Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 4
Kiri Te Kanawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa
Philips 422 072-2PH
.ape+.cue+.log
Can't find neither the details of this recording, nor reviews of it. But I hope this doesn't diminish the listening pleasure you'll derive from listening to it...ooopppss! I found a partial endorsement by David "samurai's'r'cool" Hurwitz whose en-passant endorsement should suffice to fill our bosoms with infinite delight for this performance...
...and now we even have a review from the Gramophone.
Classics Today:
Extract from the review of Ozawa's 'Resurrection' with the Saito Kinen
Seiji Ozawa's credentials as a Mahlerian have not received the recognition that they deserve (the same holds true of his Bruckner). His complete symphony cycle recorded in Boston includes two excellent versions of the First Symphony (the one for Deutsche Grammophon slightly better than the later one for Philips), equally superb performances of the Third, Fourth, and Ninth Symphonies, and fine efforts in Nos. 2, 5, 7, and 8. The Sixth would have been very good also had it not been compromised by wretchedly dull recorded sound....
Gramophone
There are aspects of Ozawa's Fourth that I enjoyed greatly. He would seem to be temperamentally better suited to this particular piece, to what Deryck Cooke described as its "neo-rococo" stylizations, than to any other Mahler that I've heard him conduct. Even so, by no stretch of the imagination could Ozawa be described as a natural Mahlerian. He is all too inclined to tidy up the awkwardnesses, temper the extremes, and generally somehow rationalize the music's inherent neuroses (that was especially true recently of his disappointing Second). Take the first movement of this Fourth; there is poise, charm and grace from the very outset, the lower strings tripping lightly over their staccato semi-quavers just after
Tempo I; the phrasing generally is elegant and unfussy, the rubato well-mannered. But what Ozawa fails to catch (and for this you must look to Bernstein/DG—would that he had recorded the piece as written, with a soprano, and not a treble--or Maazel/CBS) is the playful, quixotic nature of this movement. One needs to point-up more the sudden and mischievous shifts in mood and movement, the excitable bursts of energy, those characteristically abrupt Mahlerian 'commas'. Similarly, a higher profile is called for in the wry country dance of the second movement. Ozawa's rustic hobgoblins are rather too lovable; there must be more of 'Death, the friendly fiddler' about the movement with spikier and more acidic woodwinds for one thing.
The slow movement is very lovely, and here Ozawa has caught the equivocal nature of the music; the underlying darkness. Off-setting the warmth and luminosity of those rapt string lines is a profound sense of sadness and disquiet with baleful sounds from low-register horns exceptionally telling at each abortive climax. The climax is certainly thrilling, Ozawa throwing open 'Heaven's Gate' with a truly breath-catching luftpause and ever-assertive Boston trumpets providing the blinding light (the recording is first rate, warm and naturally ambient with an impressive bass extension). And I have nothing but admiration for Ozawa's serene way with those hearteasing final pages: the Boston strings at their very best.
Which leaves Dame Kin. And to my surprise, I find myself more, not less convinced, than I did when she recorded the piece with Solti (Decca). The naturally plushy tones have once more been discreetly pared down, the delivery is fresh and appropriately wide-eyed with only one or two phrases betraying a self-conscious 'girlishness' in the characterization. Technically, this is actually better singing than that provided by Judith Raskin for Szell in his famous Cleveland version of 1966. Many collectors, like myself, will have been waiting in anticipation of its re-appearance on CD—and they will not be disappointed. CBS have come through with a pristine digital remastering of the open and exceptionally well-balanced Columbia original. Some hardening of tone under pressure was always a problem, even on LP, but on the whole you would never credit that this was a 1960s recording. As to the performance, the assurance and precision of its execution is something quite remarkable—an orchestra in the very peak of condition: ensemble absolutely unanimous, rubato finely-turned to a man, not a blemish in earshot. There is no better tribute to Szell's achievements in Cleveland. If I'm absolutely honest, though, it's been some time since I sat down and listened to the performance and this time round I must say it struck me as far more dispassionate and calculated in effect than I had remembered. I'd willingly sacrifice some of the precision for a greater sense of spontaneity at the moment of performance (Szell was always at his best in the concert hall). It's a very subjective reaction, of course, but when I compare the cool, pellucid beauty of Szell's Cleveland strings in the slow movement with the home-spun sweetness of their Vienna Philharmonic counterparts in the CBS recording under Maazel, I know instinctively which reading I would choose to live with. In my opinion, Maazel has put few finer performances on disc.
- Edward Seckerson
Kiri Te Kanawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa
Philips 422 072-2PH
.ape+.cue+.log
Can't find neither the details of this recording, nor reviews of it. But I hope this doesn't diminish the listening pleasure you'll derive from listening to it...ooopppss! I found a partial endorsement by David "samurai's'r'cool" Hurwitz whose en-passant endorsement should suffice to fill our bosoms with infinite delight for this performance...
...and now we even have a review from the Gramophone.
Classics Today:
Extract from the review of Ozawa's 'Resurrection' with the Saito Kinen
Seiji Ozawa's credentials as a Mahlerian have not received the recognition that they deserve (the same holds true of his Bruckner). His complete symphony cycle recorded in Boston includes two excellent versions of the First Symphony (the one for Deutsche Grammophon slightly better than the later one for Philips), equally superb performances of the Third, Fourth, and Ninth Symphonies, and fine efforts in Nos. 2, 5, 7, and 8. The Sixth would have been very good also had it not been compromised by wretchedly dull recorded sound....
Gramophone
There are aspects of Ozawa's Fourth that I enjoyed greatly. He would seem to be temperamentally better suited to this particular piece, to what Deryck Cooke described as its "neo-rococo" stylizations, than to any other Mahler that I've heard him conduct. Even so, by no stretch of the imagination could Ozawa be described as a natural Mahlerian. He is all too inclined to tidy up the awkwardnesses, temper the extremes, and generally somehow rationalize the music's inherent neuroses (that was especially true recently of his disappointing Second). Take the first movement of this Fourth; there is poise, charm and grace from the very outset, the lower strings tripping lightly over their staccato semi-quavers just after
Tempo I; the phrasing generally is elegant and unfussy, the rubato well-mannered. But what Ozawa fails to catch (and for this you must look to Bernstein/DG—would that he had recorded the piece as written, with a soprano, and not a treble--or Maazel/CBS) is the playful, quixotic nature of this movement. One needs to point-up more the sudden and mischievous shifts in mood and movement, the excitable bursts of energy, those characteristically abrupt Mahlerian 'commas'. Similarly, a higher profile is called for in the wry country dance of the second movement. Ozawa's rustic hobgoblins are rather too lovable; there must be more of 'Death, the friendly fiddler' about the movement with spikier and more acidic woodwinds for one thing.
The slow movement is very lovely, and here Ozawa has caught the equivocal nature of the music; the underlying darkness. Off-setting the warmth and luminosity of those rapt string lines is a profound sense of sadness and disquiet with baleful sounds from low-register horns exceptionally telling at each abortive climax. The climax is certainly thrilling, Ozawa throwing open 'Heaven's Gate' with a truly breath-catching luftpause and ever-assertive Boston trumpets providing the blinding light (the recording is first rate, warm and naturally ambient with an impressive bass extension). And I have nothing but admiration for Ozawa's serene way with those hearteasing final pages: the Boston strings at their very best.
Which leaves Dame Kin. And to my surprise, I find myself more, not less convinced, than I did when she recorded the piece with Solti (Decca). The naturally plushy tones have once more been discreetly pared down, the delivery is fresh and appropriately wide-eyed with only one or two phrases betraying a self-conscious 'girlishness' in the characterization. Technically, this is actually better singing than that provided by Judith Raskin for Szell in his famous Cleveland version of 1966. Many collectors, like myself, will have been waiting in anticipation of its re-appearance on CD—and they will not be disappointed. CBS have come through with a pristine digital remastering of the open and exceptionally well-balanced Columbia original. Some hardening of tone under pressure was always a problem, even on LP, but on the whole you would never credit that this was a 1960s recording. As to the performance, the assurance and precision of its execution is something quite remarkable—an orchestra in the very peak of condition: ensemble absolutely unanimous, rubato finely-turned to a man, not a blemish in earshot. There is no better tribute to Szell's achievements in Cleveland. If I'm absolutely honest, though, it's been some time since I sat down and listened to the performance and this time round I must say it struck me as far more dispassionate and calculated in effect than I had remembered. I'd willingly sacrifice some of the precision for a greater sense of spontaneity at the moment of performance (Szell was always at his best in the concert hall). It's a very subjective reaction, of course, but when I compare the cool, pellucid beauty of Szell's Cleveland strings in the slow movement with the home-spun sweetness of their Vienna Philharmonic counterparts in the CBS recording under Maazel, I know instinctively which reading I would choose to live with. In my opinion, Maazel has put few finer performances on disc.
- Edward Seckerson
