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Whistle Stopper - Mahler: Symphony No. 5
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List Price: $16.98
Our Price: $9.98
Your Save: $ 7.00 ( 41% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0028942360822
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Deutsche Grammophon
Release Date: 1990-10-25
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Reference.
Comment: If you're looking for the most ideal and imitated take on Mahler's most famous symphony, it's all here. Bernstein conducts not only with his famous wild and wickedly creative energy but also with some of the most mature music-making thats ever been wielded by the maestro. Sometimes Bernstein goes somewhere and only half the orchestra can keep up. Here, the VPO are incontrovertibly aware, agreeable, and accurate. The first movement is taken very slow and dark, but the colors that both maestro and orchestra provide keep the listener tingling and alert. There are moments (as usual of Bernstein) of awe of perfection. Bernstein's Sony issue was a disaster-a mess of a recording. Here, the man gets everything right and indeed, we have Mahler as it should be.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Mahler: Symphony No. 5
Comment: Excellant condition, timely service and extremely satisfied with the
product.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This will be brief...
Comment: It seems to me that Bernstein found himself in the shadow of Bruno Walter when it came to Mahler. After hearing recording sessions of particularly important works, Bernstein was prone to ask "Why does he do that?" (Das Lied von der Erde). One need only listen to Walter's NYPO recording as remastered by Sony to hear why. Indeed, the story goes, Columbia asked Bernstein to postpone recording Mahler's First Symphony because Walter had recently recorded it with the Columbia Symphony. Bernstein, astonished, asked how they could ask such a thing. The Walter recording was played for him and he instantly demurred: "Oh my God! That's unbelievable....It's his." And so it seems to have been for all of Mahler. The reason Walter did it that way, can be easily understood by listening to the piano roll of the 1st movement played by Mahler. Walter's musical integrity to what he'd heard Mahler play is evident in his recordings. None of the affectation or histrionics, rather pure musicality. It is the better choice.
Customer Rating:
Summary: There's a history here....
Comment: I confess; I'm most fond of Bernstein's Mahler. I'm independently fond of the Vienna Philharmonic, too.
To my ear, the opening horn of the Trauermarsch is the finest of any I've heard, and the brass overall is brilliant as sunshine when it should be. The sound of the recording is first rate, making a wonderful addition to any audiophile collection.
If you have a problem with Bernstein's concepts, especially of the notion that Mahler can't be too exaggerated, then perhaps you'll take exception. In Mahler's time, his work was considered like a `cheap novel' or perhaps worse.
You will hear, though, that Bernstein is powerfully thoughtful and in control. Think about that in context of the few detractors in reviews here. In the interpretation of a work of such dynamic emotional themes, should it not be that one mind brings into fruition the realization of this art with powerful influence? I think so, and here I find a great example of Bernstein's mastery long before he lost his energies.
There's a history, here, too. The Vienna was, once, Mahler's own orchestra. For a short time Mahler conducted the New York Philharmonic, near the end of his time. In Bernstein, we have the long practiced leader of the New York bringing Mahler back to Vienna. It was more than just a visit, too. We are told that the musicians of the Vienna didn't want to perform Mahler. They and the powers in charge of the ensemble considered Mahler too syrupy, too dramatic and overdone. Bernstein struggled to convince them that Mahler's notes were as sacred as any other. Over time, the Vienna's members finally took the music to heart once again. This recording is among the fruit of Bernstein's labor, not just of the interpretation of the 5th, but of returning Mahler to his former home.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Epic.
Comment: Although many listeners and critics that prefer 'mainstream' interpretations to Mahler may criticize Bernstein's approach to this wonderful masterpiece as being 'sluggish' and 'non-emotive', this recording is one of my favorites out of my entire collection. The Trauermarsch is full of the darkness and tenacity that one would expect from such a titled movement, as well as the heartbroken grief in the more lyrical passages. The Sturmisch bewegt is made vivid by Bernstein's poetic intuition for tempos. The Scherzo is grandiose yet light-hearted, not to mention sparkling with the playing of a fantastic principal horn. The Adagietto has received a dichotomy of harsh criticism and glorious praise, namely because of its noticeably slower and more gentle interpretation. However, Bernstein's ability to extract the most profound, most beautiful, and most poetic subleties from this tender yet heartwrenching movement makes it one of the most gorgeous recordings in all of the orchestral repertoire, and I would never make such a statement lightly. The Finale provides a fitting conclusion to this awe-inspiring symphony, bringing both closure and dazzling newfound glory. This recording is truly epic, and although I enjoy listening to other interpretations (i.e. Walter, Solti, Reiner, Karajan, etc.), Leonard Bernstein, with the aid of the incomparable Vienna Philharmonic (the greatest orchestra in the world), presents the listener with a Mahler 5 that is unlike any other.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Mahler's Fifth was one of the pieces Leonard Bernstein owned. This interpretation is broader than the one he recorded with the New York Philharmonic in the early 1960s, but it's little changed in feeling. It is, however, far more polished and a good deal more persuasive. The recording, like all of Bernstein's later Mahler cycle, was made live; here, he and the Vienna Philharmonic give a gripping performance full of telling nuance, intensely expressive yet thoroughly controlled. It's a reading both Dionysiac and "Bachic"--as in J. S. Bach, not Bacchus--one in which the impetuous energy of the score is transmitted to the fullest degree, but not at the expense of the extraordinary (for Mahler) contrapuntal detail. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is Bernstein's sureness of touch, his ability to realize the many little expressive gestures that no longer merely draw attention to themselves the way they used to, but add up to something miraculous. The Philharmonic players, with him all the way, contribute many wonderful touches, especially the strings. The recording, made not in Vienna but in Frankfurt's Alte Oper, is solid and has remarkable impact. While the bass is a bit diffuse and the sound stage not the clearest, the image is reasonably detailed and well balanced, the atmosphere good. --Ted Libbey
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