A Personal Recommendation

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection"
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Christophe Eschenbach, conductor
Simona Suturova, Soprano; Yvonne Naef, Mezzo-Soprano
Ondine Records, ODE 1134-2D

***

I caught a commercial flight Sunday night into Philadelphia, where I'm spending the week working, and I noticed a sizeable group of mostly young-ish folks (early 30s, I'd say, most of them) walking about me as I exited the airport terminal. There were a lot of them, they were casually but nicely dressed, and there seemed to be a high proportion of Asians among them. And I noticed that they all had laminated plain white numbered tags on their bags and backpacks. Hmmm. As I waited for my ride downtown, I saw a Chinese-American-looking woman standing by a doorway. She was smiling and addressing group members as they walked past her, telling them that their bus was across the drive and down to the left. She clearly recognized the other group members by sight.

I finally walked up and inquired about the large group. "Yeah, there are 130 of us," she said (I believe that was the number). "Who are you?" I asked, "What is your group?" "We're the Philadelphia Orchestra," she said. They were returning from a three week tour. She was quite busy directing, so I did not get a chance to ask where they had been, but I did mention that I was just contemplating their new Mahler Second release. "You should get it," she said. "It's awesome!" That qualifies as a bona fide endorsement in my book, if a biased one.

And so I did. And so it is, awesome.

First played in 1895, the Second Symphony is one of Mahler's most enduring and popular works. Despite its nickname, it is not a religious piece. Mahler does grapple with the larger questions of human existence, using texts from his beloved Des knaben wunderhorn to ask the Big Questions, why are we here and does anything of us live on after death, etc. But these are really contemplations on the unknowable, and have nothing to do with resurrection (unless perhaps he was referring to his career after the grudging reception of his First Symphony). "Pantheism" might be a better moniker. Whatever we call it, it is a haunting and lyrically beautiful piece, one which, like so much of Mahler, seems to take on immense challenges of musical storytelling, and it delivers a correspondingly immense payoff 90 minutes later. I always feel at the end of a Mahler symphony (at least my favorites) as though some great planetary alignment has been performed before me, and I'm left with a sense of exhaustion and peace. There's something in the act of concluding a lengthy piece of music, at least as Mahler does it, that lays a very grand vision before us with eloquence and assurance. The man definitely found the right profession.

I bought the disc on iTunes (as is my wont lately, and I guess forever more), and typically there is no documentation. Also, I'm always reminded that the recommendations one finds at the iTunes Music Store are largely without merit. (I occasionally put in my two cents' worth there, so one can look at all this several ways.) Some dweeb said the recording had "weak brass." That was the whole review, actually, those two words: weak brass. Thanks, chuckles. Of course there is no such deficit, with the brass or anything else. This is top shelf playing from one of the world's great orchestras, and the sound quality is excellent. There was also some discussion about Christophe Eschenbach's brisk tempi, but I find them exactly right. There is not undue lingering, but nothing is glossed over, and conductor & orchestra luxuriate in all the appropriate moments to ensure the message gets across.

Indeed, I'm hard pressed to find much of anything to criticize. If I would register a complaint, it might be with the choice of soloists in the singing roles. Slovak Soprano Simona Suturova (say that several times swiftly) and Swiss Mezzo-soprano Yvonne Naef are enlisted for the final movement's solo parts, joined by the Philadelphia Singers Chorale, and the soloists didn't sit particularly well with me. I must insert my standard caution here that these musicians are very likely expertly chosen and perhaps even inspired--certainly, I could not make better suggestions; indeed, I can't really think of any singing in this period / style that I even like. Stylistically, I'm sure they are in complete synchronicity with what Mahler envisioned when he wrote the piece, and most appropriate to the style of music of this period. But I find myself rankling at the wide, ceaseless, operatic vibrato. We also hear it in the solo violin work, and the affectation is so unstinting that one wonders whether the singers snore with a strong tremulant. Does it ever shut off? Does one EVER sing a steady tone? But if you're not one to cavil about a singer's vibrato generally, I feel confident you won't bat an eye here.

My previous favorite recording of this symphony has been the really splendid late '80s EMI disc of Simon Rattle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and I have a soft spot for Antoni Wit's unique vision with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra on Naxos. But this Philadelphia Orchestra recording will now join these at the top of the list. With a previously-recorded Mahler Sixth also in the catalog, one wonders if a full cycle is in the works.

Recommended.

CSO / Haitink's Continuing Mahler Cycle

Mahler: Symphony No. 6
Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Bernard Haitink
CSO Resound

***

Here's a CD to remind you that Chicago is home to one of the world's truly great orchestras. And this pairing of Bernard Haitink and the CSO seems inspired, especially in this grand repertoire like Mahler or Bruckner or Vaughan Williams.

I was particularly happy with their earlier release of Mahler's Third, and this present CD will likely bubble to the top as my favorite Sixth. Chicago have long been famous for having one of the best brass sections of any orchestra, and this release shows that feather still firmly in their cap. Certain passages here will part your hair, assuming your audio setup is willing. But every section of the orchestra carries their weight and the result is a marvelous thing.

The recording itself is spectacular. There is a distinct soundstage and the recording is quiet enough to hear the corners of the room.

My Kinda Town

Mahler: Symphony No. 3
Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Bernard Haitink
Michelle DeYoung, Mezzo-Soprano; Women of the CSO Chorus; Chicago Children's Choir
CSO-Resound CSOR 901 701

***

I have too many recordings of Mahler's third. It's the first Mahler symphony I learned, and while I've come to love others as well, the Third has an embracing vastness that resonates with me. Because it's my favorite of his symphonies, it's the one I use to employ to evaluate an orchestra or a conductor with which I'm less familiar. And then after a few recordings, this thinking took on a life of its own and I soon found myself with a dozen different versions.

Certainly, nobody who listens to this kind of music could be unfamiliar with either the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or with its current Principal Conductor, Bernard Haitink. This has to rank as one of the great orchestra / conductor pairings. The Haitink cycles I have of Mahler and Vaughan Williams symphonies are all vast, expansive interpretations, and the renowned virtuosity of the Chicago Symphony makes for a good chemistry. (Ironically, I found this recording in a shop in Amsterdam, home of what some have argued is the world's greatest orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw, with which Bernard Haitink made his name over a 30 year period. It seemed a bit odd to come across a recording there of their native son conducting an American orchestra.)

My very first exposure to Mahler was in 1982 by way of the CSO, this time conducted by the great James Levine. By chance, I think, that recording has proven hard to top (by chance, I say, because I don't think my affection is merely a first-exposure thing). The CSO is well up to the mercurial nature of the music, and the Mezzo-Soprano part in that recording is handled in inimitable fashion by Marilyn Horne. I later got a disc of the CSO under Georg Solti's baton, but the orchestra never sounded better than on that Levine recording.

This present CD is compiled from live performances in November of last year and is released on the orchestra's own label. Michelle DeYoung is enlisted for the Mezzo-Soprano part, which she handles deftly, and the orchestra has a mercurial virtuosity like a doped-up racehorse. The CSO's brass section, particularly, is legendary for its unbridled power (some say only approached by the Berlin Philharmonic in the von Karajan era), and at the big climaxes the sound here is almost overwhelming.

The sixth movement of this symphony is something, to my mind, almost unparalleled in music. It's practically a continuous 30-minute single melody, leading from hushed beginnings to an ecstatic and exhaustive sonic ejaculation half an hour later, like an engrossing story told beginning-to-end. A recording in 1998 of Esa-Pekka Salonen and the L.A. Philharmonic gets this final movement exactly, unsurpassably right (with thrilling sound to match--a perfect recording), but Haitink is not far behind here. A few times the orchestra seems not quite in lockstep, but they make up for that in sheer power.

In all, an excellent collection to one's collection or a great introduction to the repertoire for the unfamiliar.