Benjamin Zander and the Philharmonia's recording of Mahler's First Symphony coupled with his "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" sung by baritone Christopher Maltman is not only the best Mahler's First in decades, it is one of the great recorded performances. Yes, sometimes it is almost a little bit too much. The parody woodwinds in the music do get close to vulgarity in the slow movement, and the sweeping strings of the finale's second theme are just this side of movie music. But surely they are defensible in view of the ...
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Benjamin Zander and the Philharmonia's recording of Mahler's First Symphony coupled with his "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" sung by baritone Christopher Maltman is not only the best Mahler's First in decades, it is one of the great recorded performances. Yes, sometimes it is almost a little bit too much. The parody woodwinds in the music do get close to vulgarity in the slow movement, and the sweeping strings of the finale's second theme are just this side of movie music. But surely they are defensible in view of the expressive markings in Mahler's score, and, more importantly, they are justified by the wonderfully expressive lyricism of the opening movements and by the incredibly explosive drama of the finale's development and recapitulation. Indeed, sometimes being a little bit too much is the essence of Mahler's irony and tragedy, and one gets the sense that Zander understands this and encourages his musicians to go beyond merely playing the music to flat-out performing it. This is a full-blooded...
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