The Budapest Festival Orchestra celebrates its 30th anniversary next year. In anticipation it has released a new recording of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 — the “Titan” — on Channel Classics with founding music director Iván Fischer.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
I have to admit that I tossed the album aside after the first listen. I thought Fischer was trying too hard, oversaturating the air with highlighted detail in Mahler’s very, very crowded score.
But then I had a long conversation with a professional musician friend who was passing through town. He pointed out to me that the music that works with a modern audience is not music that is true to a particular tradition but music that reflects the time and place in which it is being performed.
He pointed out how a 17th century costume drama film made in the 1950s is as much about the 1950s as about the era it is supposed to reflect. When we see Les Misérables on the big screen soon, it will be as much about the 21st century as about the filthy underbelly of a big 18th century city.
And so it is with Fischer’s ultra-high-definition Mahler. The opening section, which depicts the world coming to life in the morning is the sonic equivalent of watching something on the National Geographic Channel with a 55-inch TV.
It is overwhelming. The ear doesn’t know where to turn. But then one begins to listen to the horns here, the oboe there, the cellos over there. And then one listens to the same spot again and hears something very different. It is a scene that, although familiar, sounds a bit different time with every passage — not much different from the city streets we navigate every day.
The second movement opens in a slow, sensual dance that suspends time even as it lilts gently forward.
The crashing, banging, clanging final movement, the one that infuriated the audience at its premiere in Budapest in 1889 and caused Mahler’s friends to turn away in the street, is a wonder-filled study in how to get a lot of volume from a large orchestra while still maintaining an almost unnatural clarity.
It’s Fischer’s busyness that speaks so directly to our time-challenged lives. It’s the power of his musical vision that causes us to stop and go, oh, wow, what was that? And I guess that’s what we need.
But that doesn’t stop me from finding the whole thing a bit too garish for my tastes.
You can find out all the details, listen to samples (as if that works with Mahler) and get a variety of downloads here.
And here is Fischer giving us a bit of background from the recording sessions at Budapest’s Festival Hall last fall:
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
