Reference Recording: Fischer’s Astonishing Mahler “Resurrection”

Review?by:?David Hurwitz

Artistic Quality: 10

Sound Quality: 10

Just when you thought you’d heard it all, along comes a new release that reinvigorates your faith in the ability of great performances to make even familiar pieces sound new. So it is with this stunning Mahler 2 from Ivan Fischer and Channel Classics. Before turning to the performance in detail, it’s worth mentioning that the engineering quite simply sets a new standard in this work. Whether heard in regular stereo or SACD stereo or multichannel formats, the realism, atmosphere, lifelike balances, dynamic range, and sheer visceral impact have to be heard to be believed. No other performance on disc coveys quite the same “you are there” feeling of a musical event taking place in an acoustically flattering space. All of those special effects, particularly the offstage brass in the finale, project with ideal clarity and perfect naturalness. And if you thought, as I did, that the recent San Francisco performance under Michael Tilson Thomas was impressive in the closing pages, then you have to hear this–without question the most cosmically glorious finish yet captured on disc.

Great sound does a lot for Mahler, relying as he does on orchestral color to make many of his expressive points, but in the final analysis it’s the interpretation that counts, and here Fischer confirms the very favorable impression he made in the Sixth Symphony with the same forces. First, he has a genuine feel for the score’s texture. Listen, for example, to the end of the first-movement exposition, where a series of sighing violin glissandos descend into soft strokes of the deep tam-tam against trudging low strings and harps. Little touches like this reveal that the conductor understands Mahler’s idiom–but Fischer doesn’t stint on the big picture either. The entire first movement has tremendous drama, rising to a crushing climax at the moment of recapitulation (first sound sample), and featuring a truly ghostly coda, gaunt and full of dread.

The Andante flows at just the right tempo: the music has great emotion without ever turning mushy or sentimental. Fischer’s handling of the scherzo is a thing of genius. Right from the beginning you may notice a difference in the way the clarinets play that obstinate, two-note figure over the bass drum and rute–staccato, then tenuto. Have a look at the score: this is exactly the accentuation that Mahler demands, only Fischer’s is one of the very few performances to do it properly (second sound sample). There are few things more rewarding than hearing something revelatory, only to find that it comes from a faithful realization of the composer’s original intentions. This performance is full of moments like that. Then there are the soulful trumpets in the trio, and a terrifying “cry of despair” climax. This is the real deal, folks.

Birgit Remmert delivers an affecting, rapt account of Urlicht, and the finale erupts, as it must, with shocking immediacy. There are too many impressive moments to mention at length at both ends of the dynamic spectrum, including a pair of hair-raising percussion crescendos introducing the “dead march”, those thrilling fortissimo horn triplets at the big climax before the first entry of the chorus, the vastly mysterious offstage cadenza between flute and piccolo in the orchestra and offstage brass and timpani, and the unforgettable sweetness of Lisa Milne’s voice as it floats free of the larger mass of singers. Then of course there’s that amazingly grand conclusion, with bells and tam-tams pealing ecstatically against a shimmering background of strings and organ. And all of it is perfectly paced, played with 100 percent commitment by Fischer and his excellent orchestra.

Finally, a word about timbre and style. Orchestras such as the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics spend a lot of PR capital on the notion that they somehow represent an authentic, central European sound–and in some music this is certainly true. But not in Mahler, at least not most of the time. What’s needed, and what Fischer gets from his players, isn’t just the dark, rich brass sound nesting on a warm cushion of strings, but all of that plus the ability to project those special textural colorations that give Mahler’s music its distinctive fingerprint. That means characterful contributions from the winds (just compare this scherzo to Vienna’s glacially boring recent work for Boulez on DG) and percussion that doesn’t hold back at climaxes and remains clearly audible even in the softest passages.

Are there any defects? Maybe a couple. It would have been nice, for example, to hear a bit more wood in the string section’s “struck with the bow” episode at the climax of the first movement, and the gentle timpani duet before the scherzo’s “cry of despair” might have been a touch more prominent. But the fact is that in a work this complex, with such detailed instructions to the players in virtually every bar, no one gets everything. What matters is that the conductor and orchestra realize so much of what is there that they make the music wholly their own, to the point that what isn’t heard can be accepted and credited as a personal interpretive choice rather than a lapse. By this criterion, there are no lapses here. This performance is as good as it gets; a reference recording that should remain so for many years to come.

classicstoday.com

附機(jī)翻

? ? ? ? 就在您以為自己已經(jīng)聽完所有內(nèi)容時，新版本的出現(xiàn)重新激發(fā)了您對出色表演能力的信心，即使是熟悉的曲目也能聽起來煥然一新。 Ivan Fischer 和 Channel Classics 的這款令人驚嘆的 Mahler 2 也是如此。 在詳細(xì)介紹性能之前，值得一提的是，工程非常簡單地為這項工作設(shè)定了新標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。 無論是以常規(guī)立體聲還是 SACD 立體聲或多聲道格式聆聽，真實感、氛圍、逼真的平衡、動態(tài)范圍和純粹的發(fā)自內(nèi)心的影響都必須親耳聽到才能相信。 沒有任何其他光盤表演能夠傳達(dá)出完全相同的“你在那里”的感覺，即音樂活動發(fā)生在一個聽覺上令人愉悅的空間中。 所有這些特殊效果，尤其是結(jié)局中的后臺銅管樂器，都以理想的清晰度和完美的自然度投射。 如果你像我一樣認(rèn)為最近在邁克爾·蒂爾森·托馬斯 (Michael Tilson Thomas) 的帶領(lǐng)下在舊金山的演出在最后幾頁令人印象深刻，那么你必須聽聽這個——毫無疑問，這是迄今為止錄制在唱片上的最輝煌的結(jié)局。

? ? ? ??偉大的聲音對馬勒有很大的幫助，就像他依靠管弦樂的色彩來表達(dá)他的許多表現(xiàn)點一樣，但歸根結(jié)底，重要的是解釋，費舍爾在這里證實了他在第六交響曲中留下的非常好的印象 同樣的力量。 首先，他對配樂的質(zhì)感有著真實的感受。 例如，聽一聽第一樂章的結(jié)尾，一連串嘆息的小提琴滑音在低沉的低音弦樂和豎琴的襯托下變成深沉的譚譚的輕柔敲擊聲。 像這樣的小改動表明指揮家理解馬勒的成語——但費舍爾也不吝嗇大局。 整個第一樂章具有巨大的戲劇性，在再現(xiàn)部（第一個聲音樣本）的那一刻上升到壓倒性的高潮，并以真正幽靈般的尾聲為特色，憔悴而充滿恐懼。

? ? ? ??行板以恰到好處的節(jié)奏流動：音樂充滿了強(qiáng)烈的情感，但從未變得糊涂或感傷。 費舍爾對諧謔曲的處理堪稱天才。 從一開始，您可能會注意到單簧管在低音鼓和 rute 上演奏那種頑固的雙音符的方式有所不同——斷奏，然后是延音。 看看樂譜：這正是馬勒要求的重音，只有菲舍爾的是為數(shù)不多的正確演奏之一（第二個聲音樣本）。 沒有什么比聽到一些啟示性的東西更有價值的了，只是發(fā)現(xiàn)它來自對作曲家初衷的忠實實現(xiàn)。 這場演出充滿了這樣的時刻。 然后是三重奏中深情的小號，以及令人毛骨悚然的“絕望的吶喊”高潮。 伙計們，這是真正的交易。

? ? ? ??比爾吉特·雷默特 (Birgit Remmert) 對烏爾利希特 (Urlicht) 進(jìn)行了感人的、全神貫注的描述，而結(jié)局必然以令人震驚的即時性爆發(fā)。 在動態(tài)頻譜的兩端有太多令人印象深刻的時刻無法詳細(xì)提及，包括引入“死亡進(jìn)行曲”的一對令人毛骨悚然的打擊樂漸強(qiáng)，在合唱第一次進(jìn)入之前的大高潮中那些激動人心的強(qiáng)音三連音 ，管弦樂隊中的長笛和短笛與舞臺下的銅管樂器和定音鼓之間極其神秘的后臺華彩樂段，以及麗莎米爾恩的聲音令人難忘的甜美，因為它漂浮在更大的歌手群體中。 然后當(dāng)然是令人驚訝的宏大結(jié)論，在閃閃發(fā)光的弦樂和管風(fēng)琴背景下，鐘聲和鼓聲欣喜若狂地響起。 所有這一切都節(jié)奏完美，由 Fischer 和他出色的管弦樂隊 100% 投入演奏。

? ? ? ??最后，談?wù)勔羯惋L(fēng)格。 維也納愛樂樂團(tuán)和柏林愛樂樂團(tuán)等樂團(tuán)花費大量公關(guān)資金來宣傳他們在某種程度上代表了真實的中歐聲音——在某些音樂中這確實是事實。 但不是馬勒，至少不是大多數(shù)時候。 所需要的，以及費舍爾從他的演奏者那里得到的，不僅僅是嵌套在溫暖的弦墊上的黑暗、豐富的銅管聲音，而是所有這些加上投射那些賦予馬勒音樂獨特指紋的特殊紋理色彩的能力。 這意味著來自風(fēng)的特色貢獻(xiàn)（只需將這種諧謔曲與維也納最近為布列茲在 DG 上的冰川般無聊的作品進(jìn)行比較）和打擊樂在高潮時不會退縮，即使在最柔和的段落中也能清晰地聽到。

? ? ? ??有沒有缺陷？ 也許有幾個。 例如，如果能在第一樂章的高潮部分的弦樂部分的“用琴弓敲擊”片段中聽到更多的木頭效果，以及諧謔曲“絕望的吶喊”之前柔和的定音鼓二重奏可能會更好 觸摸更突出。 但事實是，在如此復(fù)雜的作品中，幾乎每個小節(jié)都對演奏者進(jìn)行了如此詳細(xì)的說明，沒有人能得到一切。 重要的是，指揮和管弦樂隊非常了解那里的內(nèi)容，以至于他們完全按照自己的方式制作音樂，以至于可以接受未聽到的內(nèi)容并將其視為個人解釋選擇，而不是失誤。 按照這個標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，這里沒有失誤。 這種表現(xiàn)已經(jīng)很好了； 這是一個在未來許多年都應(yīng)該保持不變的參考錄音。