Mahler: Symphony No. 2 Resurrection / Klemperer

Ilona Steingruber · Hilde Rössl-Majdan; Akademie Kammerchor; Wiener Symphoniker; conducted by Otto Klemperer

Gustav Mahler 1860-1911: Symphony No.2 in C minor, 'Resurrection'

Wholenote Discoveries - November 2010
A Mahler Second from May 18, 1951 conducted by Otto Klemperer with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Akademie Kammerchor, and Ilona Steingruber and Hilde Rössl-Majdan. Sound familiar? A performance involving all the above, recorded in the same month was issued by Vox in the early 1950s. Testament states that their performance is previously unpublished. This is a monumental realisation that belongs in the pantheon of Mahler performances. Disc one contains a 2010 meticulous remastering which sounds quite robust in clarity and dynamics. Disc two takes this new remastering and subjects it to “Ambient Mastering that utilises very small frequency delays to give a sense of space and width to a mono, or very narrow stereo.” I was rather doubtful about the efficacy of this process but there was now air around the instruments, tuttis were opened up and individual instruments were more discernable. The recording was easier on the ears and more immediate and based on this example, this is a very effective and worthwhile process. The 2CDs are issued at a reduced price. Bruce Surtees

Klemperer once called Mahler his creator spiritus. But he told his biographer Peter Heyworth, "I'm not a silly, enthusiastic boy: I don't like everything he wrote". Despite having assisted the composer at a performance, Klemperer did not care for Mahler's Third Symphony, nor for the Fifth. He gave up the First after just one attempt, and could never quite bring himself to conduct the Sixth or the Eighth - until the end of his life when a London concert of the latter became one of his unrealised fantasies for the New Philharmonia's 1971/72 season.
In autumn 1905, as a student in Berlin, he had conducted the off-stage band for performances of the Second given by Oskar Fried. Mahler himself attended and instructed Klemperer on how to get the proper effect he wanted from the brass - "blaring, but from a long way away". He was pleased with the result and congratulated the young conductor.
A short time later Klemperer played the first movement's off-stage side-drum when Mahler took over from Arthur Nikisch to conduct the Third Symphony in Berlin. Determining now to call on the composer in Vienna for a reference, Klemperer, as visiting card, brought his own piano arrangement of the symphony, playing the Scherzo from memory (a reduction which seems to have been lost during Klemperer's wartime years in America). Mahler wrote to his wife Alma how impressed he was and, eventually, wrote out a most complete testimonial on a visiting card: "Gustav Mahler recommends Herr Klemperer as an outstanding musician, who despite his youth is already very experienced and is predestined for a conductor's career. He vouches for the successful outcome of any probationary appointment..." .
From the booklet note Mike Ashman, 2010

Ambient Mastering utilises very small frequency delays to give a sense of space and width to a mono, or very narrow stereo, recording. The amount of processing is determined by the mastering engineer. No artificial reverberation is added in this process, so that the natural acoustic of the original remains largely unaltered.
Paul Baily - mastering engineer

Price: $29.98