David7Gable
2004-12-16 20:27:12 UTC
I've been listening to Mahler's 8th, Part 2, this week as a result of Matthew
Tepper's anguished "Doesn't ANYBODY like this symphony but me?" Yes. I love
it. Something clicked and I am now completely convinced by Part 2. It's
unbelievable.
I'm also blown away by the live BBC SO recording with Boulez, my favorite
performance of the 8th bar none. If this isn't one of the greatest
performances of anything Boulez ever gave, I don't know what is. One
symptomatic detail. He takes Faust's music at just about as slow a tempo as
I've ever heard with no slackening in the sustained forward motion. In the
right repertory, which most emphatically includes Wagner, Bruckner, and Mahler,
music fundamentally dependent on a sostenuto style, Boulez is able to sustain a
long line in the most remarkable fashion, at once invisibly and palpably: you
can't quite figure out how he's doing it, but you can feel the results. He can
unfold a long slow gradual process at near glacial tempi--through one long
sustained but growing note in the sostenuto texture to the next--with a
sustained tension that's not to be believed. Every line in the counterpoint is
distinctively shaped so that it's seen to move purposefully toward a proximate
goal. At the other extreme, he inscribes the lightening quick shifts in
dynamics that underline the cadences punctuating the opening slow movement with
consummate control. There is no gross excess. Everything is exactly the right
weight and everything is moving. Nothing escapes the intensely single minded,
purposeful, and unflagging control of the alert, rapt, fascinated and
thoroughly involved musicality at the helm of this soaring and moving
performance. Mahler meets his match. Wow!
-david gable
Tepper's anguished "Doesn't ANYBODY like this symphony but me?" Yes. I love
it. Something clicked and I am now completely convinced by Part 2. It's
unbelievable.
I'm also blown away by the live BBC SO recording with Boulez, my favorite
performance of the 8th bar none. If this isn't one of the greatest
performances of anything Boulez ever gave, I don't know what is. One
symptomatic detail. He takes Faust's music at just about as slow a tempo as
I've ever heard with no slackening in the sustained forward motion. In the
right repertory, which most emphatically includes Wagner, Bruckner, and Mahler,
music fundamentally dependent on a sostenuto style, Boulez is able to sustain a
long line in the most remarkable fashion, at once invisibly and palpably: you
can't quite figure out how he's doing it, but you can feel the results. He can
unfold a long slow gradual process at near glacial tempi--through one long
sustained but growing note in the sostenuto texture to the next--with a
sustained tension that's not to be believed. Every line in the counterpoint is
distinctively shaped so that it's seen to move purposefully toward a proximate
goal. At the other extreme, he inscribes the lightening quick shifts in
dynamics that underline the cadences punctuating the opening slow movement with
consummate control. There is no gross excess. Everything is exactly the right
weight and everything is moving. Nothing escapes the intensely single minded,
purposeful, and unflagging control of the alert, rapt, fascinated and
thoroughly involved musicality at the helm of this soaring and moving
performance. Mahler meets his match. Wow!
-david gable