Mahler: Symphony No. 5 / Zander, Philharmonia Orchestra

Editorial Reviews
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Benjamin Zander follows his outstanding live recording of Mahler's 9th with an even more impressive version of the 5th, made in the studio and thus yielding even more lifelike sound and orchestral polish. The opening funeral march movement is especially notable for the outstanding trumpet soloist, neatly judged tempos, and natural-sounding rubato. Zander's pacing of the Scherzo follows Mahler's instructions--"not too fast"--obtaining a nice rhythmic lift from his players and allowing myriad orchestral details to come through. The famous Adagietto is taken at a flowing tempo, avoiding the leaden quality with which overly slow performances tend to stifle it. The huge finale, just a bit slower than most performances, sacrifices some excitement to clarity. The Philharmonia's horns and brass are outstanding, as are the strings, which phrase Mahler's lines with genuine affection. But the percussion, so important in Mahler, is a weak link. In sum, a fine performance in a crowded competitive field headed by Bernstein's extraordinary DG recording. What sets this apart, however, is Telarc's bonus disc--a 78-minute lecture-demonstration by Zander that serves as a terrific introduction to the work for novice Mahlerians, and will intrigue and educate even those who thought they knew this symphony inside out. --Dan Davis

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Given the right conductor and enough rehearsal time, the best of today's youth orchestras can match professional bands in virtuosity and outpoint them in freshness. At the Amsterdam Mahler Festival in 1995, for instance, arguably the most gripping concerts were given by the Gustav Mahler Jugend Orchester, despite heavyweight 'competition' from the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras as well as from the local Royal Concertgebouw. So hopes were high for something special from this public... read more

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 / Zander, Philharmonia Orchestra

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 / Zander, Philharmonia Orchestra, Music, Gustav Mahler, Benjamin Zander, Benjamin Zander, Aline Brewer, Philharmonia Orchestra of London, Mark David, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Miscellaneous, Miscellaneous Music, Orchestral & Symphonic, Romantic Symphony, Symphonic

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 - Benjamin Zander / Philharmonia Orchestra
Average customer rating:

This music sucks!

Truthful and transparent

Incredible performance...plus a bonus disk!

Mahler through Zander

Zander's Revelatory Mahler

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 - Benjamin Zander / Philharmonia Orchestra
Gustav Mahler , Benjamin Zander , and Philharmonia Orchestra
Manufacturer: Telarc
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Mahler: Symphony 6 in a Minor: Tragic (Bonus CD)

Mahler: Symphony No. 1; Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen

ASIN: B00005B7KD
Release Date: 2001-04-24

Tracks:

1. Trauermarsch. In Gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie Ein Kondukt - Philharmonia Orchestra
2. Sturmisch Bewegt, Mit Grosster Vehemenz - Philharmonia Orchestra
3. Scherzo: Kraftig, Nicht Zu Schnell - Philharmonia Orchestra
4. Adagietto: Sehr Langsam - Philharmonia Orchestra
5. Rondo-Finale: Allegro - Philharmonia Orchestra

Tracks:

1. Introduction - The Orchestra - Benjamin Zander
The Motives - Benjamin Zander
The Structure - Benjamin Zander
The Adagietto - Benjamin Zander
The Scherzo-Vienna - Benjamin Zander
Experiencing The Symphony - Benjamin Zander

Amazon.com

Benjamin Zander follows his outstanding live recording of Mahler's 9th with an even more impressive version of the 5th, made in the studio and thus yielding even more lifelike sound and orchestral polish. The opening funeral march movement is especially notable for the outstanding trumpet soloist, neatly judged tempos, and natural-sounding rubato. Zander's pacing of the Scherzo follows Mahler's instructions--"not too fast"--obtaining a nice rhythmic lift from his players and allowing myriad orchestral details to come through. The famous Adagietto is taken at a flowing tempo, avoiding the leaden quality with which overly slow performances tend to stifle it. The huge finale, just a bit slower than most performances, sacrifices some excitement to clarity. The Philharmonia's horns and brass are outstanding, as are the strings, which phrase Mahler's lines with genuine affection. But the percussion, so important in Mahler, is a weak link. In sum, a fine performance in a crowded competitive field headed by Bernstein's extraordinary DG recording. What sets this apart, however, is Telarc's bonus disc--a 78-minute lecture-demonstration by Zander that serves as a terrific introduction to the work for novice Mahlerians, and will intrigue and educate even those who thought they knew this symphony inside out. --Dan Davis

Customer Reviews:

This music sucks!.......2007-06-30

I hated this symphony. It just sounds like irritating musical jibberish to me! Either Mahler composed a stinker or Zander butchered the conducting. Dont get me wrong, I love modern classical music-Berg,Schoenberg,etc. There isn't anything worse than bad Mahler to listen to!

Truthful and transparent.......2005-09-20

Benjamin Zander with the Philharmonia Orchestra here deliver one of the most clear-sighted, freshly inspired performances of Mahler's Fifth Symphony ever recorded.
Trying to make sure that every change of tempo, every melodic strand, every instrument group (or solo) is clearly audible within the complex contrapuntal textures of this mammoth symphony, as is done here, could lead to a loose and uninvolved affair, but Zander's highly intelligent vision and firm grasp of the overall structure (of both the individual movements and the symphony as a whole), combined with truly exquisite rubato and lovely legato phrasing, prevents this, making for a feeling of sustained momentum and cohesion that is quite riveting (comparable to Bruno Walter's great recording of 1947: if only that recording could have been in digital stereo!). At the same time Benjamin Zander's approach conveys a deep understanding of all the meanings behind the different melodic strands and notes (for as far as any 'meanings' can be fixed) and how they should interact, so that when the instruments - solowise or as a group - speak (amongst each other, or just by themselves), they do so with a deep sincerity and conviction. Zander convincingly conveys to us the idea of this symphony being a giant, organic weave.
It is Zander's explicit view (as he says in his insightful but not to be overrated discussion on the bonus CD) that the orchestra in this symphony should in the first place be (like) a group of very well playing s o l o i s t s. And the conductor should then be there to lead those fine soloists along. (As Mahler said: the conductor is just a necessary evil.) And Zander succeeds magnificently! The orchestra is cleanly but not too closely recorded, allowing the sound to widely expand in climaxes, and at the same time enhancing 'atmosphere' in pianissimos, during which Benjamin Zander's conducting (and of course the hushed intensity of the orchestral playing!) is often spellbinding. The Philharmonia Orchestra under Benjamin Zander, to my idea, really reach the ultimate in Mahler, from the greatest outbursts of Angst or joy, through the music of hushed tenderness and love, to those passages of despair in which the music seems to be 'yelling in pianissimo'. (Take also his superb Mahler 9 on the same label.)
The end result is a transparent, cohesive performance of sustained momentum, characterized by wonderfully natural rubato and songful legato phrasing (the Adagietto has never sounded so much like a song without words!), but without too much (emotional) excess. Pure, vintage Mahler, which can, I think, be regarded as a benchmark for all other recordings. I love it. The only thing I keep expecting but which never follows after each hearing of this CD is the roaring applause ;-)

Incredible performance...plus a bonus disk!.......2003-02-06

I have to say that this is the best Mahler 5 I've listened to so far. I have heard Solti, Bernstein-Sony and Kubelik. Mr.Zander gives a extensive lecture on disk 2 about the piece and knows it quite exceedingly. He also gives us musical examples from his and other recordings. He is definetly a Mahler scholar. His extremely firey and passionate view is not be compared and his structural awareness throughout is evident which makes it so much bigger. So all in all if you want to know more about Mahler intellectually and emotionally, this 2 disk set is for you my friend.

Mahler through Zander.......2001-09-04

I have heard many performances of Mahler's Fifth Symphony by an assortment of conductors and orchestras over the years. In the hearing of those performances, I was always struck at how distant Mahler seemed to place himself from his audience (at any rate from me.) Or, as I now look back, was it the conductor's interpretation that distanced Mahler from me? In this new recording by Benjamin Zander and the Philharmonia Orchestra, I was struck at not only the verve of the performance, but by a new found richness of tempo. Indeed, I have never heard Mahler played with such clarity. Thanks to Maestro Zander's brilliant interpretation of the score (as well as an extraordinary performance on the part of orchestra,) he managed to bring Mahler from what I had experienced as being distant into a new spirit of intimacy which I, quite frankly, found to be breathtaking. I believe that we have found the key to Mahler through Zander and for this I am truly grateful.

Zander's Revelatory Mahler.......2001-05-10

GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911) enjoys very nearly the same popularity today as Tschaikovsky did thirty years ago when the classical music bug bit me and I started collecting long-playing records. Mahler's very popularity has an ambiguous effect on his music, however, since in the proliferation of concert and recorded performances really exceptional interpretations become fewer while a certain characterless rote becomes the norm. Those who once felt passionately about the music, as they heard it from Titans like Bruno Walter or Hermann Scherchen, find themselves growing averse to the "Warhorse Syndrome" of overexposed masterpieces. Ennui sets in...Where it concerns Mahler, an antidote exists in the remarkable interpretive work of Benjamin Zander, who has made it his mission over two decades to renew the kaleidoscopic strangeness of the nine great symphonies and the symphonic songs. A year or so ago, Telarc released Zander's version of the Ninth Symphony, with the Philharmonia Orchestra, and one could justly say that this represented the work's most revealing performance since Walter committed it to 78RPM platters in Vienna in 1938...The opening Funeral March might seem slow in comparison to other readings, but this is because Zander wants to bring out the Kafkaesque grotesquery in it. The reiterated rhythm of the opening trumpet-signal (almost continuously present) reveals its kinship (practically its identity) with the "Fate Theme" from Beethoven's Fifth. There are wonderful touches, such as the substitution of the flute for the trumpet in the third of the three final reiterations of the trumpet-signal at the end of the First Movement. Many conductors attempt to make of the Second Movement a reprise-in-variation of the First. Zander sees it as a contrast. He sees the Scherzo as a bizarre apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, weirder than either of the two "Nachtmusik" movements of the Seventh Symphony. The Adagietto is not, for Zander, a piece of dripping sentiment or a musical obsequy, but a dignified expression of love and contentment. To the Finale - with its hybrid of sonata, rondo, fugue, and chorale - Zander brings a spirit of triumphant unity, making it truly the reconciliation of all the foregoing contradictions and incommensurabilities...As in the case of Zander's Ninth, Telarc gives us, at no increase in the price, an extra disc containing a seventy-five minute lecture by Zander on the symphony, with abundant musical illustration. Zander is a superb lecturer and his exposition illuminates the score in all sorts of unexpected ways. Mahler-lovers must (MUST) buy this disc. The uninitiated but curious will discover in it the best possible entrée into the life-altering experience of Mahler's music...

Average customer rating:

"Mahler: Symphony No. 6 ""Tragic"" "
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Binding: Audio CD

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Average customer rating:

Mahler: Symphony No. 5

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ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Tracks: