MAHLER Symphony No. 2, 'Resurrection'

Resurrections old and new from Salzburg and Hamburg

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Gustav Mahler

Genre:

Orchestral

Label: Oehms

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 79

Mastering:

Stereo
DDD

Catalogue Number: OC412

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Symphony No. 2, 'Resurrection' Gustav Mahler, Composer
Dagmar Pecková, Mezzo soprano
Gustav Mahler, Composer
Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Latvian State Symphony Orchestra
Michaela Kaune, Soprano
North German Radio Chorus
Simone Young, Conductor

Composer or Director: Gustav Mahler

Genre:

Orchestral

Label: Orfeo

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 89

Mastering:

Stereo
ADD

Catalogue Number: C837112B

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Symphony No. 2, 'Resurrection' Gustav Mahler, Composer
Christa Ludwig, Mezzo soprano
Gustav Mahler, Composer
James Levine, Conductor
Kathleen Battle, Soprano
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Vienna State Opera Concert Choir
The revelation of Vladimir Jurowski’s live London Philharmonic account from last year has made it difficult, if not impossible, to listen objectively to performances which fail to scale the heights of this monumental work but rather sit comfortably in the foothills. Neither of these performances can hold a candle to the Jurowski, or Iván Fischer, or indeed any of the more inspirational accounts of recent years. In Mahler it’s a case of ‘who dares wins’, and Levine and Young are not in the business of daring.

Levine’s 1989 Salzburg account would seem to have been fashioned with the delicate sensibilities of the glamorous festival audience in mind. It’s a reading which dutifully pushes most of the right buttons but never the music’s extremes. Everything is kept on a pretty even keel as the regal Vienna Philharmonic process from one brassy climax to the next. Mahler’s seismic extremes of tempo are largely ignored, the great development climax of the first movement grinding to its molto pesante moment of truth long before the marking actually appears in the score (indeed, Mahler demands quite the opposite – a reckless dash to the abyss). It’s almost as if Levine has examined the finer points of the score and thought better of them: too awkward and/or challenging.

Of course, the Vienna strings offer an echt Viennese account of the second-movement Andante and you can feel the sense of ‘well-being’ in the Grosses Festspielhaus as the musical language fleetingly alludes to the New Year’s Day concert in Vienna. What is missing here is any real sense of the music’s threatening undercurrents. Likewise the third movement, where a well-manicured cosiness prevails. The great Christa Ludwig was sadly past her considerable best when this recording was made and, while the brilliant trumpet- and horn-led paeans of the finale make for some sporadic thrills, the whole edifice eventually lumbers towards a grand and portentous peroration, growing impossibly slow in the orchestral coda.

Simone Young also goes for the heavy sombre option in the moment of ‘Resurrection’ (and I hate to admit it but so did Bernstein – though he, of course, carried the fervour of belief to dramatic extremes). The point is that the Resurrection Hymn needs to engender uplift in its phrasing and until I had heard Jurowski in these closing pages I simply hadn’t realised how ecstatic and songful they could sound. My goodness, Mahler would have been blown away.

There is nothing remotely ecstatic about Young’s approach but rather it is the culmination of a dogged and nondescript account of the piece, which starts as it means to go on with a sluggish and singularly unarresting articulation of the first movement’s opening bars. The lack of interest and impact throughout this auspicious movement has rather less to do with speeds than spirit, though she, too, succeeds in ironing out many of Mahler’s precipitous shocks.

There is, however, one moment of magic in the performance. In the ‘Urlicht’ – nobly enhanced by Dagmar Pecková’s deep contralto timbre – Young (as directed by Mahler but rarely practised) separates and distances the trumpets at the start as if we’ve suddenly entered another realm. But then again, so does Jurowski – one of numerous revelations which make his the version to hear and hear again.

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