Mahler sypmhonies

I'm doing a spot of Christmas shopping as thought I'd try you guys for some advice...

My Uncle has suggested he'd like some Mahler symphonies (he currently just has 5&6); of the rest, are there any that particularly stand out as must haves? Any advice on good versions? He tends to prefer orchestras/conductors from the composers own country (Austria right?), but I'm sure German would be fine, or really anything else if it's well enough regarded.

Cheers for any pointers,

Martin

 

7 is very fine and 1 also. My favourite is number 2 the resurection. Don't buy Simon Rattle, buy Tensdedt with the LSO instead. There are lots of good performances. Bernstein brings out the pathos, but is perhaps not particularly accurate to the score, Karajan has the same problem. Haitink has done some good performances with the concertgebouw, but they're not austrian. How about Abbado with the VPO. Should be good and they'll use the proper viennese horns.
Just found this and ordered it myself. Don't think you could do much better!

 

Yep - 1.2.3.4.7.8 & 9 all good. take your pick.

best for me are 1,3,4 and 9.
1 - Rafael Kubelik (Czech - as was Mahler in a sense) with Bavarian Radio Sympony Orch on DG
3 - tricky this.... My faves are Riccardo Chailly (Italian) with Concertgebouw (Dutch) or Boulez (French) with Vienna Phil. Others will disagree and go for Abbado (italian) with Berlin Phil.
4 - Lorin Maazel (USA) with Vienna Philharmonic
9 - another tricky one - Karajan (Austrian) & Berlin Phil or Abbado and Berlin Phil.

So lots of German/Austrian orchestras, but frankly not many German or Austrian conductors around these days in this music, the likes of Abbado, Chailly are today's top dogs in this stuff, with Leonard Bernstein, Rafael Kubelik and Georg Solti being noted interpreters from the recent past who have sadly departed. Bernard Haitink (Dutch) is still around but seems to be floating between recording contracts.

 

The Tennstedt set is a bit variable IMO, though I haven't actually got it myself - more interesting than Maazel's but nowhere near as well played, and for me Solti is better than either (though a couple of symphonies fall a bit flat in his set, notably no. 9) but obviously a fair bit more expensive.

All of the symphonies are really very good indeed - 3 and 8 are arguably the weakest, but even then both contain lots of really good music (the last movement of 3 springs to mind). 3 is just a bit too long and sprawling for its own good, and some of it sounds a bit tacky to my ears (the sub-Hollywood bits in the first movement), and 8 is the massively extravagant 'Symphony of a Thousand', which is very difficult indeed to hold together live and is pretty much doomed to fall flat on CD (Solti makes a very good go at it).

9 is the all-round out-and-out masterpiece, standing pretty much at the absolute pinnacle of neurotically intense late-Romantic music. 2 is the taking-on-Beethoven-9th blockbuster and is the one that people tend to get properly addicted to IME (qv Gilbert Kaplan, eccentric millionaire, who got obsessed by Mahler 2, bought the manuscript, then took lessons so he could read and conduct it, and hired an orchestra to play for him - now renowned world-wide as a top Mahler expert, but doesn't conduct anything else). 4 is the 'nice', classicalesque one with good manners and a beautiful if twee finale for sugary-sweet solo soprano; and 7 forms a sort of trio with 5 and 6 as the purely instrumental 'middle' symphonies, and is amazingly kaleidoscopic in terms of orchestration and mood (the Nachtmusik I movement may be familiar from Castrol's oil advertisements). These days there are various completions of 10 available as well, which is generally in the same vein as the 9th but perhaps not quite as inspired.

Plenty of great recordings around - Maazel and the Vienna Phil are cheap and extremely good in 1 and 4, though the rest are fairly variable. Solti's digital Chicago version of 2 is pretty thrilling, and Rattle's is superb too (sorry folks, but it is ) - and Kaplan's first recording of 2 is very special, though I haven't heard his recent DG remake I've linked to above. There's a classic George Szell version of number 4 which is sublime and also available cheaply. Karajan is superb in no. 9 (two versions available), and Solti's probably your man for no.8.

 

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo The Rattle 2 is slow, ponderous and generally insipid. I thought it was great until I heard some others. I've got a Tensdedt recording with Swarzkopf and that is awesome.

 

I'm no expert, but I like Abbado/Berlin Phil. I bought the set after hearing it at Titian's (WARNING: this is a bad place to hear anything, because everything sounds wonderful). However, I'm pleased to say that it still sounds wonderful on my humbler set-up.

I also have Rattle's No.2 ("Gramophone" Record of the Year), and I still like that, perhaps out of ignorance (after all, I'm principally a baroque man). But hard to beat Janet Baker for depth of expression.

 

Rattle's no.2 is fine... his best effort in Mahler. Its his other Mahler recordings that I have a problem with, all wildly over-rated by the crits.

His 1979 recording of the completed 10th with the Bournemouth Symphony is much more satisfying and effective than the Berlin Phil remake. Something's gone wrong with Sir Simon, he hasn't made a decent record for years.

 

I think you're right about Rattle now, he seems to be more concerned about making a statement than acting as a vessel for the music he so obviously feels. His Mahler 10 with the BSO is indeed fantastic

 

Cheers for all the comments guys,

Martin

 

Got the Mahler today, seem to be pretty good recordings, haven't really listened and compared them yet, but they're certainly a good introduction to Mahler and his symphonies