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  • Re: Mahler 5 / Vienna Philharmonic / Bernstein / 1988 (live)

    From Herman@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 7 12:22:58 2024
    Recently I watched a documentary about Edo de Waart, from a couple years
    back.

    He talked about the time he won the Mitropoulos conducting competition,
    in 1964. As a result of this he got to assist with Leonard Bernstein and
    the NYPO for a year. Decades later he was still shocked how bad the
    orchestra was back then and how Bernstein was happy with the ugly sound
    he created. 'Like a tin bucket'.

    Why do I quote this? I think with Bernstein a lot of it is just his
    charisma what you're hearing and if you don't buy the charisma it can
    happen you hear a tin bucket.

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  • From Herman@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 7 14:47:18 2024
    Those Haitink Mahler recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic are
    generally regarded as lacking in energy. But who cares about 'generally regarded'?

    I happen to have a copy of Haitink's Mahler 7th with the Berlin
    Philharmonic. It's also not totally stellar, compared to Haithink M7
    that remains etched in my memory. This was a performance in the
    Concertgebouw with the London Philharmonic. It was in the early
    nineties, not so many years after Haitink had stopped conducting the
    RCO.

    Straight from the first roll on the big drum, early on, it was clear
    that this was going to be an utterly dark, black take on Mahler 7. The
    Scherzo in the middle was a unrelieved nightmare. It was stunning, the
    entire symphony.

    Another amazing live Mahler with Haitink was in the second half of the nineties, on a BBC Promenade concert with the Berlin Philharmonic. The
    Sixth. I listened to this one on a car radio parked in a vacation house
    in the French Provence. It was yet another amazing relentless Haitink performance, the way the coda of the 1st movement just poured out, unforgettable...

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  • From Joerg Walther@21:1/5 to Roland van Gaalen on Wed Jul 30 15:06:28 2025
    Roland van Gaalen wrote:

    Is the 1988 live recording of Mahler's Fifth Symphony performed by the
    Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein a holy cow?

    Sorry to chime in so late (and this actually is my first posting here),
    but for me this actually is a holy cow, but maybe just for one reason: I
    was there when it was recorded in the Alte Oper in Frankfurt. (In the
    first part they played the "small" A-Major symphony by Mozart, which
    Bernstein conducted by heart.) I haven't listened to the CD in quite a
    while, so my memory may be a bit dim, but what is it you actually do not
    like about the first two movements? Just three derogatory adjectives do
    not really help me to understand your criticism...

    -jw-
    --
    And now for something completely different...

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