Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C Minor
Isabel Bayrakdarian, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Michael Tilson Thomas, San Francisco Symphony & San Francisco Symphony Chorus
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| Total: 6 Songs |
Customer Reviews
Michael Tilson Thomas and Mahler
If you love Mahler, then the Second Symphony is essential. The final movement is extraordinary. I am hardly the first to say it, but I believe Maestro Tilson Thomas to be the best interpreter of Mahler.
Superb
This is by far my favorite recording of this piece, and I have listened to about 8 or so. If you are buying Mahlers 2nd, by THIS album!
Mahler: Symphony No. 2 SFSO Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas' Mahler Symphony cycle continues with a fine, but not quite definitive, interpretation of the towering "Resurrection Symphony". This series has showcased the now incredible virtuosity of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under Thomas' baton and this installment continues the exceptional accomplishment with, as expected, perfect ensemble and intonation. The problem is the mannered and too deliberate tempo used in each of the first three movements and most particularly in the finale, which seems almost to be in stasis. The Second Symphony does open with a funeral tread, but here there is no sense of movement inevitably taking us from darkness to light. Thomas gets the work's more grotesque moments, but not its ultimate sublimity. For me at least the defining performance of this work will always be the Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic Columbia/SONY interpretation from the 1960s, which exploded with insight and excitement. The later SONY/ London Symphony/Bernstein performance suffers from both a poor recording and tempi not unlike Thomas, while the final DG Bernstein performance was almost perversely slow (much more so than Thomas). But in the 1960s Bernstein captured the symphony's horrors and triumphs perfectly! If you can find this recording it is a transcendent musical experience. This Thomas/SFSO recording presents a highly compotent performance, but listeners who want contemporary sound and don't want to look for the often hard to get NYPO interpretation, are seconded to the Pierre Boulez/DG reading also available through I Tunes. There are many similarities to this reading in terms of stunning ensemble, but Boulez simply better conveys Mahler's combination of Viennese angst and insight. From a series of tremendous accomplishment for Tilson Thomas and the SFSO this performance is a relative disappointment.
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