS MIND OUT INTO THE HALL via the orchestra; it was absolutely uncanny. As of that time, I had known the Mahler 6th for 30 years, but Eschenbach's performance brought back the thrill of discovering the piece for the very first time. There's no point in taking up more space here citing details....but I will mention two things. Eschenbach VARIED the big "Alma" theme's first appearance in the 1st movement's exposition---the repeat was paced and shaped differently than the first time through, which created an amazing sense of spontaneity (he does NOT do this in the Philly performance). I also recall the Andante's "arching" motif...played by the violins, then taken up by the clarinet just as the music enters the E-Major section with the cowbells; I had heard this passage hundreds of times before, but Eschenbach made it feel as if the music was literally unfolding right there on stage, and I almost felt myself being lifted out of my seat.

An unforgettable experience, after which I said (in parital jest) that a 5-year, world-wide moratorium should be declared on the Mahler 6th, since there would be no point in any other conductor even attempting it after what Eschenbach accomplished that night.

So how is this live recording with Philadelphia? Damned good, and it deserves to be at the top of the heap. But, sadly, it does NOT catch fire quite like the Chicago performance, leading me to conclude that on October 17, 1998, I was lucky enough to be part of a musical event that cannot possibly be duplicated.

I actually bought this CD just for the Piano Quartet movement in A minor (on CD 2), but was happily introduced to the Symphony No. 6 in A minor as well.

The IV. Finale (also on CD 2) is superb.

For me, just the Piano Quartet itself was worth the price of this CD set; but then again, I'm sure this CD isn't the only way to get a copy of the track.

I love this recording. The sound is great, the orchestra plays tremendously, and Eschenbach brings all the detail into a cohesive unit. It is easy to appreciate why the Philadelphia audience is so energetic at the end of the Finale. Other Mahler 6s in this league are Boulez-Vienna and Fischer-Budapest, but I think this recording out does them all. This is my favorite Mahler 6, and I don't know what else needs to be said. Get this recording and enjoy.