Not your average collection of Mahler symphonies, but one which, with pride, charts in words and music, the impact of the composer’s final two years (1909-11) in and on New York and the important part the city’s orchestra subsequently played in spreading the Mahler message. One might argue that Walter and Mitropoulos would have pioneered and propagated Mahler performance in New York even if the composer had never set foot in the place. But if you have the Mahler connection, and the tradition, then why not make it work for you? That is what the orchestra has done here, and the result, though highly priced, has the potential for being equally highly prized by Mahler historians and dedicated collectors alike (English speaking ones, as there are no translations of the many valuable features in the booklets’ 500-odd pages). One of the booklets contains a list of all the NYPO’s Mahler performances since 1904, pin-pointing the broadcasts where tapes ‘are known to exist’, and it is from these tapes that this compilation was chosen.
In making the choices, consideration was given to the New York players’ own views and memories of the concerts or conductors (printed in the booklet); and to featuring symphonies from conductors who never took them into the studio (Barbirolli in the First, Mitropoulos in the Sixth and Tenth, Stokowski in the Eighth). Bernstein is conspicuous by his absence, but it would seem that rights are not currently available for the release of his Mahler broadcast tapes.
We hear, though, from the man whose Mahler was Bernstein’s model; and Mitropoulos’s 1960 Sixth Symphony must have been a hard act for Bernstein to follow. Follow it Bernstein did, with an equally powerful but more protean New York Sixth (from 1967, now on Sony Classical), yet Mitropoulos delivers the symphony’s integrity and unpalatable truths with a grim and arguably more compelling single-mindedness. Apart from the slow movement (placed second, and gloriously played), there is little relief from the symphony’s burdened, battering march to tragedy. Latterly interpreters have also been more protean in the Eighth’s expansive Faust fantasy, and it would be idle to pretend that, say, Kubelik (DG, 5/90) and Solti (Decca, 5/96) don’t make more than Stokowski of the contrasts explicitly indicated in Mahler’s score (angels that dance as well as sing, ‘freed from earthly stress’). Stokowski in 1950 opted for an unusually moderate range of tempos (starting with a swift Andante), and it is impossible to say whether he was playing safe, attempting to dignify the folksy inspiration, or bringing us something of the manner in which Mahler himself conducted the work (Stokowski was present at the Eighth’s Munich world premiere in 1910). Whatever the case, along the way there are as many attractions (especially the string playing) as there are inevitable insecurities, and it is worth hearing and pondering, not least for the First Part of the symphony, which bears the unmistakable stamp of greatness (of conception, execution and occasion), and the sound is a marvel for its years.
The earliest recording here is a vital, controlled and incisive 1948 Das Lied von der Erde from Walter, with Kathleen Ferrier making her American debut. Set Svanholm tends to press ahead of the beat, but it is a rare pleasure to hear the tenor songs as resolutely conquered and characterized. As for Ferrier’s contribution, there is little to choose between this and the famous Decca Vienna account (1/85) made with a more relaxed Walter in 1952. The later recording perhaps presents the richer portrait of a unique vocal phenomenon, and a cathartic release of emotion in the final pages not matched in New York (where the manner is closer to the score’s indication of something a little more serene and understated).
Aptly enough for this enterprise, applause has been retained at the end of the works, even if, in the case of Das Lied, one wishes that the audience had waited a few seconds longer. But audience noise during the music can be frustrating. Time may well be standing still at the start of Barbirolli’s 1959 First Symphony, but the audience are still finding their way to the seats, and letting loose coughs often enough for some of them to blot out Mahler’s birdcalls. Matters improve, possibly because, as one of the concert’s critical notices informs us, only part of the audience stayed to the end. And the part that did was witness to some engaging features, such as the pronounced, and for the time, deeply unfashionable string portamentos (even Stokowski, in his Eighth, opts for discreet slides), and a Scherzo with big boots and rustic charm laid on by the barrow-load. The Scherzo of Barbirolli’s 1962 New York Ninth Symphony is of a consistently coarser cut than his 1964 Berlin studio recording (EMI, 11/89), and arguably benefits from it, though I find little evidence for the booklet’s general assessment of the Berlin Ninth as ‘rather disengaged from the work’s churning emotions’. And the brightly analytical (and stereo) Berlin recording does allow clearer perception of the details of – future archival revelations apart – Barbirolli’s finest taped Mahler symphony interpretation. Solti’s Fourth Symphony (also 1962), as we know from his two studio recordings (Decca, 9/61 – nla, and 8/84), was unexpectedly graceful and genial, with a long-breathed slow movement, and admirable discipline and refinement, even if that refinement streamlines the work’s bolder colours and sardonic edge (cf. contemporary studio Fourths from Klemperer and Reiner).
All the New York recordings enjoy good balances; those already mentioned are all in very decent, if occasionally pale, mono sound. The stereo tapings aren’t ideally flattering to New York’s violins, but benefit from a wider dynamic range (especially the Boulez Third Symphony). For a live recording, the deployment of the various on- and off-stage forces in Mehta’s 1982 Second is a major achievement. This was a special occasion for all involved (the orchestra’s 10,000th concert), and although Mehta’s is neither a particularly lofty nor radical view of the work, the excitement in the hall (as one musician explains it in the booklet, ‘the players turning each other on’) has transferred to disc in a way that puts his admired 1975 Vienna studio recording (Decca, 5/94) in the shade. Boulez has yet to take the Third Symphony into the studio, and when he does, he may motivate his first movement forces into bolder realms of expression; meanwhile the pleasures of this 1976 performance include a typical (and often very sensuous) cultivation of inner workings, concern for outer structure, very precisely graded dynamics, and a strikingly individual rubato (the opening of the finale’s hymn, a mesmerizing example). I don’t think I have ever heard the sudden tumult and its immediate aftermath at the end of the third movement – proclamatory brass receding over shimmering strings – cast such a spell. Never mind the horns’ tremors in their hushed upper reaches here: as this performance progresses, you gradually become aware of a real time context and continuity almost impossible to create in the studio.
Tennstedt had the ability, at the moment of performance, to persuade listeners that the music could and should sound no other way, and his 1980 New York Fifth Symphony runs the full gamut in virtually the same manner as his live 1988 LPO recording (EMI, 12/89, where one might possibly observe a little more ‘no tomorrow’ intensity, intervention, riotous colour and perfectly formed details). In contrast, the years between Kubelik’s Bavarian Radio Seventh (DG, 1970) and this 1981 New York account appear to have prompted a radical rethink. Or maybe Kubelik is responding to the extra heft of the New York orchestra and ephemeral concert conditions to push out the boundaries. Still recognizable, if moderated, are the sharp features and deliberately soured tone lending menace to both the second and third movements, and an Andante amoroso cajoled into a diversion of wonderfully graceful, fresh-voiced charm. But the much broader manner maximizes the far-flung sonorities, in the first movement, at the expense of line and general decorum. You may react differently, particularly if you agree with criticisms of Kubelik’s Munich Mahler as lightweight.
I mentioned pride at the beginning of this review, and from the general level of playing in this set, it is entirely justified. Naturally there are fluffs, early entries and an occasional rubato prompting untidiness, but the vast majority demonstrates a level of professionalism and innate ability to produce the right sort of sound at the right time that have made and maintained the orchestra as one of the world’s ideal Mahler instruments. As to the two-hour-long sequence of audio interviews by William Malloch, ‘I Remember Mahler’ (New York players’ first-hand experiences under Mahler, recorded in the early 1960s), these undoubtedly benefit from editing (which is how they have been presented in the past, on LP as well as CD), but their complete presentation here corresponds with the comprehensive nature of the project, and allows a few more anecdotes currency as cherishable Mahler memorabilia. So, a Mahler marathon with a difference. Perhaps Amsterdam can now oblige with something similar? '