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Does anyone know if/when his (MTT's) SFO 7th is coming out? Bunny, Didn't you see MTT perform the 7th live?

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Here is a link:

http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/3298

It doens't give a release date, but it will be this fall.

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Well, I caught the SFO/Thomas/Mahler 7 live last season. It was absolutely awesome. Great playing, conducting, etc. Every bit as thrilling as his LSO recording. The SFO brass section is superb. I have had mixed opinions of his SFO cycle so far, but rest assured the 7th will be a highlight. Let's hope the best for the 8th next May!

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I did see him doing the M7 live, and the symphony was already "in the can" at that time. The concert was really excellent, but often live performances are very different from recordings and even other live performances so there is really no guarantee that his M7 will go to the top of the list. I suppose release will be late this year (in time for Xmas?) or early next. I do know that I was a bit disappointed with his M9 which was way too smoothed out for my taste.

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Here is what I posted shortly after the concert.

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I have the MTT M7 on RCA w/ London Symphony. It came out a few years ago, ok 1999 to be exact. Are you saying he's releasing another one? That's kind weird to release another version 5 years later..

-jar

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Hi Jar,

MTT has been recording the complete cycle with the SFSO in SACD/hybrid under the SO's own label. I don't think it is so uncommon for a conductor to do more than one cycle. Off the top of my head I know that Bernstein recorded at least 2 cycles, Walter also recorded many of the symphonies twice, Kubelik recorded the cycle in the studio and also live, Solti recorded them twice, and Karajan also recorded some of them twice. I think that eventually it will be very common for conductors to record the cycle more than once as Mahler continues to grow in popularity, and many conductors who have recorded them in stereo may wish to record them in enhanced multichannel format. If Mahler is selling, then it will be recorded over, just like Beethoven. I look forward to the day when conductors do multiple recordings of Shostakovich as well!

Bunny

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MORE popular? Is this possible? It seems to me that since Mitropolous, Bernstein and a few others in the 60s unleashed Mahler to the public, his music has been more popular than most any composer's, and many of the symphonies are now staples of the repertoire. Only M8 isn't, and that's because it's so expensive to mount.
I don't look forward to more Mahler cycles, but I know they're coming. Jeez, we have Bernstein(2), Kubelik(2), Haitink(2), Maazel, Tabakov, Solti, de Waart, Sinopoli, Boulez (almost), Inbal, Levine (almost), Kondrashin (mostly), Chailly, and many others with partial sets (Scherchen, Mitropolous, Jarvi, Segerstam, Barbirolli). With this stunning wealth do we really need it? Will there be a market? or will they be doomed to the fate that Barenboim's ill-advised DVD-A Beethoven set had, selling fewer than 600 in it's Teldec incarnation?
What could a DVD set add? Does it really sound better if we can see the performers? I doubt it. But that's not going to stop anyone.
I wish the record companies would instead put money into other music that should be explored more, and like Mahler 50 years ago will eventually attain a more popular status-- if given a chance. It boggles the mind, that conductors still basically ignore the beautiful and exciting music of Franz Schmidt, Alexander Zemlinsky, Joachim Raff, Kurt Atterberg, Richard Arnell, Ernest Bloch, Glazunov, and many others. I love Mahler's music, buy there's a whole lot more out there that is every bit as rewarding.

Although Mahler has definitely gained in popularity in the last 50 or so years, he is still much less popular than Beethoven and Mozart. When you look at the plethera of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach recordings you quickly realize that Mahler while gaining has not quite gotten to the same level of popularity. Look at concert programs and you will not yet find as many Mahler concerts as Beethoven or Mozart, and from my own experience it's a lot easier to get a good seat at a Mahler concert at the last minute than a Beethoven piano concerto.

Although there are still many underrepresented composers, I look forward to more Mahler recordings of great quality, especially in SACD or dvd-a multichannel format.

That's an interesting point about Beethoven and Mozart. Yet, the four orchestras I play with schedule a Mahler work every year, while Mozart and Beethoven are less represented. And in my part of the world, it's the Mahler concerts that bring people in, and the same old Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart that leaves seats empty.

So, if you could choose orchestra/conductor for a new Mahler set in the hottest SACD or DVD format, who do you have in mind? Me, I can't wait to hear what Richard Hickox can do with Mahler symphonies.

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Arguably, the new Telarc Zander set (with the Philharmonia) is the hot Mahler set of the moment, and it is partially on SACD.

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Going on word of mouth I've heard good and bad things about Zander's CDs so far. Though the additional disc with info about the symphony is a nice idea, no idea how well implemented it is.

Scott

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Where are you performing? Here in NY the Philharmonic hardly schedules any Mahler and all of my Mahler concerts are touring orchestras at Carnegie Hall. Both Barenboim with the CSO and Eschenbach with the Philadelphia Orchestra are doing Mahler (Barenboim doing the 5th and Eschenbach doing the 6th) in November, for instance. However, for every Mahler concert there is more Beethoven and Mozart. Andras Schiff is doing Mozart with an ensemble he put together just for the purpose later in the year. It's true that Mahler is much better represented than in the past but still, Beethoven and the other warhorses are what really sell the tickets. They even called me from Carnegie Hall to say that prime seats had been released by development because they just weren't attractive enough for the wealthy donors.

Yeah, and NY has that dastardly Mostly Mozart, so I see what you say. Maazel is doing at least one Mahler a year, I think.
I'm in the Phoenix area, and the Phoenix Symphony and Tucson do at least one Mahler symphony a year. The groups I play with have done M1, M4 repeatedly, and we even did Todtenfeier last year. And the orchestral song cycles are popular to play, too.

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Zander's interpretations are polarizing, to say the least. Some reviewers that I trust very much think a good deal of some of his works, like the 3rd. However, in the same work, some critics take his episodic structure to task as ultimately ignorant of the architecture of the symphony.

In re the M3, I have argued elsewhere that if one begins to get overly concerned with the long line, the interpretation cannot support its own weight and necessarily collapses.

He is as controversial as Pierre Boulez, and both have their disciples when it comes to Mahler. I tend to prefer Boulez, but Zander is not bad by any stretch of the imagination.