Mahler: Symphony No. 9
London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev
Awards:
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Presto Recording of the Week, 5th September 2011
Gergiev paces and balances [the opening's] unfolding finely, from halting start via macabre climax to nostalgic fade-out. The ensuing Landler movement duly comes as a shock as Mahler doubtless...
Mahler: Symphony No. 9
London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev
Purchase product
Awards:
-
Presto Recording of the Week, 5th September 2011
Gergiev paces and balances [the opening's] unfolding finely, from halting start via macabre climax to nostalgic fade-out. The ensuing Landler movement duly comes as a shock as Mahler doubtless...
About
The final release in Valery Gergiev’s acclaimed Mahler cycle features the composer’s Symphony No 9, recorded at the Barbican in March 2011.
Mahler’s wrote his Ninth Symphony during a time of great personal suffering and heartache. This is reflected in the music, at times manic and fierce, at others delicate and serene, as it explores many emotions and ultimately concludes with the heart-stopping coda of the Adagio, seemingly conveying the composer’s acceptance of his own mortality.
In addition to his recordings of Mahler’s symphonies, Gergiev’s other recent releases on LSO Live have included acclaimed recordings of music by Debussy, Ravel and Rachmaninov as well as Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet which recently won Disc of the Year at the BBC Music Magazine Awards.
Forthcoming releases on the Mariinsky label, which is managed on behalf of the Mariinsky Theatre by LSO Live, include Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, conducted by Valery Gergiev and featuring Natalie Dessay in the title role alongside Piotr Beczala and Ilya Bannik. The Mariinsky label also releases its first DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs in October.
CONCERT REVIEWS
“from the rosy vein struck by the strings to the honed gestures of the woodwind, here was an orchestra at one with itself and its Director” The Guardian
“Gergiev’s reading was both valid and deeply moving. Finally all tears were wiped away, all coughing silenced, in a breathless,peerlessly executed coda [Adagio]” Evening Standard
“There’s nothing on the classical circuit that quite compares to the full Valery Gergiev experience. Gergiev’s pacing of the Adagio ... felt absolutely right. And the LSO fiddles played majestically for him” The Times
Contents and tracklist
Spotlight on this release
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Gergiev and the LSO conclude their Mahler cycle
5th Sep 2011
The Russian conductor’s painstaking attention to tiny issues of orchestral balance and uncharacteristic willingness to allow the music breathing-space make for a tremendously moving Ninth Symphony.
Awards and reviews
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Presto Recording of the Week5th September 2011
November 2011
Gergiev paces and balances [the opening's] unfolding finely, from halting start via macabre climax to nostalgic fade-out. The ensuing Landler movement duly comes as a shock as Mahler doubtless intended...The sardonic contrapuntal capers of the Rondo Burleske third movement are also played for force here...Thereafter, the reading comes back into focus, with the climax passionately delivered and an unfailing concentration in those infinitely drawn-out dying bars.
November 2011
The LSO's lustrous, ultra-secure paying reaches astonishing virtuoso heights in the 'Rondo Burleske' Scherzo. And Gergiev unfolds Mahler's huge four-movement structure with masterly grip and command...If you like your Mahler to be a sumptuous feast of sound, look no further. If you want to be taken to the music's expressive heart, look elsewhere.
November 2011
His conception remains pushy, extrovert and darkly opaque, the horns glowering menacingly even in moments of repose...The band displays both its corporate dexterity and its famous ability to play very loudly indeed. Surface detail is tangibly immediate, the vivid yet shallow sound stage reinforcing the impression that we are listening to a brilliant concerto for orchestra...such an interpretation will have its admirers - never boring, half-hearted or indecisive
5th September 2011
One of the things that always impresses me most about Gergiev is his painstaking attention to tiny issues of orchestral balance, and this is very much in evidence here, particularly in the first movement...The very end of the symphony, as it dies away to nothing, is deeply affecting, with the LSO strings excelling themselves in the hushed tones they bring to the final pages.
8th September 2011
despite typically swift speeds, there's none of the haste that some have disliked in Gergiev's Mahler. Interpretatively, however, you will either love or loathe it. It's an unusually panicky account of a work generally considered to be about mortality and resignation...The inner movements bristle with existential alarm, and the exhausted collapse at the height of the Rondo Burleske is particularly well done.
