Tony Duggan wrote:

>If you are looking for a modern version of Mahler's Third, superbly
>recorded and played with a care for detail that takes you deep into the
>complexities of this remarkable work, look no further than Rattle.
>Beware, though, of the oboe solo in the fourth movement where Rattle
>takes Mahler's marking "hinaufziehen" literally.  I have never heard an
>oboist play his/her contribution in this movement like this.  A friend
>who was at one of the live performances prior to the recording described
>the sound produced as "an extraordinary upwards glissando".  It sounds to
>me like a Tom cat on a wall mewing for a mate on a warm Summer's night.

In an interview published in the May-June Fanfare, Rattle says:

   "I unwittingly seem to have caused some kind of furor in the Third
   Symphony by performing the oboe [in the fourth movement] as the
   glissando that Mahler asks.  I'm just horrified that people, because
   they haven't heard it before, imagine that this is something that is
   made up.  It's extraordinary, isn't it? I had to be persuaded, and
   that's thanks to Berthold (Goldschmidt, referred to earlier in the
   interview), who is old enough to remember - of course, he conducted
   the first performance of the piece in Britain; and also, in 1959,
   the Philharmonia oboist was still playing on an oboe which didn't
   have keys over those notes, so he could slide.  You go back to Vienna
   and, of course, the oboists don't have keys, that's why [Mahler] was
   able to write 'glissando', as he does for the trombones...that's one
   example of where technology hasn't helped.  If you have extraordinarily
   skilled players now, they can make it without hearing all of the
   little pit stops.  But once heard, it's so astonishing; but it's also
   very Mahler, to make something like that."

Richard Pennycuick
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