Recent Releases No. 52 (CD Reviews)

by Karl Nehring

Mahler: Symphony No. 9. Osmo Vänskä, Minnesota Orchestra. BIS-2476 SACD 

Many classical music fans may be familiar with the backstory behind this symphony by the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). Concerned about his health as he worked on the successor to his Symphony No. 8, and haunted by the idea that to complete a ninth symphony would portend the end of his life, he decided to christen his newborn symphonic offspring “Das Lied von der Erde (‘The Song of the Earth’)” rather than call it a symphony. But then, proclaims Mahler scholar Jeremy Barham to begin his extensive and insightful booklet essay: “The stars of compositional refinement, depth, virtuosity, and in tuition were aligned for Mahler in 1909-1910 to form what for many is the pinnacle of his creative achievement: the Ninth Symphony, his last completed work.” Vänskä and his Minnesota forces have recorded several of the Mahler symphonies before; two of those recordings having been reviewed in Classical Candor, Symphony No. 1 here and Symphony No. 7 here (and briefly here). Like their recording of the Seventh, they do themselves proud in this new release, aided in no small measure by the BIS engineering team, which has plenty of experience capturing the sound of this orchestra. There are so many Mahler recordings out there, and serious classical music fans, especially those with a passion for Mahler, no doubt already have their favorite recordings of his Symphony No. 9. My personal favorites, for example, have been López-Cobos/Cincinnati (Telarc) and Boulez/Chicago (DG). This new BIS release is in that same exalted league and will remain on my shelf. For someone who is fairly new to Mahler and is looking for a recommendation for the Ninth, this new BIS recording would be a fine one for sure, particularly for the person who might be interested in listening in SACD 5-0 surround-sound format (my listening, however, was done from the CD layer).

 

Jacob Young: Eventually. Eventually; I Told You in October; Moon Over Meno; One for Louis; Schönstedtstrasse;Northbound; The Dog Ate My Homework; The Meaning of Joy; Inside. Jacob Young, guitar; Mats Eilertsen, double bass; Audun Kleive, drums. ECM 2764 488 3269 

 

Jacob Young (b.1970) is a Norwegian guitarist who has made four albums as a leader for the ECM label, the first all the way back in 2004, but those previous recordings (the most recent of which was released in 2015) all involved ensembles that included keyboards and/or horns that could shoulder their share of the melodic and harmonic load. This newest release, however,  presents Young’s first pass at the guitar trio format, leaving him alone in the spotlight – not to mention that he composed all the music on the album. Young lays out both the challenges and opportunities involved in such an effort: “It took quite a while to make a new album after Forever Young, because I had to get older. I had to dare to just play with bass and drums – no piano or horns. When Mats and Audun agreed to do this recording with me in the classic guitar, bass, and drums trio format, it was important for us not to go ahead and make ‘just another guitar-trio record’, but to make it sound fresh, like something we’ve never done before. When I am the only chordal instrument it gives me more freedom playing these harmonically dense pieces, because when playing single lines during an improvisation and only having the bass beneath more notes are available. Then I can throw in a chord that sounds good with the bass without having to adjust to a piano’s voicing and sound, or any other chordal instrument. We treated the material like equals. I was the leader in the sense that I composed the music, but more than anything, it’s about the interplay with these two masters.” Although Young clearly is the leader, with his guitar playing the melodies, as in the single-note runs of the opening cut, Eventually, or the chordal strumming as exemplified in The Meaning of Joy, or both picking and strumming, as in The Dog Ate My Homework – throughout the album, it is the interplay among the three musicians that truly brings the mostly laid-back music to life, all captured in clean, clear, comfortable sound.