Search - Gustav Mahler, Joseph Cullen, Valery Gergiev :: Mahler: Symphony No. 2 [Hybrid SACD]

A triumphant peak in Gergiev's live Mahler cycle

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 01/14/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If I were to pick the most riveting Mahler Second from the past decade, this live 2008 performance under Valery Gergiev would win, hands down. Coming to Mahler as an outsider, Gergiev feels free to have new ideas about what is now very familiar music. No two symphonies in his ongoing cycle sound the same. In the Second, he emphasizes more of the soft music than anyone else I know -- in that regard he's the anti-Solti, since Solti went for the jugular at every opportunity in his slashing, blockbuster recording on Decca forty years ago, also with the London Symphony.



Because Gergiev takes care to find so much refinement and nuance in the score, you might not be bowled over by the first movement. Originally conceived as a titanic funeral rite for a fallen hero, this music can be played as tragic, harrowing, and desperate (a la Bernstein), but Gergiev offers wistful tenderness in between the cataclysms of sound that punctuate the movement. The same refinement is borught to the second movement's graceful minuet. Mahler asks for a five-minute pause in between the first and second movements (CD 1 contians only the first movement, so the home listener can take this pause), with the intention that after the hero has been laid to rest, we revisit his life from innocence to final transcendence.



You will know whether Gergiev's highly personal manner appeals to you by this point -- no ohter reading is less obsessed with death, or more vivacious. It asks for close listening as Gergiev micro-manages small turns of mood. Throughout the symphony his pacing tends to be fast-slow, offering wide contrasts rather than setting a uniform tempo -- his authority for these fluctuations is Mahler himself, who adopts wildly contrasting speeds in the few piano rolls he left behind. Mengelberg, an early disciple, did the same. So it's no surprise when the thrid movement Scherzo takes off like a shot, moving faster than any other performance I can recall. Gergiev doesn't bite into the satire quite as sharply as Bernstein, but he does play for visceral excitement.



The fourth movement "Urlicht" sets the stage for the cosmic panorama of the hero's soul entering heaven, and here, unfortunately, there's a serious lapse. As beautifully as Gergiev conducts, he made the mistake of importing Zlata Bulycheva, a wobbly Slavic mezzo from the Kirov opera, whose German is not good. Her singing ruins one of the most atmospheric moments in all of Mahler. But as if to compensate, the finale itself is the crowning glory of Gergiev's reading. Between them, the LSO and its magnificent chorus follow the conductor's volatile shifts of mood, from the most intimate spiritual communion to massed cries from the heart, just as Mahler intended.



In any "Resurrection" the finale is the main event, and it becomes an earthshaking experience here, aided by clear, vivid sound despite the acoustical limitations of Barbican Hall. Gergiev doesn't aim for Solti's explosiveness or Bernstien's heart-wrenching soul journey. He meticulously tends to the quiet music, as he has all along, in order to build a breathless sense that we know this soul intimately and will follow it step by step, at times tremulously, always with hope, until the gates of heaven open to receive it. For those who want to know about the soprano, Gergiev made another mistake by bringing in Elena Mosuc from Romania -- she lacks the ethereal, floating quality the part demands, but thankfully her role is minor. In my experience, only Boulez has equal skill in unfolding this drama of final redemption, but Gergiev is more fervent -- when all is said and done, Boulez is watching with fascination from the outside.



Looking back on this superlative performance, I feel grateful that Gergiev was willing to rethink every bar and make me hear the music in fresh ways. He does something really admirable in turning the "Resurrection" Symphony into what it must be: a cosmic event that surprises and overwhelms the listener at every turn.



As a filler, LSO Live doesn't give us Strauss's Metamorphosen, the perfect pendant to the Mahler Second, which Gergiev conducted in concert. Instead, we get the Adagio from the Tenth Symphony. I'd recommend listening to it another day, because the tragic mood of this music clashes horribly with the redemption of the Second's final pages. In any event, Gergiev's reading is rather a letdown, being paced a bit impateintly and softening the impact of the great cathartic moments. He seems much less involved than in the main work.



P.S. - The Gramophone gave this CD a solid pan, complaning that Gergiev's conducting had a iron grip, driving the music without nuance or subtlety. Go figure."

Very exciting, but the scherzo is awfully fast

B. Guerrero | 05/09/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Indeed, Gergiev's LSO Mahler 2 is very exciting. But it's very, very fast in the scherzo. I don't think it's just a question of "getting used to it" either. To me, the scherzo has a more sinister sense of irony when taken at a relatively slow tempo, especially when the phrasing in the woodwinds really gets shaped. Listen to how it's presented in both Klemperer's (any of them) and Ivan Fischer's renditions of the "Resurrection" symphony. There's more to it than just a fast run-through placed in the middle of the of the symphony. Still, Gergiev does make you stand up and cheer at the end of the day. But "so what?", so do a lot of conductor/orchestra combos (Bernstein (any); MTT/SFSO; Ozawa/Saito Kinen Orch.; Litton/Dallas; Fischer/Budapest Fest. Orch.; Eschenbach/Philly, etc.). In fact, the grandaddy of all endings may still be the one on Segerstam's Danish M2 for Chandos.



This Gergiev Mahler 2 came out pretty much around the same time as the Eschenbach/Philadelphia one from Ondine. While Eschenbach is definitely slower overall, I really love how the organ just roars from Philly's new Verizon Hall. To me, Eschenbach's balances between the organ and chorus are perfectly gauged. I also like how Eschenbach just nails the first movement climax (located just before the recapitulation). On top of that, I also prefer the deep, profound sounding Wuhan tam-tams (large orchestral gongs) used in Philadelphia - and pretty much everywhere else - to the splashy and slightly "whangy" sounding Paiste gongs still used in London (and pretty much nowhere else, except France). still, exciting IS exciting. I'll grant that much.



Ohhhh, and one final comment. Who in their right mind is going to want to listen to Mahler's opening 12-note, slow paced melody for strings - the first strains of his 10th symphony Adagio - after being lifted to the heavens at end of his Resurrection symphony? Then again, I guess that makes it easy to rewind over M2's ending again."