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Classics Today (Dave Hurwitz) and a prominent poster on the Gustav Mahler Board have laid down their verdicts, and those verdicts are harsh, man! The Adagietto lasts 12 and a half minutes, and GL (a new poster on the Gustav Mahler Board who seems to have a pretty detailed knowledge of the score) has opined:Even if I am rather sure that the Adagietto should be played flowingly, there are wonderful slow renditions and I am very happy to listen to them. The problem with Vanska is not that it is slow, the problem is that it is flat. Almost all ppppppp, schleppend even when Mahler warns nicht schleppen. I am really sick of this bogus profundity: you play as slow as possible and as ppppp as possible and you think that you have reached the apex of deep expression. Come on!While over on Classics Today, Dave has this to say:
I really hope that this cycle will not be completed, at least not by Vanska.The Adagietto is slooooooooooowwww-some twelve and half minutes. I'm not a fan of those who insist that it be played as quickly as it was done originally, or sometimes is again today (around eight minutes). It's really a question of contrast and proportion, but this version is lethal.Like I say, harsh! (And that's just one movement out of five!) In the other movements, there's a litany of objections from both writers, from the many unobserved Luftpausen indicated in the score, to the low-intensity level pretty much throughout.
My own feeling is that it's dangerous to play Mahler as if every phrase has an exclamation point after it - this can drive the expression over the top into bathos (a word the Brits love to use!). OTOH, I kind of agree with these two reviews, in that Vanska goes too far the other way by giving us a Mahler Fifth that's too laid back for its own good. Sometimes it's good NOT to have the phrases inflected so extremely, but I think you have to have SOME kind of contrast so that they don't all sound similar (which, to a certain extent, they do in this performance).
As I've posted before, I have (or have had) over 80 recordings of this work. (It's all because of my wife - but that's another story which I think I've posted about before.) The MCh 24/96 recording I listened to is outstanding and the Minnesotans play very well. But you just end up wanting more.
One of the other posters over at the GMB (Barry, the main guy) seems to be somewhat excited that the tuba player is playing a new model tuba:I love the sound of tuba player Steven Cambpell, playing on the new B&S "MRP" rotary valve CC tuba. It gets a dark sound like a BBb tuba, but with the immediate response and focus of a C tuba.Unless you're really into the tuba part in this work, I'd guess that this aspect of the performance will be of secondary importance to you - although all these things are factors in the success (or lack thereof) of a given performance. ;-)
In any case, BIS has let us know that two more Mahler symphonies are now captured in 1's and 0's, so it will be interesting to see if Vanska's approach changes in the other Mahler symphonies. BTW, I like the cover art on this new release:
Follow Ups:
Vanska is ideosyncratic. He deserves respect for not bowing to the opinions from all directions about how to play this or that music, but following his own vision, which I almost universally find appealing. He has impeccable taste. He also deserves credit for morphing a provincial ensemble into a world class orchestra.
to other gigs.
Has nothing to do with his Tempos, unless you think they just can't play it faster...
If they were great enough for the following conductors, then I think they're great enough for me too.Partial List of Minneapolis Symphony / Minnesota Orchestra Music Directors (from Wikipedia)
Eugene Ormandy (1931-1936)
Dimitri Mitropoulos (1937-1949)
Antal Dorati (1949-1960)
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (1960-1979)
Neville Marriner (1979-1986)
Edo de Waart (1986-1995)
Eiji Oue (1995-2002)
Osmo Vanska (2003-2013; 2014-present)
So what Mahler 5 do y'all like?
Rudolf Schwarz with London Symphony Orchestra.
/
I dunno: I find it slow in parts. Great sound. I have 6 or 7 Hi Rez surround recordings, all highly-regarded except perhaps for the Abravanel on DualDisc. My preference is the Abbado/Berliner Philharmonic in 5.1 SACD on DG.
By far Boulez/Vienna Phil
Wish DG would put this on an LP.
Jukka Pekka Saraste/Finnish Radio Sym.
Solti/Chicago
... is to be released in August. It is a live recording and the performance is very good as is the sound. The performance is certainly superior to the Vanska.
Edits: 07/27/17
Madeline's favorite:
Funny - she actually prefers and audiophile recording!
Some that come to mind right now as ones I have good memories of:
Walter/NYPO (dated sound, but Walter is great!), Mehta/Bavarian State Orch (hard to believe, I know), Gergiev/LSO, Macal/CzPO, de Waart/Netherlands RPO, Neumann/LGO (an oldie but a goodie!), Gatti/RPO. . .
. . . so many more! ;-)
/
Another long Adagietto is by Frank Shipway/Royal Philharmoic which also goes over 12 min. (12:27)
Whisper quiet and pretty, it has no tension or sense of anticipation. Underlying burning desire and yearning are completely missing.
I don't have many Vanska recording, but I noticed, perhaps he has a slight tendency to pretty thing up. It was ok some Beethoven programs but not for Mahler.
Abaddo/CSO Mahler 5 was also *everythig-is-same-same* camp. It wasn't not the longest Adagietto but sure felt like one~
*I have (or have had) over 80 recordings of this work.*
Wow. A hard core. :0 I only have about a dozen so far.
I believe the record is held by the great Viennese conductor Hermann Scherchen at about 15 minutes.
It comes in right at 9 minutes (and I like it a lot). Recorded for Westminster in 1952. The YT link is a pretty decent sounding transfer.
That 1964 one with Philly is just insane!
He's doing Satie's *slow music* version. :/
Interesting as an experiment but it sounds awfully extravagant. Plus this is not certainly what Mahler intended. We know the timing from Mahler himself who said he took 9 minutes for it.
Wikipedia says that Mahler conducted it as fast as Mengelberg--at about 7 minutes, the quickist on record. The two were friends and colleagues.
Thanks for posting. I love it. I think he's got the mood just right. Is this a recording off a 78?
OTOH, I don't mind 10-11 minutes sometimes. Some conductors can pull that off. 12-and-a-half and slower is stretching the bounds of credibility! ;-)
I think where Kaplan fails to be convincing (at least to me) is when he makes a one-to-one association between a seven-minute performance (=love song, according to Kaplan) and a 12+ minute performance (=dirge, according to Kaplan). It's really not that simple, and music is acting at a more abstract level in any case.
I also found both his recordings of the Resurrection Symphony sufficiently uninteresting not to keep them around for very long. Overall, though, I think that his article you linked to was well argued, with the exception I noted.
I like Vanska and I like the Minnesota Orchestra, it had great sound and the orchestra plays well, as expected, but for some reason this particular recording just didn't move me one way or the other and I have no idea why.
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