Search - Gustav Mahler, Herbert Kegel, Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra :: Mahler: Symphony No. 1

A Considerable Performance of Mahler's 1st Symphony

Doug - Haydn Fan | California | 12/06/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Mahler premiered his first symphony almost exactly 120 years ago, in Budapest, where the 29 year old up and coming conductor had recently been appointed director of the Royal Hungarian Opera. The first performance featured five movements under the title, A Symphonic Poem in Two Parts. A certain amount of descriptive prose was attached to the proceedings. Mahler had three movement in the first half, and two in the second. The locals were not impressed, and the performance was an abject failure. Mahler waited four years before giving the work two more goes, this time in German locales. The five movements were now given a new title, "The Titan", but in Hamburg and especially Weimar the music again was subjected to caustic criticism from public and critics alike. Finally, in March of 1896 Mahler led a fourth performance in Berlin, this time the symphony was shorn of the 2nd "Blumine" movement, the wordy prose dropped, and the whole recast as a strict four movement symphony. Despite these changes the music fared no better than before, and found no favor. Mahler would for the most part leave the work this way, and it as a four movement symphony we know it today.



Listening to the music now it is difficult to understand how the work's opening movements could be so thoroughly disliked; much of it is simple lyric writing, and large sections are taken from Mahler's earlier very melodious song compositions. The orchestration throughout the first two movements overflows with all the charm and festive coloring of the best Humperdinck - indeed, the 2nd movement of Mahler's symphony derives directly from his early work, "Hans und Grete"! Bird calls and horns punctuate the music as Mahler revels in his astonishing gift for recreating in music the most beautiful nature painting. However, this pastoral vision comes to a sudden end at the dark and sinister beginning of the third movement, with its strikingly orchestrated funeral dirge, done in a macabre style reminiscent of Berlioz. This grotesque atmosphere soon runs up against a lively brace of tuneful Bohemian country marches and dances. The long movement makes for a remarkably convoluted and confusing listening experience - I expect Mahler started losing his contemporary audiences in great numbers at this point! The finale goes further, running through a complex recycling of earlier themes from the beginning of the work, and its great length - over twenty minutes - allows Mahler wide latitude for invesitigating what has turned into an extremely challenging musical study.



As anyone can see from Amazon's listings, Mahler's 1st Symphony has dozens and dozens of recordings - the public now seems quite taken with the music's rapidly shifting perspectives of joy and angst! This particular performance, was made back in 1979, in Dresden - then part of the DDR. Conductor Kegel was a specialist in modern works, and this recording shows him to be a terrific Mahler conductor. His orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonie, the 'other' Dresden orchestra, gives a very good account of themselves. If there are a few drawbacks in the quality of the overall sound of the sections in comparison to the top orchestras, Kegel's conducting offsets these slight drawbacks. His reading is bouyant and free, he brings out the music's myriad switchbacks and abrupt changes with extremely deft leadership. The orchestral colors so important in this work are nicely done, and in a couple of the movements, notably the first three, he's just about as good as any other conductor I've heard leading this music. I do not find him 'harsh and cruel" as one reviewer does, though Kegel certainly doesn't stint when Mahler's markings call for harsher sounds, either. The only limitations might be the recording, now showing its age a bit, and the fact that the Dresdeners are really not in the class of the Berlin or the Chicago. But the conductor is certainly an accomplished student of Mahler, and I can recommend this recording very strongly.



My version of this Berlin Classics Mahler 1st Symphony under Kegel and the Dresden Philharmonie is a 1995 Cd, now deleted. This latest issue offered here is the same performance at the same original budget price range. Given this enticing price Mahler buffs might want to give this performance a listen. Kegel recorded the Mahler 4th Symphony as well, it shows much the same attention to detail, fine playing, excellent ear for orchestral colors, and overall grasp for the music. Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4 It might be nice if Brilliant - or someone - would reissue Kegel's Mahler 3rd, currently one of the most frightfully expensive used Mahler Cds going! Mahler: Symphonie Nr. 3 d-moll"