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*Fanfare* meta-list for recommended classical music recordings, 2009
Every November I scour the critics' "Want Lists" from Fanfare, my favorite classical music periodical. Then I go and spend a lot of money. Here is the list of all the new recordings, from 2009, which were mentioned by more than one critic:
1. Mahler's 4th, conducted by Ivan Fischer.
2. John Adams, Doctor Atomic Symphony.
3. Mahler: The Complete Symphonies, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, remastered edition.
4. Kurtag's Ghosts, by Kurtag and Formenti.
5. John Adams, Transmigration of Souls, and other works conducted by Robert Spano.
6. Oppens Plays Carter, by Ursula Oppens.
Of that list, #6 received the most selections. Here are the meta-list picks from last year, all of which turned out to be excellent, if you like that sort of thing that is. I hope to be passing along more meta-lists soon.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 11, 2009 at 02:43 PM in Music | Permalink
Comments
I find Mahler to be a frustrating composer at times. He was sort of a gasbag who needed 20 minutes to produce an effect composers of greater talents might have produced in two minutes. This is why Mahler's symphonies tend to be so interminable. The notes don't have that feeling of necessity and inevitability. Consider the third symphony. It's an absolute mess! It's the longest symphony ever written AND he had to cut out a movement. This movement he cut out, by the way, he made the final movement of the fourth symphony. So the third and fourth symphonies are both based around the song ""Das himmlische Leben." Why not base the fourth symphony around something else? Possibly because Mahler wasn't creative enough to come up something else. He was not a melodic genius.
That said though, I think the fourth symphony is brilliant, especially the final movement.
I also adore the Resurrection Symphony. Many times I think he's so brilliant but then I'm confronted with something like the last movement of his Fifth symphony and I'm astounded by what a boring gasbag he could be.
Posted by: abe at Nov 11, 2009 3:56:40 PM
Ivan Fischer and the Budapest are extraordinary. If one is going to acquire just one Mahler CD, let it be their Fourth. I'm also thrilled by their brand-new recording of the Brahms First Symphony, which no tenured professor or otherwise securely employed person should be without, and also by their Beethoven 7th. Great performances; also great engineering by Channel Classics, which deserves gratitude for taking a chance on this unknown group in the first place and lavishing its finest resources on them.
I love Mahler, by the way, but that's a separate issue. The point here is that nobody today plays his music with more insight, musicianship, devotion, and inspiration than these remarkable Hungarians, for whom making music is the opposite of being just a job. Their recording of Mahler's Symphony #2 is equally great. As is their recording of his 6th (the "Tragic")
The "Tragic" 6th is problematic for me: it is both the most tightly constructed Mahler symphony and the one I can least bear, emotionally, to spend time with. It is a powerful anti-anti-depressant; after I hear it I can't get the themes out of my head, and it makes my life worse. But Fischer regards it as his greatest.
Me, I prefer the crazily inclusive sprawl and folk-infused wildness of #3, maligned by the previous commenter but adored by me, and I hope Fischer and crew do it someday! Meanwhile there are such people as Leonard Bernstein and Jascha Horenstein to make the musical case for #3.
Posted by: beedy at Nov 11, 2009 10:33:25 PM
Dr. Atomic is, not surprisingly given the title, a bit over-the-top. I'm a huge Adams fan but this isn't him at his best. If I bit on the Bernstein Mahler set I think it would be the third time I've purchased Bernstein's Mahler cycle. I can't anymore. I am intrigued by the new recording of "On the Transmigration of Souls" -- I own the first recording and apart from the feeling of being rip-off by paying full price for 25 or so minutes of music it is one of my favorite recordings.
Posted by: Roberto at Nov 12, 2009 6:17:16 AM
Oppens is fantastic, I will have to check that one out. Her "American Piano Music of Our Time" is one of my very favorite contemporary classical recordings.
Posted by: Azazello at Nov 12, 2009 11:13:35 AM
