Mahler Touch World

First Beethoven, then Sibelius and now Mahler: Music Director Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra launch their newest major recording project with an album of Gustav Mahler’s three-part, five-movement Fifth Symphony.

This program offers three lively, colorful, and captivating orchestral works by two United States composers, born almost a century apart. These pieces exhibit the fruitful exchange and flow of musical material between North and South America that has long played a role in popular music, apparent not only in commercial song and dance music using Latin American melodies and rhythms but also in early jazz and blues where tango rhythms are so often heard, as in W. C. Handy's St. Louis Blues. And both Gottschalk in the 1850s, close to the beginning of a creative American musical tradition, and Gould in the 1950s, when such a tradition had flowered considerably, show a combination of seriousness of approach with a popular touch.

RCO - Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vol 2, 1950-1960 (2003) {14CD Box Set Q Disc 97018, Limited Edition}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 3.80 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 2.39 Gb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 133 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1950-60, 2003 Radio Netherlands Music / Q Disc | 97018
Classical / Orchestral / Symphony

Again we are indebted to NM Classics for another volume (the second) in their Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra series. This one covers the period 1950-1960 and contains many unusual treasures as well as a number of performances that have already been issued: the fine Daphnis and Chloe with Monteux which currently is available on both Audiophile Classics and Music & Arts, Bruno Walter's Mozart, Mahler and Strauss all of which are available on Music & Arts, and the Brahms concerto with Monteux/Milstein, available on Audiophile Classics and Arioso (as well as a discontinued Tahra set). However, there are many fascinating items here including a number of major additions to Eduard van Beinum's discography. We have Beinum conducting music of Dutch composers Hans Henkemans (1913-1995), Anthony van der Horst (1899-1965), and Matthijs Vermeulen (1888-1967).

During the four years that separated Alexander Zemlinsky's Symphony in D minor and the premiere of the Symphony in B flat major (his first two efforts in the genre, aside from an incomplete work penned during his student years), the young composer had caught the eye and the fancy of the Viennese musical world. "The work's fresh, original ideas and genuinely exalted, youthful fire made a great impression on the audience and unleashed an intense salvo of applause," wrote one critic in response to the 1896 premiere of Zemlinsky's Waldegespräch (for soprano and chamber ensemble). These years also saw Zemlinsky winning two prestigious awards, the Luitpold Prize and the Beethoven Prize. His compositional skills had been refined during the mid 1890s as well. The Suite for Orchestra from 1895, for example, gave Zemlinsky an opportunity to create more adventurous orchestral colors than had been found in the admirable but conservative D minor Symphony. Thus, when one compares the B flat Symphony to his earlier symphonic effort, one notices that, while the same amalgamation of influences and styles is represented, more of the composer's own voice comes through – prompting one observer to suggest two different ways of looking at the work: "either as Zemlinsky's last early work or his first mature one."

This is Zemlinsky before Richard Strauss' rich chromaticism and nascent Expressionism inflamed his imagination. Yet there's nothing wanting in the language here. Within the compass of Brahms' models, Zemlinsky's orchestral mastery is comprehensive and his expression and imagination have widest range. His orchestral palette is flavorful and incandescent within the parameters of traditional orchestration. There are some lovely colors here.

Music by Schoenberg, Mauersberger, Schütz, Hassler, Gjeilo, and Mahler Angels intermediaries between the visible and the invisible world arent always easily heard and seen. But when musical settings of texts give them expression and sound, they are there: in history and in the present, in war and in peace. Making this heard requires a high level of artistic skill, a solid sense of style, fine distinction and shaping of sound, as well as a sincere intensity in singing.

She sang all the major mezzo roles, and also some in the dramatic soprano repertory, notably Leonora in Fidelio, Lady Macbeth and the Marschallin. Her voice is a rich, expressive mezzo capable of dramatic incisiveness and even throughout its considerable range. Her upper register in mezzo music is excintingly projected. Although this compilation is composed of different recordings in different settings in different years, all of them show a young Ludwig when she had not yet acquired her prime and her status of, arguably, the best mezzo of the world, which would arrive in the years to come.