[scottder]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bunnyears Has anyone gotten the new Michael Gielen cycle yet?

Wow, that's a darned pricey set too! [ArkivMusic]

 

[Doc Sarvis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottder Wow, that's a darned pricey set too! [ArkivMusic]

Agreed. With today's abundance of Mahler choices it would hardly seem worth it.

 

[Bunnyears]

They have the M1 by Gielen at yourmusic, so I'm hoping they will have them all eventually, even if not in the box, like the Norrington Beethoven also on the Hannsler label. So, for now it's a wait and see. Hopefully they won't sell like hotcakes at the regular stores and I'll eventually see them in my unopened stack.

 

[mbhaub]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doc Sarvis Agreed. With today's abundance of Mahler choices it would hardly seem worth it.

$179 !!!!! Are they nuts? These aren't even SACD! Well, it is cheaper at Tower, and there are some listings on Amazon for around $110, but that's still a lot. You can have Kubelik, Maazel, Inbal, Solti, Tennstedt, Berstein, and others for a lot less. The only Gielen Mahler's I have are 6 & 7, niether is my top choice, but they are very, very well played. I can't put my finger on what's missing, but all I have to do is compare the finale of M7 to the Kondrashin/Concertgebouw. Gielen, faster the many, gets thru it in about 19 minutes. Kondrashin knocks it down to less than 16 -- he interprets it as Marx Brothers, which is what makes the movement work for me. I'll wait a year and see if the Gielen set shows up at Berkshire Record Outlet.

 

[Bunnyears]

Just listened to Gilbert Kaplan's Adagietto. Hopefully, he's working on the M5 now, but I suspect the Adagio was just an encore for his M2 tour. Well, it comes in just under 8 minutes and it is formidable. A really great performance.

 

[PSmith08]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bunnyears Just listened to Gilbert Kaplan's Adagietto. Hopefully, he's working on the M5 now, but I suspect the Adagio was just an encore for his M2 tour. Well, it comes in just under 8 minutes and it is formidable. A really great performance.

If I recall correctly, his Adagietto was a demonstration that Mahler intended for it to be played faster than most conductors generally take it.

I wish Kaplan would tackle a complete cycle. I know he is in love with the M2, but I think he would do a very good job with all of them. His interpretatively neutral readings are faithful to the score, which is a nice idea; also, I get the impression that he demands quite a bit of rehearsal time - always a good idea for Mahler. Perhaps he'd perform them with the Wiener Philharmoniker in the Musikvereinsaal. That group seems to really respect him, despite the "amateur" slur that his thrown at him with some frequency.

 

[mbhaub]

It's the "amateur" part that is the problem. Not being a trained musician, and barely able to read a score, he has to learn to conduct from memory and by rote. I've never played under him, but I've talked to people who have, and while they admire his dedication and love of M2, rehearsals can be quite frustrating at times. The 2nd is a relatively "simple" score, for Mahler anyway. Imagine the complexities of 3, 5, 6, 7, 9! He hired a 3rd tier conductor to help him with his initial foray into M2 with the LSO and has made a career out of it, but that in no way qualifies him to make a cycle. To trained musicians, nothing is more excrutiating than having to play with an imposter on the podium. Bobby MacFerrin and Danny Kaye are enough! THere's more to conducting than standing up and waving a stick around. Nonetheless, I am very grateful to Mr. Kaplan for what he has done for Mahler, just stick to M2.

 

[PSmith08]

You know, I cannot think of a single conductor that did not learn how to conduct. "Amateur" is not an expletive, in my opinion. Look up the etymology, and you'll see why. Even the greatest of the century, Wilhelm Furtwangler, had to learn how to do it by memory and by rote. Arturo Toscanini was famous for never using a score, prompting Hans Knappertsbusch to make the "I can read music" remark. While there is indeed more to conducting than waving a stick about (although many so-called "trained" conductors haven't mastered that concept), there is nothing about conducting that cannot be learned.

Frankly, given some of the material spewed forth by established conductors, even the sainted Von Karajan, I cannot see how Kaplan could do any harm to some of these scores.

 

[Bunnyears]

Kaplan has said that it took him about a page a day to learn the score of the M2, but the funny thing about learning a score that well is that the next score takes a lot less time. I don't doubt that by now Kaplan can read music as well as a lot of musicians and that when he looks at a score he probably understands much more than when he first started this project. That is the thing about learning, it is incremental: you are able to build on what you have learned before. I am sure that if he ever decides that he wants to do another symphony he will accomplish it.

 

[Masonjar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bunnyears Kaplan has said that it took him about a page a day to learn the score of the M2, but the funny thing about learning a score that well is that the next score takes a lot less time. I don't doubt that by now Kaplan can read music as well as a lot of musicians and that when he looks at a score he probably understands much more than when he first started this project. That is the thing about learning, it is incremental: you are able to build on what you have learned before. I am sure that if he ever decides that he wants to do another symphony he will accomplish it.

If I were him I know I'd want to keep going!

I think he'll probably do just fine. Though sometimes I wonder if he has it "in him" for the darker aspects of the later works.

Has he "suffered" enough?

I don't know much about him to know for sure.

-jar

 

[PSmith08]

I don't think he will do a complete cycle (at the moment). I was expressing a wish, but I do hope that he'll consider branching out at some point.

 

[Doc Sarvis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PSmith08 You know, I cannot think of a single conductor that did not learn how to conduct. "Amateur" is not an expletive, in my opinion. Look up the etymology, and you'll see why. Even the greatest of the century, Wilhelm Furtwangler, had to learn how to do it by memory and by rote. Arturo Toscanini was famous for never using a score, prompting Hans Knappertsbusch to make the "I can read music" remark. While there is indeed more to conducting than waving a stick about (although many so-called "trained" conductors haven't mastered that concept), there is nothing about conducting that cannot be learned. Frankly, given some of the material spewed forth by established conductors, even the sainted Von Karajan, I cannot see how Kaplan could do any harm to some of these scores.

Agreed. I suppose it's a topic for another thread, but it begs the question: What does a conductor really do? I would argue that the good ones are such mainly because they have the strength of will to extract what they want out of musicians. Presence, charisma, refusal to be intimidated and personal magnetism are all-important. So is passion, and Kaplan has that in spades - for M2 at least.

I would submit that conducting is the ultimate ego job - it requires absolute self-confidence. When musicians came at Mahler with clubs early in his career (a true story!), he didn't back down.

 

[Bunnyears]

Mahler himself was considered an impossible egotist on the podium, constantly berating and hectoring his musicians until they gave him the sound that he wanted. He had to leave Hamburg and also Budapest because the musicians hated him so much. He warned that they would realize what they had lost after he left, which was very apparent. Whatever kaplan does with his music after this will really be interesting. He's not touring anymore which is too bad, but perhaps he's been spending his time learning a new score. One can but hope.

 

[PSmith08]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doc Sarvis Agreed. I suppose it's a topic for another thread, but it begs the question: What does a conductor really do? I would argue that the good ones are such mainly because they have the strength of will to extract what they want out of musicians. Presence, charisma, refusal to be intimidated and personal magnetism are all-important. So is passion, and Kaplan has that in spades - for M2 at least. I would submit that conducting is the ultimate ego job - it requires absolute self-confidence. When musicians came at Mahler with clubs early in his career (a true story!), he didn't back down.

A conductor has to do more than keep beat. Orchestras could save a lot of money by simply piping a Dr. Beat over headphones to the players. No, a conductor has to convince one hundred very creative and intelligent people that he knows how to read their part of the score better than they do. He has to convince the same people, who have also devoted their professional lives to music, that he knows exactly what the composer wanted - even when the composer was vague. However, it is a rarity for a composer to give bar-by-bar guidance. Some, like Wilhelm Furtwangler, are creating a communion with the music; others, like Bernstein, are more than slightly interested in how they look on the podium. Therefore, the players have to interpret what the conductor wants. Conveying the same message to everyone is a daunting task. A conductor on a locomotive train doesn't tell the engineer what to do every moment, nor does a conductor tell all his players what to do. I am with Doc, and the best conductors will the players into creating their vision, but I think the greatest of them all convince the players that the conductor's vision was really theirs all along. Of course, Mahler leaves no doubt in his scores who's really in charge. I suppose that is the legacy of Mahler the great conductor.

 

[bigshot]

My favorite Mahler recording is Bruno Walter's 1938 performance of the ninth with the Vienna Philharmonic. Walter had assisted Mahler when he was conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, and Mahler gave him the score before he died because he knew he wouldn't live to conduct it. The whole orchestra was aware that the Nazis were close to taking over Austria... and once that happened, the Vienna Philharmonic would never be the same again. Walter described the ninth as "the farewell", and this particular recording captures the end of an era.

I produced a restoration of it from an original shellac pressing. You can find an MP3 sample at... http://www.vintageip.com/records/vipcl1005.html

See ya
Steve