Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (CD review)

Fabio Luisi, Vienna Symphony. Wiener Symphonikor WS 001.

Maybe it’s just me, but there appears to be a slew of new Mahler recordings every month. Is there any composer save Beethoven who gets as much attention in the music world? I dunno. I suspect it’s in part because Mahler’s music has so much variety that it appeals to all kinds of listeners and because Mahler recordings have such a wide range of frequencies, contrasts, and dynamics that they appeal to hi-fi enthusiasts.

Whatever, here’s another entry, a recording of the Mahler First that appears to be a part of a cycle of Mahler symphonies from Italian Maestro Fabio Luisi, the Chief Conductor of the Vienna Symphony and the newly named Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. Although I was not familiar with Maestro Luisi’s work until now, on this disc he impressed me with his precise yet passionate execution. Certainly a conductor to watch.

Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) completed his Symphony No. 1 in D major in 1888 while still in his twenties. Years later, fellow Austrian composer Arnold Schonberg suggested that the First summed up everything that Mahler would elaborate upon in his later music. Mahler said he was trying to describe in the First Symphony a progression of his protagonist facing life, beginning with the lighter moments of youth to the darker years of maturity. Mahler even called it a tone poem at first rather than a symphony, and he gave each movement a programmatic title (which he later regretted). Maybe Schonberg was right because we do see the same thematic and stylistic elements in the rest of Mahler’s symphonies.

In the first movement, “Spring without End,” Mahler represents his youthful hero in the symbolic stirring of Nature before a long spring. Luisi handles the long, lyrical opening sequence beautifully, evoking the delicate longings of Spring with grace and beauty and, symbolically, the humanity and culture that comes with it. We can hear in the music both the high spirituality and the moralistic suffering that would befall the hero and Mankind itself. Seldom do we find the music so carefully thought out, structured, and presented as it is here.

In the second-movement Scherzo, “With Full Sail,” we find Mahler in one of his early mock-sentimental moods, displaying an exuberance that he may have meant as ironic. Again, we get both a dramatic yet intellectual approach from the conductor. He emphasizes precise outlines for the music, a little too deliberate, perhaps, but clearly underlining the hero’s fullest entry into a complex world.

The third movement is an intentionally awkward funeral march depicting a hunter’s fairy-tale burial, coming off as a typical Mahler parody. It may represent the hero’s first glimpse of death or possibly Mahler’s own recollection of a youthful encounter with the death of a loved one. This movement has long been one of the Mahler’s most controversial, with audiences still debating just what the composer was trying to suggest. Perhaps life is as sardonic as the juxtaposition of the grotesque funeral march, the rustic music, and the lovely ballad depict? Be that as it may, Luisi makes the distinctions as obvious as possible for the listener.

In the finale, Mahler conveys the panic “of a deeply wounded heart,” as his central figure faces the suffering of life and fate. Nevertheless, Mahler, always the spiritual optimist, wanted Man to triumph in the end, even though he left open to question how Man would succeed. In these final twenty minutes or so, Mahler pulls out all the stops and puts the orchestra into full swing, making it an audiophile favorite for home playback. However, we must ask at this point in the symphony if life’s tumults truly come to a resolution in the hero’s final victory over life’s ups and down, or if the triumph is illusory, a temporary conquest, as ironic as the preceding funeral march. Luisi wants us to be sure to see that as Mahler’s final question, and he nicely pinpoints the final dualities. There is nothing easy here about the music or our understanding of it. Life is not that simple say Mahler and Luisi: Get used to it.

With the music’s questions so well framed, Luisi’s interpretation is among the most satisfying I’ve heard in years. In a field already overcrowded with names like Solti, Haitink, Bernstein, Horenstein, Tennstedt, Mackerras, and the like, Luisi produces a distinctive mark of his own.

The Vienna Symphony made the recording in the ORF Radio Kulturhaus, Vienna, in 2012. I’m glad they chose to do it as a studio performance and not live, since they got a better-sounding recording out of it, free of extraneous audience noise. The sonics display an excellent sense of depth, a wide frequency response, and a strong dynamic impact. The music comes across as airy and open, with a bass that’s taut and well defined, if not particularly deep. Because there is a wide dynamic response involved, the general volume level is somewhat low, so handle the gain accordingly. Overall, the sound is a tad lean, yet it is also quite smooth and natural, conveying a realistic feeling of being in front an actual symphony orchestra.

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

Contact Information

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa