Search - Gustav Mahler, Roger Norrington, Iris Vermillion :: Mahler: Symphony No. 2 [Hybrid SACD]

Gustav Mahler, Roger Norrington, Iris Vermillion
Mahler: Symphony No. 2 [Hybrid SACD]
Genre: Classical

Track Listings (5) - Disc #1
1. Symphony No. 2 in C minor ('Resurrection'): Part 1. Allegro maestoso. Mit durchaus ernstem und feierlichem Ausdruck
2. Symphony No. 2 in C minor ('Resurrection'): Part 2. Andante moderato. Sehr gem?chlich. Nie eilen
3. Symphony No. 2 in C minor ('Resurrection'): Part 2. In ruhig flie?ender Bewegung
4. Symphony No. 2 in C minor ('Resurrection'): Part 2. 'Urlicht'. Sehr feierlich aber schlicht
5. Symphony No. 2 in C minor ('Resurrection'): Part 2. Im Tempo des Scherzo's, wild herausfahrend - Langsam. Misterioso

CD Details

All Artists: Gustav Mahler, Roger Norrington, Iris Vermillion, SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sibylla Rubens
Title: Mahler: Symphony No. 2 [Hybrid SACD]
Members Wishing: 2
Total Copies: 0
Label: Hanssler Classics
Original Release Date: 1/1/2007
Re-Release Date: 9/4/2007
Album Type: Hybrid SACD - DSD, Import
Genre: Classical
Styles: Historical Periods, Modern, 20th, & 21st Century, Symphonies
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 4010276019824

Synopsis

Album Description

SACD recording for exceptional sound! In this live concert performance, Roger Norrington performs Mahler using his "Pure Tone" technique, exhaustively researched to insure complete authenticity to Mahler's intentions. Roger Norrington is currently chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Salzburg Camerata Academica. Since 1997 he has also been associated with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which took over from the London Classical Players. Born in Oxford in 1934, Norrington was a boy soprano, studied violin from the age of ten and singing from age seventeen, then took a degree in English Literature at Cambridge University. He worked as a violinist, tenor, and conductor before resuming formal conducting studies under Sir Adrian Boult at the Royal College of Music.

CD Reviews

Intelligent-- but poor recording!!!

James H. Holland II | Geneva, NY USA | 04/30/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This recording is so *distant*, so *muddled*, I honestly thought something was wrong with my speakers. I got out another recording and saw that this was just very poorly recorded.

Having said that, in the one listen I've given it, there were interesting things going on-- and if it were a tolerable recording, I'd be very interested to listen many times more! And yet...

And-- because of this cruddy recording, I am very hesitant to get any of Norrington's other Mahler recordings... Does anybody want to reassure me that some of Norrington's other Mahler is actually tolerably recorded?"

A refreshingly provocative interpretation

L. Johan Modée | Earth | 07/16/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Having heard Roger Norrington's interpretation of Mahler's ninth (see Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D Major), which I found highly interesting despite my initial scepticism, I turned to this release of the second symphony.

Again, I found it to be something else than what many critics claimed: a refreshingly provocative interpretation, never dull or overloaded with stereotype passion. Norrington uses his "pure tone" technique, that is, the music is played without vibrato. At the same time, he is very attentive to Mahler's plentiful instructions of how to play, and the orchestra is very fine (is there any bad orchestra in Germany?). The two soloists are Sibylla Rubens and Iris Vermillion, and there are no disappointments here. The result is a beautiful and compelling interpretation, with many details clearly audible that are blurred or distorted in more "passionate" accounts - e.g., clear string glissadi.

This is a SACD which also is playable on a regular CD player. Sound is quite good but not exceptional, at least in my ears. It is a live recording - patched, I suppose, because there is very little audience noise (but you may hear Norrington stomping his feet at the conductor's rostrum).

But more important than the sound issue is to note that Norrington's Mahler cycle is the most interesting Mahler project in recent years. There are many mainstream Mahler recordings, which apparently are produced without any distinctive concept in mind. Norrington's provocative view is the antidote. Among recent recordings of the second symphony (that is, from the past decade), I would rank this release as the most important and most interesting, just before Michael Gielen's on the same label (Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C minor, The Resurrection / Gielen, SWR Sinfonieorchester)."