Mahler: Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" (CD review)

Kate Royal, Magdalena Kozena, Rundfunkchor Berlin; Simon Rattle, Berlin Philharmonic. EMI 50999 6 47363 2 7 (2-disc set).

During Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler's lifetime (1860-1911), his Symphony No. 2 was one of his most-popular works. These days, I suspect that claim goes to his shorter symphonies, the First or the Fourth, at least judging by the number of recordings one finds of them. Be that as it may, one can find much to admire in the Second Symphony (1895), which Mahler dubbed the "Resurrection."

I mentioned a while back that conductor Bernard Haitink, a noted Mahlerian, once said if one played Mahler's music straight, without much personal embellishment, there was enough drama for the music to speak for itself. That's not exactly the way Sir Simon Rattle seems to view it in this, his second, recording of the "Resurrection," with all of his Berlin players appearing to go more in the direction of sheer beauty than serious drama in the work. It's been a while since I last heard Rattle's older recording with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, but I remember it sounding more vital than this new one with the Berlin Philharmonic.

As was common with the composer, Mahler was toying with notions of life and death in the Second Symphony, in particular advancing his beliefs on the joys of the next life, after resurrection. The Second Symphony is a long work, even by Mahler's standards, and here under Rattle it comes out at a little over eighty-six minutes, necessitating a second disc. Well, Mahler took over half a dozen years to write the work, off and on, so maybe we shouldn't hold it against a conductor who wants to take his time as well.

A long funeral march makes up the first movement, a march not unknown to Mahler symphonies. The composer said of it that he was laying to rest the hero of his First Symphony and asking the question, What's next? Critics trying to make connections among Mahler's symphonies often conclude that all nine (or ten or eleven) Mahler symphonies form one big, continuous whole. In any case, under Rattle the funeral procession is longer and slower than usual, particularly at the beginning, but when the conductor reaches the middle portion, the music opens up considerably. This first movement clocks at over twenty-four minutes and occupies the entire first disc.

There is no question that Rattle's way with the music is flattering to its lyrical virtues, but I thought it missed some of its Wagnerian grandness. Mahler once famously remarked that his symphony "must be like the world, it must contain everything." Later, he said the symphony must "make full use of the expressive possibilities that were won for music by Wagner." I'm not sure Rattle takes Mahler at his word. By the end of this Allegro maestoso, you kind of feel as though you'd walked more than a few miles in a funeral procession yourself. I can't say it inspired me the way I recall Rattle's earlier version did.

Things seem more normal for Rattle in the second and third movements, with speeds and contrasts closer to what I enjoy. Of the slow Andante (in landler form, a dance precursor to the waltz), the composer said it represented memories of happy times in the hero's life, yet it seems somewhat at odds with the rest of the music. Rattle gives it a pleasant lilt before moving into the Scherzo-like third movement, one of Mahler's typically sarcastic waltzes, sounding like parody or burlesque, apparently mocking Man's aspirations in life. Here, Rattle provides an enlivening bounce. Then, in the brief, quiet fourth movement, Urlicht, Mahler inserts one of the Wunderhorn poems he so loved, and it acts as a sweet, calm transition into the massive, semi-choral Finale.

The work ends in a glorious last judgment and resurrection, or, as Mahler put it, "I shall die, so as to live." Rattle seems most at home in this closing segment. He finally has a chance to abandon beauty for beauty's sake and go for the jugular. Although he still appears to put too much emphasis on creating poetic contrasts (the heavenly choir is barely audible at times, it's so soft), at least he never neglects the inherent melodrama of Mahler's religious intentions.

Be this as it may and despite some glorious moments from the Berlin Philharmonic, who play magnificently, Rattle's performance in general left me less moved than other conductors have, including, as I say, Rattle himself in his previous EMI rendition.

Recorded in concert at the Philharmonie, Berlin, in 2010, the sound is first row, if not quite first drawer. There is adequate clarity and body to the sonics at the expense of much resonant bloom or orchestral depth. The dynamic range and impact seem a bit held back, in spite of the closeness of the microphones, at least until the finale where the dynamics practically run wild. As it goes along, one notices a certain dullness to the sound, too, a minor veiling of the highs especially. For a sonic comparison, I put on Otto Klemperer's EMI disc from fifty years earlier and found it far more transparent and realistic. So much for technological advances in audio.

JJP

Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa