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

附机翻

        就在您以为自己已经听完所有内容时，新版本的出现重新激发了您对出色表演能力的信心，即使是熟悉的曲目也能听起来焕然一新。 Ivan Fischer 和 Channel Classics 的这款令人惊叹的 Mahler 2 也是如此。 在详细介绍性能之前，值得一提的是，工程非常简单地为这项工作设定了新标准。 无论是以常规立体声还是 SACD 立体声或多声道格式聆听，真实感、氛围、逼真的平衡、动态范围和纯粹的发自内心的影响都必须亲耳听到才能相信。 没有任何其他光盘表演能够传达出完全相同的“你在那里”的感觉，即音乐活动发生在一个听觉上令人愉悦的空间中。 所有这些特殊效果，尤其是结局中的后台铜管乐器，都以理想的清晰度和完美的自然度投射。 如果你像我一样认为最近在迈克尔·蒂尔森·托马斯 (Michael Tilson Thomas) 的带领下在旧金山的演出在最后几页令人印象深刻，那么你必须听听这个——毫无疑问，这是迄今为止录制在唱片上的最辉煌的结局。

        伟大的声音对马勒有很大的帮助，就像他依靠管弦乐的色彩来表达他的许多表现点一样，但归根结底，重要的是解释，费舍尔在这里证实了他在第六交响曲中留下的非常好的印象 同样的力量。 首先，他对配乐的质感有着真实的感受。 例如，听一听第一乐章的结尾，一连串叹息的小提琴滑音在低沉的低音弦乐和竖琴的衬托下变成深沉的谭谭的轻柔敲击声。 像这样的小改动表明指挥家理解马勒的成语——但费舍尔也不吝啬大局。 整个第一乐章具有巨大的戏剧性，在再现部（第一个声音样本）的那一刻上升到压倒性的高潮，并以真正幽灵般的尾声为特色，憔悴而充满恐惧。

        行板以恰到好处的节奏流动：音乐充满了强烈的情感，但从未变得糊涂或感伤。 费舍尔对谐谑曲的处理堪称天才。 从一开始，您可能会注意到单簧管在低音鼓和 rute 上演奏那种顽固的双音符的方式有所不同——断奏，然后是延音。 看看乐谱：这正是马勒要求的重音，只有菲舍尔的是为数不多的正确演奏之一（第二个声音样本）。 没有什么比听到一些启示性的东西更有价值的了，只是发现它来自对作曲家初衷的忠实实现。 这场演出充满了这样的时刻。 然后是三重奏中深情的小号，以及令人毛骨悚然的“绝望的呐喊”高潮。 伙计们，这是真正的交易。

        比尔吉特·雷默特 (Birgit Remmert) 对乌尔利希特 (Urlicht) 进行了感人的、全神贯注的描述，而结局必然以令人震惊的即时性爆发。 在动态频谱的两端有太多令人印象深刻的时刻无法详细提及，包括引入“死亡进行曲”的一对令人毛骨悚然的打击乐渐强，在合唱第一次进入之前的大高潮中那些激动人心的强音三连音 ，管弦乐队中的长笛和短笛与舞台下的铜管乐器和定音鼓之间极其神秘的后台华彩乐段，以及丽莎米尔恩的声音令人难忘的甜美，因为它漂浮在更大的歌手群体中。 然后当然是令人惊讶的宏大结论，在闪闪发光的弦乐和管风琴背景下，钟声和鼓声欣喜若狂地响起。 所有这一切都节奏完美，由 Fischer 和他出色的管弦乐队 100% 投入演奏。

        最后，谈谈音色和风格。 维也纳爱乐乐团和柏林爱乐乐团等乐团花费大量公关资金来宣传他们在某种程度上代表了真实的中欧声音——在某些音乐中这确实是事实。 但不是马勒，至少不是大多数时候。 所需要的，以及费舍尔从他的演奏者那里得到的，不仅仅是嵌套在温暖的弦垫上的黑暗、丰富的铜管声音，而是所有这些加上投射那些赋予马勒音乐独特指纹的特殊纹理色彩的能力。 这意味着来自风的特色贡献（只需将这种谐谑曲与维也纳最近为布列兹在 DG 上的冰川般无聊的作品进行比较）和打击乐在高潮时不会退缩，即使在最柔和的段落中也能清晰地听到。

        有没有缺陷？ 也许有几个。 例如，如果能在第一乐章的高潮部分的弦乐部分的“用琴弓敲击”片段中听到更多的木头效果，以及谐谑曲“绝望的呐喊”之前柔和的定音鼓二重奏可能会更好 触摸更突出。 但事实是，在如此复杂的作品中，几乎每个小节都对演奏者进行了如此详细的说明，没有人能得到一切。 重要的是，指挥和管弦乐队非常了解那里的内容，以至于他们完全按照自己的方式制作音乐，以至于可以接受未听到的内容并将其视为个人解释选择，而不是失误。 按照这个标准，这里没有失误。 这种表现已经很好了； 这是一个在未来许多年都应该保持不变的参考录音。