Mahler: Symphony No. 9
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Composer: Gustav MahlerConductor: Benjamin Zander
Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1999-02-23
Music Label: Telarc
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Andante Comodo - Philharmonia Orchestra
- II. Im Tempo Eines Gemachlichen Landlers. Etwas Tappisch Und Sehr Derb
- III. Rondo-Burleske. Allegro Assai. Sehr Trotzig
- IV. Molto Adagio
- Sym No.9: First Mvmt - Zander commentary
- Sym No.9: Second Mvmt - Zander commentary
- Sym No.9: Third Mvmt - Zander commentary
- Sym No.9: Fourth Mvmt - Zander commentary
Music reviews of Mahler: Symphony No. 9
Music Review: A personalized interpretation of Mahler's death song
Rating: 4 Stars
Ben Zander is the rarity among conductors. Hidden from international view until he was in his 50s, Zander has made a name for himself in big repertoire, in part by adding his own discussion disks to his releases, such as the one included with this recording. Zander's Mahler 9 is made from a concert performance given in London's Barbican Centre in 1996 and the dress rehearsal, which was probably used to fill in the rough spots that occurred during the evening show. I compared Zander's recording, for this review, to another recording I'd been listening to recently that was of nearly the same timing -- the 1966 concert recording by the London Symphony Orchestra under Jascha Horenstein in the Arts & Music mono pressing Symphony 9. A stereo Horenstein-led recording from 1967 is also available from the BBC Mahler: Symphony No. 9.
Zander's notes to his recording say, "...Mahler lived during a time when music was manifestly personal." I think this applies equally to Zander, whose opening of the symphony is also personal. The long first movement (over 30 minutes in this recording) has a sense of suspension of time and place after the early histrionics are out of the way. This is especially true in the final minutes following the repeat, Zander's way of confirming the quote he includes from Alban Berg in the notes that says: "The whole (first) movement is permeated with the premonition of death..."
There's nothing unique about Zander, or anyone else, suggesting Mahler's final symphony is his premonition of death. Zander is hardly the first commentator to link the Mahler "9" to the end and tie it to the death of his daughter and his soon-to-be-fatal heart condition. In the two middle movements, Zander adopts a different tact, almost as if he is a tour guide of the music's contents. His second movement starts genially, almost in understatement, before molting. In the third (landler) movement, Zander seems sure to be showing off the structure of the thing, as if to prove (as he says in the notes) that Mahler can indeed write counterpoint.
In the finale, Zander returns to more of a personal affront, lathering Mahler's swansong in tender mercies of music-making that get a bit too tender at about 20 minutes of the 27:44 movement. For the first time in my experience -- in almost four decades listening to recordings -- the finale got so quiet I had to turn my amplifier to its maximum volume (75 on the dial) to clearly hear what was going on. Regardless of the quality of the interpretation, it's hard to have a good outcome if one can't hear what's going on and that was my lot much of the time at the end.
I had no such issues with Horenstein's recording, whose musical content is exactly the same 27:44 duration in the finale and only about a minute different from Zander's in the other three movements. But, while the two maestros took the same time getting to the same place, they generally traveled different paths interpretively. While Zander's performance tends to be personal in the two long movements and exposes the architecture in the middle, Horenstein tends to the narrative story Mahler seems to be telling us in this, his final major composition.
While comparing the two recordings, I often thought of Zander as a tour guide giving a travelogue of his ideas and the contents of the score. Horenstein, by contrast, seemed more like a storyteller reciting the legend of the end of like of one Gustav Mahler, the last great symphonist of the late romantic era. I liken this to the difference between the two men. Where Zander is a world-renowned teacher and music educator, Horenstein was trained by Furtwangler to project the metaphysical contents of the score.
The contrast is magnified when reading the respective notes to the recordings. While Horenstein's notes are full of quotes from Mahler's letters to his disciple, Bruno Walter, on topics such as musicmaking, death and eternity, Zander's notes start similarly but digress to discussing bar 308, score markings, and entering in the tonic minor. While Horenstein seems to be reliving Mahler's end through the music, Zander is examining the score and his ideas, almost dissecting the score at certain points. If Horenstein is the humanist, Zander is the clinician.
I don't mean clinician the way people ascribe that attribute to Pierre Boulez. Zander certainly feels the music and presents powerful, sometimes overwhelming, emotions. He has strong ideas about the music you can read and see for yourself by viewing the two-page "conductor's score" that comes with the package. It is liberally marked by the conductor's thoughts in certain sections of the music. Zander proves neither a literalist interpretively nor, like Horenstein, a powerhouse orator. While he has a point of view, it doesn't always match Horenstein's rhapsodic ability to twirl a tale musically.
There are also debits. The Philharmonia Orchestra, and particularly its string section, do not offer their best playing throughout the long symphony and the microphone is not always kind. The Telarc engineers capture a fine sound in tutti but details and instruments disappear in quieter sections. Horenstein's account benefits from gain riding; Telarc would have benefited this recording by doing same.
There are also credits. The package includes a third disc with 77 minutes of Zander's movement-by-movement discssion. Some listeners enjoy Zander's discussion disks more than his conducting. The notes include a listing of every player in the Philharmonia that participated and the conductor's score includes a seating chart for the performance. Zander splits the violins antiphonally, if that makes a difference to you.
When I think about the Mahler Symphony 9s I've heard and owned, I think Zander occupies a place above middle ground but not at the top. My favorite recordings of this symphony are Horenstein's version discussed here and Karel Ancerl's single disc version of about 79 minutes duration Ancerl Gold Edition 33: MAHLER Symphony No. 9. Some of Zander's first movement reminded me of Ancerl, who is unique in the way he builds the argument early. Others I've heard and enjoyed include Lopez-Cobos and the Cincinnati Symphony Symphony 9, which probably sounds as good as any Mahler 9 ever reccorded even though the conductor does not seem to have any perspective on the music.
Of recordings I thik overrated, Karajan's 1982 concert version tops the list Gustav Mahler: Symphonie No. 9 even though I agree he maintains unique tension throughout the long span of the finale that makes up for some of his syrupy conducting earlier. Others I'd classify as overrated include Levine's excursion in Philadelphia Mahler: Symphony No. 9, which is an endurance test for me, and the feel good Abbado Mahler: Symphony No. 9 who seems to think you can discuss death and be happy doing it.
Description of Mahler: Symphony No. 9
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