Beethoven, Mahler done with inspiration

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Aug 18, 2006 | by Stephanie von Buchau, CONTRIBUTOR

Beethoven: Symphony No. 6; Symphony No. 2. London Symphony Orchestra; Bernard Haitink, cond. (LSO)

Beethoven: Symphony No. 7; Triple Concerto. London Symphony Orchestra; Bernard Haitink, cond. (LSO)

Haitink has been a fave of mine since I heard him conduct the Shostakovich Tenth at Carnegie Hall in the early 1970s. He doesn't look like much; he doesn't wave, jump around or cry. Yet he has enormous musical integrity, dry wit and obviously the respect of players everywhere.

Why else start yet another Beethoven cycle? And this is going to be a good one, the kind you can recommend for architecture and study -- yet also for warmth and comfort.

In other words, Haitink is neither jaded nor stereotypically Dutch.

The Sixth ("Pastorale") exhibits lightness and sweetness, yet the storm is a drencher. The Seventh (my favorite Beethoven) scoots on those amazing rhythms that earned it the epithet: "apotheosis of the Dance." The Triple Concerto, with relatively unknown soloists, is properly grave and serious.

Mahler: Symphony No. 1; Songs of a Wayfarer. London Philharmonic Orchestra; Klaus Tennstedt, cond. (BBC Radio 3)

The late Klaus Tennstedt was probably overly praised for his neurasthenic, Bernstein-like approach to music making, yet live recordings, like this one from the BBC in 1985, are sometimes so compelling that you forgive the self-aggrandizing craziness.

There are many unexpectedly wonderful Mahler Firsts (Suitner and Kegel come to mind) and this one belongs with them.

The opening nature rustling gets your nerves tingling and the big tune ("Ging heut'morgen") sets your feet tapping.

Tennstedt's climaxes build to ecstatic, spine-tingling rapture. To whet our appetite, Thomas Hampson first sings the "Wayfarer Songs" Mahler employed in the symphony.

Mahler: Symphony No. 2. Vienna Philharmonic; Pierre Boulez, cond. (Deutsche Grammophon)

Who woulda thunk that grumpy ("Burn down the opera houses"), old avant garde composer Pierre Boulez would turn into the greatest Mahler conductor alive? His Third (DG) and this magnificent Second are as good as it gets on discs.

Forget all that tearing a passion to tatters a la Bernstein. Boulez hasn't a phony showbiz bone in his body.

Mahler's music is presented as only a real composer could do it - - architecture and structure like steel, but the whole thing singing with such heartfelt tempos, balances and orchestral detail that it makes you want to cry.

Michelle DeYoung and Christine Schaefer are the inspired soloists; the Singverein is still the world's best Mahler chorus; and DG's engineers have managed to get 99 percent of that heaven- storming finale onto a single four-inch disc. Sensational.

Mahler: Symphony No. 6. Henze: Sebastian im Traum. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Mariss Jansons, cond. (RCO Live)

Generally, I don't get Jansons' message, but I tried this disc because of the Hans Werner Henze world premiere piece. Like Berkeley's John Adams, the 80-year-old German composer floats my boat with big orchestral works.

This "Salzburg Nocturne," based on a poem by the Expressionist Georg Trakl -- how snooty of RCO Live not to translate it -- is so assured it's almost inevitable. Henze uses his thematic materials to render states of pain, longing, beauty and thoughtfulness, contemporary but timeless.

I'll keep the album for this piece, but the Mahler Sixth, often a hard slog, is given an objectively live-wire performance.

All that "Almschi" stuff, instead of being tiresomely lugubrious, is fiery, passionate and totally (dare I say it?) entertaining. Plus, the RCO is one of the world's finest Mahler instruments.