{"id":10532,"date":"2013-03-12T09:24:48","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T14:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=10532"},"modified":"2013-03-12T09:24:48","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T14:24:48","slug":"album-review-zubin-mehtas-rich-and-satisfying-gurrelieder-with-israel-philharmonic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/03\/12\/album-review-zubin-mehtas-rich-and-satisfying-gurrelieder-with-israel-philharmonic\/","title":{"rendered":"Album review: Zubin Mehta&#8217;s rich and satisfying Gurrelieder with Israel Philharmonic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/gurrelieder.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-10533\" alt=\"gurrelieder\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/gurrelieder.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/gurrelieder.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/gurrelieder-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/gurrelieder-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>Operatic in scope, Arnold Schoenberg&#8217;s <em>Gurrelieder<\/em> cantata scares presenters away because of the cost of the big orchestra, chorus and soloists. The composer&#8217;s name scares away those people who don&#8217;t realise this is young, tonal Schoenberg writing the apotheosis of late-Romantic Germanic music.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>That means we don&#8217;t hear this masterpiece nearly enough. So all the more reason to snap up this great recording.<\/p>\n<p>The work had its premiere 100 years ago in Vienna. Unlike the <em>Rite of Spring<\/em>&#8216;s in Paris, this premiere was rapturous. And an all-stops-pulled performance like this one by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Philharmonic Choir, the Gary Bertini Israel Choir, six great soloists and conductor Zubin Mehta is a fantastic way to recapture that feeling a century later.<\/p>\n<p>The poetry by Danish author Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847-1885) tells of the doomed love of 14th century Danish King Valdemar IV for his mistress, who is eventually murdered by his wife, Queen Helvig.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the history is accurate or not, Schoenberg&#8217;s complex, harmonically slippery setting of these verses, capped with impossibly long melodies, is absolutely gripping from beginning to end of this 100-minute supersized melodrama.<\/p>\n<p>Mehta is masterful at marshalling the massive forces involved in this recording, and yet providing the sound with a compelling clarity and remarkably relaxed pace.<\/p>\n<p>This 2-CD set concludes with a golden moment of respite: Schoenberg&#8217;s <em>Verkl\u00e4rte Nacht<\/em>, from 1899.<\/p>\n<p>The only downside to this Helicon Classics album is the absence of any background notes. You can find out a tiny bit more about the album and catch a few audio samples <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heliconclassics.com\/9658\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Operatic in scope, Arnold Schoenberg&#8217;s Gurrelieder cantata scares presenters away because of the cost of the big orchestra, chorus and soloists. The composer&#8217;s name scares away those people who don&#8217;t realise this is young, tonal Schoenberg writing the apotheosis of late-Romantic Germanic music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,11,77,36,51,52,56,60,70],"tags":[206,1498,1542,1644,6471,2953,3654],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/gurrelieder.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-2JS","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10532"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}