Well said, Mister Moore. Klemperer was my pathway into Mahler. He was great: along with Kurt Sanderling and Furtwangler, my favourite conductor.
By the way, Lee, the Koboyashi is fantastic. The trumpets wailing away at the end of the Scherzo are reminiscent of the Neumann Czech recording.
Your survey urged me to listen to the Klemperer recording for the first time, Lee. It is baffling yet strangely compelling - even addictive - especially as the playing from the New Phiharmonia is so beautiful and the conductor obviously knows exactly what he is doing and intends us to pay attention. I think you were right to leave it ungraded and as a wild card; it is one of those recordings you come back to every so often. The symphony itself is so weird and offbeat that there is no reason why it shouldn't get that treatment. There are so many grand, momentous passages in the recording - the first movement from twenty minutes onward is like no other interpretation.
Yes, I agree with you about Klaus Tennstedt and Mahler's Sixth Symphony. I saw him conduct it twice in London with the LPO on two consecutive seasons (neither of which were broadcast) around 1987/88, both of which I consider up there amongst the greatest concerts I have been privileged to attend. If memory serves correct, the second concert was performed the same month as Rattle conducted the same work (also at the Royal Festival Hall) with the Philharmonia, another fine concert that I also attended (well, I was young, had a bit of cash and no family to support!), but very much in the shadow of Tennstedt's. What I find especially intriguing is how Tennstedt's interpretation suddenly changed as he got older (as did Kubelik, as well as Gielen), plus as often as Tennstedt conducted the Sixth, he hardly ever tackled the Ninth .....
Also completely agree about the live Tennstedt: WOW! I had the privilege of attending an LPO concert he conducted in Melbourne in the 80's - Mahler 6. It was something else!~
Readers may be interested to know that we are shortly to publish a further Mahler Symphony Conspectus to add to those already of the First Symphony (http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2022/Feb/Mahler-sy1-survey-LD.pdf), the Fourth Symphony (http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2020/Oct/Mahler-sy4-update.pdf), as well as Das Lied von der Erde (http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2020/Jun/Mahler-Erde-survey.pdf). The aim of these Surveys were to update our late colleague, Tony Duggan's own writings on the music, published over ten years ago.
We would therefore welcome any comments, thoughts and suggestions or otherwise with regards to it here - the purpose of this message is to be able to embed it in the survey, hence it appearing a couple of days beforehand.
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