Jonathan Ellis ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>I recently saw a recording of Mahler's Fifth with Chailly and the Royal
>Concertgebouw Orchestra.  ...
>
>Well - the penny has finally dropped.  I have never been a Mahler fan
>(I would go so far as saying I actively disliked his music), but this
>recording has forced me to radically change my opinion.

Not to mention splitting an infinitive...:-)

>It has been on my player for a lot of the past week.  And I am actually
>growing to enjoy it.  Liking it, almost.

Be a man JE, admit it!

>Now, all you Mahler addicts out there: is Chailly's version so different
>to those I may have heard in the past? Is it so superior as to convince me
>of the quality of the music? Or is it just that Mahler appeals more to
>somebody who has just past fifty than to somebody a lot younger?

The answer to all three questions is: no. Chailly's recording (which
I picked up a week ago and have listened to several times) is very good,
but I don't think it represents any really different approach to the music,
not is it a challenger to the handful I'd nominate as the very best (Inoue,
Barbirolli and Shipway leap immediately to mind), however it is probably
the best *recording* I've heard.  Very impressive.

As to age: I fell in love with Mahler's music when I was not quite 14
and I had a number of like-minded friends.

>And where do I go from here? To "Das Lied"? To other symphonies? Tell me
>- I am thirsting for more.....

Well that depends, at least in part, on how fond you are of the voice.
If not at all, you might want to delay getting to grips with Nos.2, 3, 4,
8 and Das Lied.

Still, as you mentioned DLvdE, you probably aren't that averse.  it's a
*very* different work from the 5th, which is a sort of progression from
darkness to light (as opposed to the 6th, a progression from darkness to
blackness); DLvdE, written after the three great "blows of fate" (as Alma
put it, claiming that they were foreshadowed by the three hammer blows in
the finale of the 6th) which occurred in 1907: the death, from scarlet
fever, of his elder daughter Maria ("Putzi"), the diagnosis of his own
heart condition and his finally being forced out of his position as
director of the Vienna Hofoper.  (Mind you, doubt must be on this last,
as Mahler viwed his repsonsibilities at the opera as a hardship which
prevented him from composing except for about six weeks every summer -
imagine what he could have produced if he had had more time, in both
senses).

I absolutely adore all 11 Mahler symphonies (counting Das Lied and the
10th), although I generally have one particular favourite at any given
time.  Right now it's probably the 4th which I have been listening to a
*lot* recently.

I have also come to the conclusion that the 1958 Philharmonia/Kletzki
recording is *the* one to have if you're only going to have one.  Very
well recorded, a GREAT orchestra (this was recorded just weeks before Denis
Brain died), a wonderfully spontaneous interpretation and in the finale
Emmy Loose seems to me just about perfect in her artless innocence.

Not only that - oh, you're in the Netherlands, so BRO is unlikely to
interest you, however this recording is available on Royal Classics,
a label stemming from your county I believe...:-)

Deryk Barker
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