Mahler: Symphony No. 9 (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring 

Park Avenue Chamber Symphony; David Bernard, conductor. Recursive Classics RC3691873

To be honest, when I first received this CD for review, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. To be sure, the Mahler Ninth is one of my most treasured pieces of music, a symphony that moves me both emotionally and intellectually, one that I have listened to – and owned – many recordings of over the past 50 or so years. It’s not a work that I can just casually pop on and listen to dispassionately for the purposes of taking some notes and writing up a review. That’s one issue. Then there was, I will shamefacedly admit, some “David Bernard/Park Avenue Chamber Symphony” skepticism on my part, which was basically two-fold. First, could a small ensemble like this really pull off a Mahler symphony? Second, with excellent recordings already on the market from the likes of Karajan/Berlin, Abbado/Lucerne, Haitink/Concertgebouw, etc., how could this release be expected to be truly competitive? 

But as my colleagues here at Classical Candor have found when they have reviewed recordings by Maestro Bernard and his Park Avenue musicians, this is no lightweight ensemble. Bill Heck found that they did an impressive job with the final three Tchaikovsky symphonies (a review you can find here); even more relevant to the present release, John Puccio found their earlier Mahler 5 recording to be quite competitive (you can find that review here). As a matter of fact, the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony comprises nearly 90 musicians, a respectable size for a modern symphony orchestra. So why the name “Chamber Symphony?” Music Director Bernard explains that the name is intended to convey the idea of the transparency of sound that he strives for with the orchestra.

 

That transparency of sound is an outstanding feature of this release, in terms of both performance and engineering. The opening movement, for example, moves right along, although it never seems rushed. It has texture – the sound is not dominated by strings; moreover, the tempo is steady, with no sensation of a drag to pull at our heartstrings. It just sounds natural and unaffected. And so with the second movement, which dances, as it should, and an especially lively and energetic Rondo-Burleske third movement – in both these inner movements, the liveliness of both the performance and the recorded sound bring a sense of delight that belie the reputation this work sometimes gets as a morbid, gloomy work. The closing Adagio, the longest of the four movements (25:05 in this performance), is of course more serious in tone, but even here, the interpretation never goes over the top into the maudlin. 

In his liner note essay included in the CD booklet, noted music critic David Patrick Stearns discusses the extra-musical mythos that has become associated with this work owing to the influence of the man who did so much to popularize Mahler’s music in America, the late conductor Leonard Bernstein, who famously characterized – and later went on to conduct  -- the four movements of the Ninth Symphony as “Four Ways to Say Goodbye.” Stearns argues for a different way of looking at the work, taking into account Mahler’s deep regard for the music of Bach and close relationship with Richard Strauss; in fact, Stearns offers an alternative characterization of the Ninth as “Four Ways to Write a Tone Poem.” (By the way, the program notes for the digital version of this release are more extensive than the CD version, including an essay by Maestro Bernard and information about the orchestra.) All in all, this new release offers a fresh new way of enjoying the Mahler Ninth that should be of great interest to serious Mahlerites. Highly recommended!