London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev - Mahler: Symphony No. 7 [Hybrid SACD]

so-so sound, but the finale is really, REALLY exciting

When Mahler was rehearsing his 7th symphony for its premiere performance in Prague, he immediately jumped to the finale when his wife, the lovely Alma Schindler, finally caught up to him and entered the hall. He also referred to the finale as a stroke of sunshine in C-Major. Yet, it's often times the finale that comes off as anti-climatic in commercial recordings. Now such problems here. Gergiev is the first one to truly challenge Kiril Kondrashin - another fellow Russian, but a blast from the past - in making this one of the most exciting, most exhilarating finales ever. He clocks in at well less than 17 minutes, yet there are plenty of deep bells and cow bells in the movement's final peroration. Just a bit more stretching of tempo in the final few bars would have made all this even more effective. Since this is a basically a Rondo movement (actually, it veers away from a true Rondo as it goes along), the one variation with simultaneous bass drum and cymbal strokes is particularly outstanding here (it's a little more than half-way through).

As is becoming more standard practice now, the second Nachtmusik (4th movement) is taken a bit on a swift side; more Italian serenade-like, than a sleepy or dreamy nocturnal romance. The middle movement scherzo is very well pegged: not too slow, but not excessive fast either - just as Mahler warns against. It's the first Nachtmusik (2nd movement) that's a bit of let-down here: it's simply too fast and lacks any sense of atmosphere. It's a throw-away.

As for the long first movement, it gets off to a rough and slipshod start. But things improve greatly during the contrasting, "moonlit" central episode, and Gergiev milks every ounce of bizarreness that he can muster out of the first movement's final few moments. Cymbal crashes are huge; the horns are loud; the "teletype" rhythm in the horns and snare drum just comes off as being strange and surreal, and the two-bar funeral dirge passage just seems like the last straw - until we find ourselves in the midst of the even more bizarre, more surreal final few measures of the movement.

It seems as though Mahler could see everything that was going to happen on the European battlefields between 1914 and 1918. So it seems. Then there's the finale - a parody of himself, and of the late romantic idiom in general; poking fun at the age of Zeppelins and Titanics. Am I sounding like Gergiev yet? November 14, 2008

Gergiev proves that you can be new to Mahler and great, too

Gergiev's Mahler was a major event this year in London but not, it appears, at Amazon. So far, one review is tepid and the other enthusiastic but without any explanation why. In context, Gergiev is attempting to rush out a complete live Mahler cycle in one year, and that risks the hazard of sloppy playing and offhand interpretations. As you'd expect, not every symphony sounds the same in his hands, and since Gergiev is a newcomer to Mahler on disc, it's harrd to predict what he will do.

The Seventh bears some of the hallmarks of Gergiev's Sixth, which I found riveting for its visceral excitement. Like it, the Seventh is expertly played -- the recklessly fast finale may, as an earlier review says, be virtuosic for its own sake. Also, there's plenty of attention to inner detail. Gergiev is at his best when he can take an unassuming passage and shape it into something special -- I would say that this is his greatest talent in Mahler so far. The sound is a bit distant, which plays against the impact Gergiev wants us to feel. Finally, the interpretation doesn't aim to be Viennese; Gergiev insists on his own ideas and creates his own atmosphere.

Will we find it a congenial atmosphere? I certainly do -- hearing a great condcutor at work, inventing new ways of voicing familiar music, is one of the great joys of record collecting. Gergiev seems to have an overall aim here, to be spellbinding. He skips over many points that Mahler explicitly writes into the score, but no one could faualt this reading for not being compelling. The first movement becomes a gripping drama of tension and release, each moment given total concentration. By comparison, Barenboimm's Seventh on Teldec sounds coarse, loose, and aimless.

Objective description is fairly pointless -- except for the break-away finale, tempos are within normal range. Abbado has fully mastered the Seventh, and his second, live version from Berlin is a marvel; he allows each soloist to find incredible expressivity. The LSO can't quite match the Berliners in that respect -- they aren't on such an exalted plane to begin with -- but one comes away knowing that this is a top-flight orchestra fully involved with its conductor. In all, another triumph for Gergiev, proving that you can be new to Mahler and great at the same time. August 30, 2008

fresh sounding Song of the Night

After listening to Gergiev's earlier installments of his ongoing Mahler cycle, I had some negative trepidations. I was to be pleasantly surprised. I had found his earlier Mahler 6th to be undernourished and distantly recorded. The sound stage for this recording is still recessed from the listeners perspective, but a little tweaking of the volume control revealed a wonderfully detailed, fresh and spaciously clear stereo image. His somewhat ascerbic view of the score, for me, works very fine for this symphony. The only complaint that I would have is the in-your- face prominence of the cymbols! Minor indeed. So I greatly enjoyed this release.
Other recordings that I would recommend for the thoughtful listeners enjoyment is any of Abaddo's renditions, (of course) Bernstein's, and Geilen. For the historically inclined, I suppose Scherchen or Horenstein. August 23, 2008

Another rather disappointing instalment in Gergiev's Mahler cycle

After a moderately disappointing Sixth, I nonetheless couldn't restrain my curiosity regarding the Gergiev LSO Seventh. This symphony remains one of my favorites among the Mahlers, and Gergiev's London cycle is a high profile affair - add to that the LSO pricing and I was done for. And again I am moderately disappointed; a little more so than with the Sixth. Throughout this recording I was bothered by the lack of core in the sound, too little bite and contrast, a sense of dilution, as if the score has been scaled down and is played by a chamber orchestra seated far away from the listener. Culmination points often hardly register in the general sameness of it all. Things are not helped by Gergiev's at times ridiculously rushed tempos. The Finale's Tempo II is way too fast when it occurs the first time, and worse, Gergiev then fails to maintain that pulse on later recurrences, so that inner tempo relations in the piece are uprooted. He merely seems intent on making a virtuoso effect. The first movement suffers from similar drawbacks, and contains some unsettling moments where synchronicity falters. The awkward tenseness of the main theme is lost on this conductor (as is the instruction `grosser Ton' on the trombone player when the Adagio reprise arrives).

Like in the Sixth, Gergiev is at his best in the quieter moments. He has a keen sense of the Scherzo's eerie atmosphere, the one movement where for once (and unlike many of his colleagues) he doesn't rush. I rather liked his brisk pace in the Andante amoroso, that often outstays its welcome in readings that make too heavy weather of it. The first `night music' is rather more middle of the road and somewhat colorless. Which is not to say that the playing of the LSO is in any way below par; as far as this recording allows one to judge it, it seems generally excellent, with occasional sensitive personal touches, especially in the woodwinds.

The stereo sound on this disc ( I do not own SACD equipment) is airless and devoid of ambience as usual from this source; bone dry, yet largely without the expected benefit of clearer detail. In all, I can think of few reasons for anyone to buy this issue when so many obviously superior alternatives are available. August 15, 2008

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