Mahler: Symphony No. 6
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Abbado continues his Mahler cycle with this fine Sixth, a live recording that Mahlerians will want for its forwarding-moving flow reminiscent of Kubelik's excellent recordings of the work. Abbado is especially fine in the Andante, here placed before the Scherzo, unlike his first, 1970s recording with the Chicago Symphony. His refusal to linger and his molding of the Andante's melodic lines make it one of the best available recordings of this section of the massive work. The Berlin strings shine here, as they do throughout the Symphony; only the lower brass disappoint somewhat as they sound a bit lightweight when compared with Chailly's Concertgebouw Orchestra. Many will prefer Bernstein's more-overt emotionalism, but the famous hammer blows in the last movement have tremendous impact. Like many other conductors Abbado omits the third blow (which Mahler eliminated in his editing of the first version of the piece). In fact, that last movement is one of the set's highlights, well-played and abundantly detailed. In sum, one of the better Sixths in the catalogue. --Dan Davis
Customer Reviews
A "Regular People" Review
Mahler, by way of his symphonies has become my favorite non-operatic composer. This disc is great, it did take me a few listenings to really start to enjoy it, but the experience is greater every time. One may want to start with Mahlers 2'nd but you won't go wrong with this either.
sound is slightly better on SACD/CD hybrid issue
Abbado's Berlin remake of the Mahler 6th is Grammophone magazine's 2006 "record of the year". I wish I could be THAT enthusiastic. It is quite good, with a nice, natural "flow" from start to finish. In fact, there's little that can be faulted. Abbado performs the inner movements in andante/scherzo order, which is now the only way sanctioned by the Mahler P.C. possee (funny how nobody had a problem with it being performed scherzo/andante for four decades or so). Yet, a couple of minor oddities do exist. I like how he trims the slow movement (andante moderato) down to 14 minutes here. However, he also kind of short changes a wonderful passage that's located about six minutes into the andante, where the unison horns lead us up into the Austrian highlands, immediately followed by the cowbells first onstage entrance; which, in turn, is accompanied by a naive sounding solo trumpet. Compare the identical passage to Boulez/Vienna Phil., and you'll instantly know which orchestra is located closer to those Alps. Later on, as the loud unison horns lead us on to the slow movement's climactic passage, Mahler again sounds the cowbells - onstage. They're hard to detect here, but practically bury the horns on the recent Eschenbach/Philadelphia M6 from Ondine. I prefer Abbado's pacing, but Eshenbach nails these key signposts better. Also at that climactic passage, instead of putting all of Philly's energies into the top melodic line, Eschenbach makes certain that Mahler's rich, turn-of-the-century harmonies are very clearly defined.
The 30 minute finale goes off without a hitch either. Yet, Abbado fails to scare us much during that weird passage that's located between the two hammer strokes - the one that I affectionately dub, "the wild ride of the headless horsemen across the scared battle plains of Flounders". I'm adding much hyperbole here, but compare the very same passage to Eschenbach/Philly - yet again. Eschenbach makes the start of this section as weird and scarry as humanly possible. He takes it slow - "boom; smash; bop; wham!" - and he really brings out the percussion. Much has been made of Abbado's two hammerstrokes. Yet, a couple of odd things happen with these as well. On the first one, Abbado doubles it with the tam-tam (large gong); something that's not in any of the printed versions. On the second stroke, the bass drum is actually louder than the hammer mechanism itself (usually a large wooden mallet struck on a large wooden box or chopping block). Frankly, these minor points don't mean so much, in and of themselves. Mahler basically just wanted a non-metallic "thud" sound.
No, I think what bothers me most is something that's difficult to define. The timbre of the orchestra itself - at least on this recording - is really rather monochromatic. Everything is sort of a dark, chocolate-y sonority. The woodwinds are there, but there's no pungency or brilliance to their sound. As a result, they hardly cut through Mahler's dense textures. It's as though every instrument may as well be a bassoon. The low brass is often times too light in weight, especially the tuba. At the loudest passages, Mahler is transformed into having that sort of Brahmsian sound; where everything sounds dark and muddy, yet bright and screechy - all at the same time. It's difficult to describe, but far easier to demonstate: just turn to Eschenbach/Philadelphia. With Philly, it's as though one or two other dimensions have suddenly been added. The low strings and high strings are just as strong as those in Berlin. Yet, there's more pungency and timbral distinction from the winds. The Philly low brass is much stronger, and the trumpets have a more piercing quality. It's as though Philly were the Czech Phil. or St. Petersburg Phil. on steroids. Berlin comes across as a very good, enlarged German chamber orchestra - I don't know how else to describe the difference. Granted, some of this has to do with the difference in recording companies, and the difference in acoustics. But some of this definitely has something to do with the differences in tone production. The kind of sound that the Berlin Phil. makes is near ideal for Brahms and Richard Strauss. I'm not so sure that it's anywhere near ideal for Mahler 6. Why do I say that?
Well, let's examine the piece itself. In a sense, the sixth is Mahler's most German and, at the same time, ANTI-German work. It's really kind of a protest piece - a protest against the ever increasing militaristic direction that the German speaking world was taking at that time. As such, the symphony is predominately in minor, and the textures tend to be very dense in many, many spots (Richard Strauss, of all people, allegedly remarked that the sixth had been over-orchestrated). Low strings tend to march and growl a lot, as do the tuba and bassoons. When the high strings aren't playing a beautiful melody, they're usually doing something to just add to the general "screech" level. Horns tend to be sort of dark and muddy sounding instruments when dwelling in their middle register, which they do a lot of here. It's really only the woowinds and trumpets that provide much needed relief from everthing that is either marching, growling, or schreeching on top. I submit that you're not getting enough of that "relief" when hearing the Berlin Phil. in this music. It's not a huge issue, as they're obviously playing the piece, but you do immediately notice the difference when you switch too any number of other recordings. I've simply been using Eschenbach/Philadelphia as a reference point.
In the final analysis, there really isn't any shortage of great Mahler 6 recordings. You could really almost choose one by what your favorite orchestra is. Truth be told, if it weren't for the horrible, metallic "ping" hammerstrokes, my favorite Mahler 6 of any would be Dohnanyi/Cleveland (Decca). But for a single disc version, I recommend Boulez/Vienna Phil. (you can always switch the inner movements, if that's a big issue). For a two-disc version, I like Eschenbach/Philly or Jansons/Concertgebouw (low level recording - needs to be turned way up!).
Soft and no spark
I don't belong to those who despise Abbado in Mahler, but his grasp of the 6th is not the best. The editorial reviewer Davis writes misleadingly about an alleged «forwarding-moving flow reminiscent of Kubelik's excellent recordings of the work». The initial marching rhythm of the first movement by Abbado is in fact slower than by Sanderling, considerably slower than Tennstedt (1991 live), much slower than Bernstein (DG), much much slower than Karajan, not to speak about Bernstein NYP, Solti and Levi, which makes it meaningless comparing with Kubelik (at least on his performance on the DG-box), who is on par with Järvi, the fastest of them all. Perhaps Davis has noticed that Abbado ticks in at 22'48'', but that is achieved by speeding up later in the movement, after the cow bell section, and is still 1'37'' slower than Kubelik (DG-box).
I name this a non-starter. Much worse than the slow marching rhythm, however, is the soft sound, and the feeling of no spark. I mean, Sanderling makes this at least sound engaged, as if something were at stake. But here I feel the music is about nothing, that it doesn't really matter. It's no point comparing with excellent Kubelik. The problem with Abbado is among other things that the gruffiness crucial to this symphony is missing.
The sound quality of Abbado's recent live recordings of the 9th, the 6th and the 7th is not the best. In the 9th it makes me think of haze, in the 7th it gives me a feeling of something veiled, which can be appealing for a symphony of the night, if not of downright fog - for the 6th however, I think about filming through soft-lense, which is intolerable, because this is a symphony of struggle. In this case I cannot recommend Abbado's former recording with Chicago SO, either, even if that has a marching rhythm a little quicker than Sanderling, but the gruffiness is still missing.
Unfortunately, not all Mahler-symphonies are for all conductors. Abbado is generally good with Mahler, but not with Mahler's 6th.
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