The other day, over at my friend’s blog Bravoooo (note from 2006: the blog has since closed), there was a feature on Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 — a Classic CD Criticism “Men’s Academy” ~ Go, and Die by Your Own Path! ~ vol. 1
The idea was to settle once and for all on the definitive recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.
I own only two CDs of the Fifth — Abbado (BPO live) and Solti (CSO, his second recording) — and as I rarely listen to Mahler in the normal run of things (the neighbours would object), I don’t really know the work well enough to hold strong opinions. So I sat through three hours of fierce debate as a rather awed bystander, frankly intimidated by the sheer depth of knowledge on display from all the orchestral musicians taking part. In any case, the recording they crowned as the best was this one: Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic, on DG.
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I did a quick search around the internet, and the praise heaped on this recording is really quite extraordinary. The sheer number of devoted fans was enough to make me hesitate even before listening… It is, in short, the landmark Mahler recording — the gold standard, so to speak. I don’t dislike Bernstein, and with everyone recommending it so strongly, I went ahead and bought a budget import pressing… It also comes as a two-disc set paired with the First Symphony, incidentally.
So, it finally arrived and I put it on…
Hmm.
Hmm.
Ughhh.
………Sorry, I physically cannot take this…
By the end of the third movement I felt genuinely unwell and had to stop the CD.
It is extraordinarily intense. Absolutely overwhelming. The opening, I will say, was fine — there was a dragged-along, swept-away quality to it that made me think, oh, this is something. But as it went on, my head started spinning and swirling. It was as though my brain had developed sunburn… and before long my ears felt as if they were being kneaded from the inside. Painful, exhausting, unbearably thirsty — frankly, it was close to torture. The sheer density of information from the Vienna Philharmonic seems to exceed what the CD format can handle: the timbres go strange, everything is crammed in to the point of chaos, and the whole thing becomes rather alarming.
My Abbado/Berlin Philharmonic DG disc has its own minor sonic problems, but that one is at least considered a high-quality recording by most standards, and is perfectly listenable. With the Bernstein, the harmonic distortion is enough to put my ears out of commission — after listening, other CDs sound odd for a while afterwards.
I apologise to matta and manpei, but this sounds like it comes from a completely different ideological universe to my own. It has been a long time since I encountered a performance — or perhaps recording is the more accurate word — that I found so physically intolerable. Heard live, or in a better recording, my impression might be entirely different…
I should add one caveat, though: it is quite possible that buying the budget pressing was a mistake. A different pressing might change the assessment considerably… or perhaps there is simply a compatibility issue with my playback equipment. For what it is worth, the Mahler Symphony No. 1 and Songs of a Wayfarer with the Concertgebouw that came in the same set gave me no particular sonic trouble and I enjoyed them well enough. With those I thought straightforwardly: Bernstein’s Mahler really is something remarkable. On the budget import, whether it is a botched remaster, some heavy-handed compression baked in from the start, or electronic enhancement of some kind, the strings have an oddly harsh, scratchy texture and the high frequencies are rounded off into a kind of smeared blur — yet the scale is enormous, and the sense of space (boosted by a pushed-up recording level, clearly intended to make things stand out) is quite exceptional.
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Now, among my other recordings of the First Symphony I also have the Abbado/Berlin Philharmonic and the DECCA Dohnányi/Cleveland Orchestra — and comparing all three… I expect some people will say a recording like this isn’t worth rating if you prefer things heavy and rich, but personally, at a purely instinctive level, I find the light, refined elegance of the Dohnányi the most appealing. The orchestral sound is thinner, and musically it is probably the weakest of the three — but there it is.
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I am genuinely sorry. But in the discussion, the well-recorded recordings seemed to get nothing but abuse, and the whole evaluation felt skewed towards the canonical “great recordings” — so I thought there ought to be room for an anti-canonical view like this, and I am writing it here for that reason. I should say that this tendency extends well beyond Mahler: I have always had a strong anti-“great recording” streak. There were records considered masterpieces — piano recordings especially — that made me feel genuinely nauseated as a child, and I really did feel ill and occasionally was sick. My sensitivity has probably dulled somewhat since then, or perhaps I have built up a kind of defensive barrier, but I do trust the responses that were carved into me during that pure and unguarded period of childhood. Many recordings that earn the label “great” are great precisely because the playing is so deeply etched and intense — which means they are, by nature, things that people should be divided over, things it is entirely right to be divided over. I dislike going along with the majority in matters of music, and so I make no apology for speaking plainly.
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Of the other recordings discussed in the debate, the one I already own — Solti/CSO, the final concert at the Musikverein — suits me a hundred times better: cleaner, fresher, without that cloying heaviness. The later recording, I should clarify. It leaves my head clear and my mind settled afterwards. So what if the brass are too prominent? Listening to the directness of the Solti restores my ears to normal — it is practically an exorcism. …Which perhaps means that, in the end, Mahler is simply not for me.
But the Mahler I want — my Mahler — is one where, within a stark contrast between God and the devil, some glimmer of light is found: a solitary spiritual quality, a purity, a clarity that surpasses human understanding. Bernstein’s performance is too human, too drenched in blood — like the suffering of the people of Israel, turned away from God, wandering through the wilderness in the Old Testament. In a sense… perhaps it drags too much Jewish karma behind it. That is what I mean when I say it is astonishing in its own way, but personally, it is not for me.
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List of comments （11）
ご苦労なされているようですね。（笑）
ま、マーラーなんて１００倍濃縮のとんこつラーメンみたいなもんですから。
神聖な演奏が聴きたければマーラー８番あたりじゃないでしょうか？
５番なんて血みどろ系デス。
録音は確かにグラモフォン盤は評判が良くない点もありますね。
それならばやはりロンドン・プロムスを聴かなくては。（爆）
オークション等で時々出回っている１９８７年９月１０日の演奏のものですね。
もっとも、健康面での責任は取りませんが。。。。
追伸 音質面でロンドンプロムス盤（グラモフォンとは別盤）に興味がある場合はmatta氏まで聞いてみてくださいな。私よりは余程詳しいはずです。あのマラ１が聴けるのならば大丈夫だとは思いますが・・。やっぱり健康上よろしくないかもしれません。（笑）
さらに追伸
ひょっとしたら今度全集で出るベルティーニ盤がお気に入りになるかもしれませんね。ご参考まで・・。http://www.hmv.co.jp/product/detail.asp?sku=1067624
はじめまして、ぐすたふといいます。
ロンドンプロムス盤ってたしかファーストクラシックとかいうレーベルから販売されCDだとしたら、本当に凄い演奏ですよ。
もうどろどろです。
そのうちブログにアップする予定なのでお暇だったらどうぞ。
manpeiさんこんにちは♪ぐすたふさんはじめまして(^^)。
いや、楽しんではいてもご苦労はされてませんです。
ただ、私のマーラー観(という程詳しくないですが)みたいのが、
静粛と暗闇の奥底から音が光となってスパークする！みたいな、
宗教的な荘厳さだったものですから、バーンスタインの解釈には違和感がありました。
名演！という意味では納得というか、好き嫌いは別として凄い物は凄いです。
あと、録音に関してはこれはほんとうにまずいです。
まずい典型みたいな…。こればかり聴いていると耳がやられてしまうと思います。
帯域が狭いサブシステムの方では情報量が足りない分まあ何とか聴けるのですが、
ワイドレンジのメインシステムの方では対処不可能(^^;
正直、DGには耳の良い人にリマスターし直して貰いたいですね。
ロンドンプロムス盤は探してみます。でもどろどろですか～(^^;
健康上宜しくないってのはズバリ核心を突いてますね。
病人に聴かせたら急速に病状悪化しそうです…。黄泉に引きずり込まれそうです。
manpeiさんも深い音のするオーディオかヘッドホンの大音量でこれを浴びたら、
感動の余り暑気中りするかもですよ。
ベルティーニは残念ながら全く聴いたことがないです…。
ぐすたふさん、もしお差し支えありませんでしたら相互リンクは如何でしょうか？
マーラーの素晴らしさを教えていただけると幸いです♪
どうも、ぐすたふです。
では、早速リンクしときます。
よろしくおねがいします。
＜Pastel_pianoさん
いやいや。
ロンドンプロムス盤を爆音で聴いて音楽を「体験」できるのならば暑気中りなど幾らでもしますよ。（爆）死んで本望でしょ。
是非聴いてみた下さい。
なお、ショルティ盤が好きならベルティーニ盤はきっと気に入ると思いますよ。全集としての内容もバーンスタインに引けを取らない素晴らしいものですよ。
ちなみに、深い音がするヘッドフォンかどうかはしりませんが、手持ちのオーディオテクニカのヘッドフォンのサイズが耳に合わないので何か買い換えようかとも思うのですが、予算～20000円程度で良い物はないでしょうか？
＜ぐすたふさん
第三者の掲示板にて失礼致します。（笑）
やっぱロンドンプロムス盤最強説ですよねぇ？（爆）
過去に私のブログで記事を書いておりますので（改訂予定ですが）ＴＢさせて頂きたいと思います。
また、相互リンクの件も、改めてコメントさせて頂きますが、当方も宜しくお願いします。
バーンスタインは好き嫌いは別にして「凄い」一枚ですよね．
プロムス盤の音質ですが，この手の正規盤じゃない盤にありがちな，低音（中低音）がゆるゆるぼけぼけで，残響垂れ流しでぼわぼわですね．情報量は少ないです．解像度や空気感はあきらめモードです．赤道直下の熱帯雨林のような音質，といえましょうか．ヴィオラパートの譜面を耳で追いかけようとしても，無駄な努力にしかなりません．
この後にシャイー盤を聴くと，真夏に屋外からクーラーの効いた部屋に入った時のような気持ち良さを体感できます（笑）
ただ，不思議なことに（？）プロムス盤はパソ＋ヘッドフォンで聴くと，けっこう聴けるんですよねぇ．逆にシャイーだと薄くなってしまう．プロムス盤の情報量の少なさがうまく作用してパソではちょうどいい具合になっているようです．垂れ流しのアコースティックも，プラスに作用してるようです．
mampeiさん了解いたしました。早速リンクしておきます。
みなさまどうもありがとうございます～。
＞プロムス盤の情報量の少なさがうまく作用してパソではちょうどいい具合に
＞なっているようです．垂れ流しのアコースティックも，プラスに作用してるようです．
さらっとヤバい事が書いてありますなー。
mattaさん、良いヘッドホンとCDプレーヤー(+ヘッドフォンアンプ)を
manpeiさん宅に持ち込んで押しつけて下さい…。
ヘッドホンのオススメはすごーく書きにくいんですよ！。
耳に合わないとどうにもなりませんし…、
こればっかりはヨド行って実機チェックしてくれぇ！って感じ。
音はSENNHEISER派かテクニカかはたまたソニーか好みは判りませんが、
manpeiさんの好みの音楽と濃ゆさを考えるとドイツ物ですよね？