Found your channel in the harsh, classical discussion-famished YT wastelands and started off cautiously with your appraisal of neglected composers and works and was very glad I did! No waffly impressionism in sight for sure😊 I particularly like your understandable (but never watered-down) approach to great music, and I never feel like I come away indifferent to the artists/conductors/recordings in the spotlight. I have (to my detriment) glossed over this particular version of Kubelik's Mahler: Symphony No. 1 until now. Enjoying it immensely as I write this. Many thanks Dave!
This is definitely my go-to recording of the first, as well as the coupling in the "DG Originals" reissue: the "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" with Fischer-Dieskau. And you're absolutely right about those wonderful trumpet accents in the third movement... so wonderfully characterful!
The first piece of classical music that I bought that wasn’t a budget release was Muti conducting Mahler’s first symphony with the Philadelphia Orchestra. A sentimental recording for me. I have other versions including Solti with the LSO, Abbado, Bernstein with New York, and the Kubelik version. Love them all and love the music. Thanks for another fascinating video.
Kubelik is a fine reference Mahler 1st. It's distinctive, clear-headed without any histrionics. Not the most endearing sound quality but wow, it is a performance where everything just feels right . I was similarly blown away by hearing Hans Rosbaud's 5th, an equally remarkable performance that manages to connect all Mahler's disparate emotional, protean ideas as successfully as I've ever heard. Nothing is trivialised. Just as with Kubelik, you can just tell when something feels right.
Mahler 1 is one of the easiest symphonies to explain in clear terms what differentiates good performance standards from bad. Saw it live with Dudamel and it was super easy to point out what was lacking (not enough glissando swooning or flow in the slow part of the ländler (very easy to actually overdo this too though) and not nearly enough character in the brass in the klezmer) you can easily pinpoint what is a bland versus interesting performance.
Quite agree Dave, a very special performance. I do really enjoy the whole Kubelik Mahler cycle. It might not be quite so heavyweight as some but the freshness observed in the 1st Symphony persists throughout the whole cycle. One other thing and I think that maybe you don't regard it as particularly important but when sitting down in the stereo seat to listen to these performances it quickly becomes apparent that Kubelik divides his violins. This, in particular, pays real dividends in the Mahler adagios but is also effective throughout the cycle. I love divided violins in romantic music. Klemperer is also another notable exponent of this orchestral layout. I believe that was the way it was always done until later in the 20th Century.
I had imprinted on Solti’s Chicago version in the late 90s and loved it. Then I read somewhere that Rattle was the one to get. So I traded in the Solti for it but I couldn’t really enjoy it. It was all a bit too blurry and boring. I tried to like it because Rattle was the Mahler king in the early new millenium and I did love his 2nd and 7th (then). But I found the first a chore to listen to. That isn’t right! Then when the DG originals of the Kubelik came out I picked it up and wow! It made me love the first again. Particularly I love how around Five minutes into the slow movement before the beautiful soft passage, there is a little intro to that in the plucked strings. I can hear all the details of those plucked strings playing so precisely in rhythm. It made me smile. And the closing passage to the whole symphony. Kubelik makes the string tremolo behind the screaming horns into a relentless staccato machine gun which I had never heard before. Since then I’ve been chasing the dragon looking for recordings that have that same almost artificially clear string tremolo at the end and have yet to find it. It is exhilarating like nothing else! The transparency and clarity of orchestral details, especially the woodwinds, make this definitely my absolute favorite recording of Mahler 1.
i have been enjoying this channel for a while now and cannot resist a suggestion. given the extensive throat clearing and dissatisfaction occasionally in the comments, i propose the obvious: all reference recording videos should feature two recommendations: 1. the most historically significant reference recording 2. the recording _you personally regard as the best_ !!
Thanks for both comments. I lean towards the latter because, well, yes. And in the reference rec. videos I often mention my favorite because it's often not the reference recording, as I take pains to point out.
@@DavesClassicalGuide well as glenn gould would say, you cant fight city hall. unfortunately in this case i stand by my constructive aim at improvement. for example i am in your debt for my now favorite recording of the Christmas oratorio; Jochum. however i cannot easily recall where you made it ! was it in a vid on choral bach ? a reference recording vid for the oratorio? a review of a jochum box ? .. i think the best legacy for the channel is to have a reference vid where you name the most historically important and your own personal favorite. as you were !
Thanks Dave. I’m a great fan of this Mahler cycle (yes I like the 6th and 7th more than you do). You go around the blocks with everyone doing Mahler cycles in 5D or whatever sound and often getting slower, more impactful but heavier, and you forget that these are coming out of rural austrohungaria. So, the whole cycle has a certain vérité about it and of course this symphony 1 is part of that… But, honestly, all the others too.
I agree completely. The Kubelik set is one that I can listen to over and over. If I could only keep one set this would be the one. Too bad there's not a DLVDE with it.
Dave, I have a question (maybe a suggestion) who is the composer that have the most referencials works, or which One would be that composer? Mahler could be the one since he composed so little, as Chopin for example, any prolific composer could get in this category (Bach maybe?). I find this Topic really interesting...
I was wondering what your views on Ancerl’s Mahler 1st would be, as you haven’t mentioned yet it as fas as I’m aware - and you talked highly about his 9th, if I’m not wrong. Out of curiosity, if I may.
Perfect choice...the youthfull freshness of Kubelik's performance just leaps from the loudspeakers! Btw. Happy Fool's Day! I hope, I hurt nobody's feelings by declaring Jedd (Distler, that is) the winner of the lot - although the editor-in-chief's assesment of the longeurs of Gerontious' tedious stay in purgatory, certainly, was a close runner-up! 😉
Yes, but I disagree with you about 'phrasing.' There is such a thing, although I'm not quite sure what it is myself: maybe the way music can give a sense if articulating itself in its own time, not in someone else's time. Or something. Bernstein knows how to 'phrase' things in the overall structure of a work.
My favorite Mahler symphony and only falls behind Beethoven 9 for me. I love this Kubelik version. 2 questions. If there were a “new” reference recording, would it be Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony? That live recording just crackles with energy. Is there a reference for Mahler including the Blumine movement? One of my most beautiful Mahler 1’s is Ozawa and the BSO with that movement included. Note: the two big streaming services have cut out 15 minutes of the first movement of Honeck’s Mahler 1. I have no earthly idea why. So I bought a CD and downloaded it.
1. There is no "new" reference, so I couldn't speculate on what it might be. 2. There is no reference for a version including "Blumine," but I agree with your choice. 3. The first movement is barely 15 minutes long--are you sure that's what you meant?
If you listen to the streamer services the first movement cuts out after 40 seconds. It’s really weird. I paid for it on iTunes and went to listen and boom, into the second movement. Same thing with Spotify. In terms of New Reference recording, I meant the playlist you started a month or two ago.
Kubelik was a great Mahler conductor. I find that the live recordings on Audite better represent his art than the DG studio efforts, fine though much of that is. I recall a Mahler 3rd in Paris in late 70s & I swear most of the audience was reduced to tears...
I am continually surprised by the reverence Mahlerians feel for Kubelik's M1 because, frankly, the orchestra pales in comparison to the musicians who've played the piece with far greater skill and elan than the Bavarians of yesteryear. The Czechs (Bychkov), Berliners (Abbado), Philadelphians (Muti), Londoners (Levine), Dutch (Bernstein), Bostonians (Ozawa/DG), and the Chicago folks under both Solti and Giulini own the piece in a way the Bavarians don't because they can play the pants off the thing even as they phrase, evoke spirituality, find the fun, etc. I think that if Kubelik's 1 (and Horenstein's 3, btw) are "references", it's because they are "referred" to so much that their excellence is assumed more than it is truly earned. Just sayin'.
You're wrong. Yes, other orchestras play with greater punch, as I said in the video, but the qualities evident in Kubelik's recordings are real and plainly audible. It's not my favorite Mahler 1 either, but it's very lovable and there are many factors besides the technical quality of the playing (and Kubelik's players are still very good) that matter just as much. BTW, Horenstein's Mahler 3rd was never the reference recording. It was the "not Bernstein" recording.
Just to point out why one of your mentioned alternatives isn't really better than Kubelík: The Berliners under Abbado are just too "perfect" in their execution on the DG live recording thus matching Abbado's less spontaneous and more controlled approach at this time, compared to his IMO preferable CSO account some seven or eight years earlier.
