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Mahler 4 with Mengelberg
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Gerard
Feb 12, 2021, 10:36:34 AM2/12/21
to
The Willem Mengelberg Society has issued a double cd with recordings of
works by Mahler and Strauss, Concertgebouw Orchestra. Major work is
Mahler's symphony 4, recorded in 1939.
I've heard a few movements on a local radio station. The sound of this
re-remastering is absolutely amazing.
The set can beordered at
https://www.willemmengelberg.nl/?q=content/nieuwe-dubbel-cd-met-opnamen-van-mahler-en-strauss
Snippets can be heard at
https://www.willemmengelberg.nl/?q=content/mahler-symphony-no-4
works by Mahler and Strauss, Concertgebouw Orchestra. Major work is
Mahler's symphony 4, recorded in 1939.
I've heard a few movements on a local radio station. The sound of this
re-remastering is absolutely amazing.
The set can beordered at
https://www.willemmengelberg.nl/?q=content/nieuwe-dubbel-cd-met-opnamen-van-mahler-en-strauss
Snippets can be heard at
https://www.willemmengelberg.nl/?q=content/mahler-symphony-no-4
Frank Berger
Feb 12, 2021, 11:24:43 AM2/12/21
to
Oscar
Feb 12, 2021, 7:43:22 PM2/12/21
to
On Friday, February 12, 2021 at 8:24:43 AM, Frank Berger wrote:
>
> I'm not discounting your impression, Herman.
You just called Gerard 'herman', Frank. Do they all look alike to you??
>
> I'm not discounting your impression, Herman.
Message has been deleted
Oscar
Feb 12, 2021, 8:34:54 PM2/12/21
to
Just listened to Mengelberg's Mahler 4 two nights on on the old Philips transfer. What a glorious recording that may never be topped. I will be ordering this as soon as I can figure out _how_ to order it. Do I have to send a bank transfer?? Do they not accept Dogecoin?
After I played the Mahler 4 I checked on Qobuz for other Mengelberg discs I may not have listened to (I've heard most of 'em), and there is a 'new' remastering of the Mengelberg Beethoven Symphonies integrale by one Alexandre Bak of 'Classical Music Reference Recording'. Digital-only, and available on Qobuz, AppleMusic and emusic. On Qobuz I listened at 44.1 kHz/16-bit resolution. Lots of fake reverb. At any rate, for those curious, here's the link. Uploads went up in December 2020:
https://www.emusic.com/label/1561413/Alexandre-Bak---Classical-Music-Reference-Recording
Also, by the by, erstwhile rmcr-er Henry Fogel contributed a fine review of Frits Zwart's new 1,354 pps. Mengelberg biography. A new paperback printing has arrived; the cloth-bound first printing was upward of US$250.
<< For those music lovers who have a strong interest in Willem Mengelberg’s conducting and for those who have an interest in the intersection of music and politics around the advent of Hitler and the Third Reich, these two volumes are essential reading. Frits Zwart has done an enormous amount of research, and documented it well. The picture he paints of Mengelberg is not a pretty one. Anyone naïve enough to hold on to the feeling that artistic ability somehow signifies a humane and generous person will be sufficiently disillusioned. At the same time, however, Zwart conveys his own regard, and that of the music world’s, for Mengelberg’s conducting.
No doubt reading such a massive biography is a chore––1,143 pages constitutes the narrative, and the remaining 186 pages are detailed appendices. One appendix is a 65-page listing of his entire repertoire, which is much broader than we might guess from what he recorded. Another is devoted to the works of Mahler that Mengelberg conducted between 1904 and 1949. It makes one heartsick that only the Fourth Symphony, the Adagietto from the Fifth, and Songs of a Wayfarer survive on disc. The lack of vision among record company executives has deprived us of a veritable treasure trove of other Mahler under a conductor very close to the composer. Just in the era of electrical recording, beginning in 1925, Mengelberg led performances of Symphonies Nos. 1–5 and 7–10, as well as multiple performances of Das Lied von der Erde. We are told in the narrative of the extraordinary reactions of German musicians and critics to Mengelberg’s way with Das Lied, which makes one ache to experience it, all the more because some performances were with the great Dutch Heldentenor Jacques Urlus and Kerstin Thorborg (not together, but I’d be thrilled with either).
We have always known of Mengelberg as one of Mahler’s principal supporters, and his 1939 broadcast of the Fourth Symphony goes into my pantheon of the greatest recordings ever made. Zwart gives us much detail and texture about the relationship between the two, which began in 1902 when Mengelberg was first introduced to the Third Symphony. He described Mahler as “the Beethoven of our time” and supported him and his music until the end of his career.
Zwart does not shy away from the difficult parts of Mengelberg’s personality: a childish vanity, a stubborn unwillingness to consider the feelings of others (disguised by the conductor and his supporters as “high standards”), and most seriously his blindness about the Nazis. This is something we have always known but not in the detail given here. Mengelberg defended the Third Reich even while aware of what it was doing to Jews. Although he acted to save Jewish musicians and others who approached him, Mengelberg seemed to isolate those compassionate acts into their own corner of his brain while he continued to declare that the German takeover of the Netherlands was a good thing. What makes his stance even more inexplicable is that despite Mengelberg’s passionate support of Mahler, and the fact that the Nazi authorities totally banned performances of Mahler’s music, the conductor found a way to compartmentalize the two things.
We also get incredible detail about the last period in Mengelberg’s life, after he was banished by the Dutch for his treasonable support of the German occupation, which led to heartbreaking attempts by him and his supporters to explain away his actions. Even if you don’t have a strong interest in Mengelberg the conductor, these chapters are remarkable for how much they reveal about what life was like during the war and the post-war era. Ironically, the very last concert Mengelberg ever conducted was a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on June 21, 1944, with the Paris Radio Orchestra. It had been added to his tour under orders from the Wehrmacht, and German soldiers filled the hall.
These two volumes provide a wealth of information about musical life during the first half of the 20th century. The reactions of other artists to Mengelberg (and his to them) provide a good deal of insight. They also demonstrate the self-absorbed and self-serving behavior of the conductor, who often played the New York Philharmonic and the Concertgebouw Orchestra off against each other while he was Music Director of both orchestras and both wanted more of his time. His approach to conflict was to run from it, frequently by simply not responding to people’s requests.
For me there is one shortcoming in Zwart’s work: He deals only tangentially with Mengelberg’s recordings. The Mengelberg discography is one of the most important ones from the first half of the 20th century, and a particularly dramatic example of a style of performance that largely vanished after World War II. In such a thorough examination of Mengelberg I would have expected a much greater attention to, and analysis of, those recordings––or at least a description of the inestimable importance they hold today, which could have been tied in with a description of the recording process in the earliest days of gramophone technology. But there is precious little.
That aside, Zwart’s account makes fascinating reading and is well worth the considerable investment in time that reading more than 1,000 pages will require. Zwart’s work will probably not change your opinion of Mengelberg. I continue to admire his conducting enormously, and at the same time find some aspects of his personality repulsive. This compendious biography makes clear the complexity of the man and helps us understand, if we did not already, that people are complicated beings. Those with special talent are even more so.
— Henry Fogel, Fanfare Archive >>
After I played the Mahler 4 I checked on Qobuz for other Mengelberg discs I may not have listened to (I've heard most of 'em), and there is a 'new' remastering of the Mengelberg Beethoven Symphonies integrale by one Alexandre Bak of 'Classical Music Reference Recording'. Digital-only, and available on Qobuz, AppleMusic and emusic. On Qobuz I listened at 44.1 kHz/16-bit resolution. Lots of fake reverb. At any rate, for those curious, here's the link. Uploads went up in December 2020:
https://www.emusic.com/label/1561413/Alexandre-Bak---Classical-Music-Reference-Recording
Also, by the by, erstwhile rmcr-er Henry Fogel contributed a fine review of Frits Zwart's new 1,354 pps. Mengelberg biography. A new paperback printing has arrived; the cloth-bound first printing was upward of US$250.
<< For those music lovers who have a strong interest in Willem Mengelberg’s conducting and for those who have an interest in the intersection of music and politics around the advent of Hitler and the Third Reich, these two volumes are essential reading. Frits Zwart has done an enormous amount of research, and documented it well. The picture he paints of Mengelberg is not a pretty one. Anyone naïve enough to hold on to the feeling that artistic ability somehow signifies a humane and generous person will be sufficiently disillusioned. At the same time, however, Zwart conveys his own regard, and that of the music world’s, for Mengelberg’s conducting.
No doubt reading such a massive biography is a chore––1,143 pages constitutes the narrative, and the remaining 186 pages are detailed appendices. One appendix is a 65-page listing of his entire repertoire, which is much broader than we might guess from what he recorded. Another is devoted to the works of Mahler that Mengelberg conducted between 1904 and 1949. It makes one heartsick that only the Fourth Symphony, the Adagietto from the Fifth, and Songs of a Wayfarer survive on disc. The lack of vision among record company executives has deprived us of a veritable treasure trove of other Mahler under a conductor very close to the composer. Just in the era of electrical recording, beginning in 1925, Mengelberg led performances of Symphonies Nos. 1–5 and 7–10, as well as multiple performances of Das Lied von der Erde. We are told in the narrative of the extraordinary reactions of German musicians and critics to Mengelberg’s way with Das Lied, which makes one ache to experience it, all the more because some performances were with the great Dutch Heldentenor Jacques Urlus and Kerstin Thorborg (not together, but I’d be thrilled with either).
We have always known of Mengelberg as one of Mahler’s principal supporters, and his 1939 broadcast of the Fourth Symphony goes into my pantheon of the greatest recordings ever made. Zwart gives us much detail and texture about the relationship between the two, which began in 1902 when Mengelberg was first introduced to the Third Symphony. He described Mahler as “the Beethoven of our time” and supported him and his music until the end of his career.
Zwart does not shy away from the difficult parts of Mengelberg’s personality: a childish vanity, a stubborn unwillingness to consider the feelings of others (disguised by the conductor and his supporters as “high standards”), and most seriously his blindness about the Nazis. This is something we have always known but not in the detail given here. Mengelberg defended the Third Reich even while aware of what it was doing to Jews. Although he acted to save Jewish musicians and others who approached him, Mengelberg seemed to isolate those compassionate acts into their own corner of his brain while he continued to declare that the German takeover of the Netherlands was a good thing. What makes his stance even more inexplicable is that despite Mengelberg’s passionate support of Mahler, and the fact that the Nazi authorities totally banned performances of Mahler’s music, the conductor found a way to compartmentalize the two things.
We also get incredible detail about the last period in Mengelberg’s life, after he was banished by the Dutch for his treasonable support of the German occupation, which led to heartbreaking attempts by him and his supporters to explain away his actions. Even if you don’t have a strong interest in Mengelberg the conductor, these chapters are remarkable for how much they reveal about what life was like during the war and the post-war era. Ironically, the very last concert Mengelberg ever conducted was a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on June 21, 1944, with the Paris Radio Orchestra. It had been added to his tour under orders from the Wehrmacht, and German soldiers filled the hall.
These two volumes provide a wealth of information about musical life during the first half of the 20th century. The reactions of other artists to Mengelberg (and his to them) provide a good deal of insight. They also demonstrate the self-absorbed and self-serving behavior of the conductor, who often played the New York Philharmonic and the Concertgebouw Orchestra off against each other while he was Music Director of both orchestras and both wanted more of his time. His approach to conflict was to run from it, frequently by simply not responding to people’s requests.
For me there is one shortcoming in Zwart’s work: He deals only tangentially with Mengelberg’s recordings. The Mengelberg discography is one of the most important ones from the first half of the 20th century, and a particularly dramatic example of a style of performance that largely vanished after World War II. In such a thorough examination of Mengelberg I would have expected a much greater attention to, and analysis of, those recordings––or at least a description of the inestimable importance they hold today, which could have been tied in with a description of the recording process in the earliest days of gramophone technology. But there is precious little.
That aside, Zwart’s account makes fascinating reading and is well worth the considerable investment in time that reading more than 1,000 pages will require. Zwart’s work will probably not change your opinion of Mengelberg. I continue to admire his conducting enormously, and at the same time find some aspects of his personality repulsive. This compendious biography makes clear the complexity of the man and helps us understand, if we did not already, that people are complicated beings. Those with special talent are even more so.
— Henry Fogel, Fanfare Archive >>
Message has been deleted
Message has been deleted
Gerard
Feb 13, 2021, 5:39:31 AM2/13/21
to
Op 2021-02-13 om 02:34 schreef Oscar:
>
> After I played the Mahler 4 I checked on Qobuz for other Mengelberg discs I may not have listened to (I've heard most of 'em), and there is a 'new' remastering of the Mengelberg Beethoven Symphonies integrale by one Alexandre Bak of 'Classical Music Reference Recording'. Digital-only, and available on Qobuz, AppleMusic and emusic. On Qobuz I listened at 44.1 kHz/16-bit resolution. Lots of fake reverb. At any rate, for those curious, here's the link. Uploads went up in December 2020:
Snippets of many recordings by Mengelberg can be heard at the webiste of
that society. I don't know of there are recordings there that got the
same 'treatment' (reremastering) as the Mahler 4 recording.
https://www.willemmengelberg.nl/?q=discografie
> Just listened to Mengelberg's Mahler 4 two nights on on the old Philips transfer. What a glorious recording that may never be topped. I will be ordering this as soon as I can figure out _how_ to order it. Do I have to send a bank transfer??
That is what is told on the website.
>
> After I played the Mahler 4 I checked on Qobuz for other Mengelberg discs I may not have listened to (I've heard most of 'em), and there is a 'new' remastering of the Mengelberg Beethoven Symphonies integrale by one Alexandre Bak of 'Classical Music Reference Recording'. Digital-only, and available on Qobuz, AppleMusic and emusic. On Qobuz I listened at 44.1 kHz/16-bit resolution. Lots of fake reverb. At any rate, for those curious, here's the link. Uploads went up in December 2020:
that society. I don't know of there are recordings there that got the
same 'treatment' (reremastering) as the Mahler 4 recording.
https://www.willemmengelberg.nl/?q=discografie
Gerard
Feb 13, 2021, 5:40:42 AM2/13/21
to
Op 2021-02-12 om 17:24 schreef Frank Berger:
Me too.
I'm not discounting your impression,
> Herman.
?
I'm not discounting your impression,
> Herman.
Néstor Castiglione
Feb 13, 2021, 8:19:30 PM2/13/21
to
Néstor Castiglione
Feb 13, 2021, 8:29:07 PM2/13/21
to
Frank Berger
Feb 13, 2021, 10:07:57 PM2/13/21
to
Oscar
Feb 14, 2021, 12:35:44 AM2/14/21
to
Néstor, I read yr interview w/ Herr Zwart re his Mengelberg bio, which I may just have to order now. I think I will. Great job. Last one I read like this was Tully Potter's 2010 two-volume set on Adolf Busch. Which, frankly, I did not finish. It's on the library rack, though, waiting for me should I ever have the desire.
May 20, 2020:
https://www.echorrhea.com/interviews/frits-zwart-on-mengelberg
Chris J.
Feb 15, 2021, 5:40:18 AM2/15/21
to
On 13 Feb 2021 Néstor Castiglione wrote:
> Geez, they want a bank transfer...
Shocking! They have a bank account, you have a bank account (I assume),
> Geez, they want a bank transfer...
so why transfer money directly from bank account to bank account if you
could use a separate payment service provider? :)
But if you don't want to transfer the sum or don't think the recordings
are worth the money, you can listen on-line to the Mahler 4 or download
the files (320 kb/s mp3).
https://https://www.willemmengelberg.nl/sites/default/files/opnames/
mahler-symphony_nr_4_(09-11-39)_01-bedachtig._nicht_eilen_-
_recht_gemachlich.mp3
https://www.willemmengelberg.nl//sites/default/files/opnames/mahler-
symphony_nr_4_(09-11-39)_02-in_gemachlicher_bewegung._ohne_hast.mp3
https://www.willemmengelberg.nl/sites/default/files/opnames/mahler-
symphony_nr_4_(09-11-39)_03-ruhevoll._poco_adagio.mp3
https://www.willemmengelberg.nl/sites/default/files/opnames/mahler-
symphony_nr_4_(09-11-39)_04-sehr_behaglich.mp3
Nice performance, poor sound (as expected of a 1939 recording), coughing
audience, and a soprano who doesn't quite understand how to sing this
music (in my humble opinion), something she has in common with numerous
colleagues.
Chris
Frank Berger
Feb 15, 2021, 8:27:43 AM2/15/21
to
On 2/15/2021 5:40 AM, Chris J. wrote:
> On 13 Feb 2021 Néstor Castiglione wrote:
>
>> Geez, they want a bank transfer...
>
> Shocking! They have a bank account, you have a bank account (I assume),
> so why transfer money directly from bank account to bank account if you
> could use a separate payment service provider? :)
>
The joke is on you, of course. If everyone felt, as you seem to, that is was so much easier just to do a bank transfer, then there would be no third-party payment providers.
> On 13 Feb 2021 Néstor Castiglione wrote:
>
>> Geez, they want a bank transfer...
>
> Shocking! They have a bank account, you have a bank account (I assume),
> so why transfer money directly from bank account to bank account if you
> could use a separate payment service provider? :)
>
drh8h
Feb 15, 2021, 1:01:17 PM2/15/21
to
DH
Herman
Feb 15, 2021, 1:44:38 PM2/15/21
to
On Monday, February 15, 2021 at 7:01:17 PM UTC+1, drh8h wrote:
> Bank transfers to foreign countries are generally very expensive. When I was still a working stiff, they cost us, the bank, about $60. We only charged the customer $45 just to be competitive. I have no idea what the going rate is today.
>
> DH
Virtually nil
> Bank transfers to foreign countries are generally very expensive. When I was still a working stiff, they cost us, the bank, about $60. We only charged the customer $45 just to be competitive. I have no idea what the going rate is today.
>
> DH
Frank Berger
Feb 15, 2021, 2:29:28 PM2/15/21
to
Néstor Castiglione
Feb 15, 2021, 4:31:32 PM2/15/21
to
Chris J.
Feb 16, 2021, 4:03:30 AM2/16/21
to
On 15 Feb 2021 drh8h wrote:
> Bank transfers to foreign countries are generally very expensive. When I
> was still a working stiff, they cost us, the bank, about $60. We only
> charged the customer $45 just to be competitive. I have no idea what the
> going rate is today.
It depends on where you live.
> Bank transfers to foreign countries are generally very expensive. When I
> was still a working stiff, they cost us, the bank, about $60. We only
> charged the customer $45 just to be competitive. I have no idea what the
> going rate is today.
https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-finance/
consumer-finance-and-payments/payment-services/single-euro-payments-area-
sepa_en
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-products-and-
services/payments-transfers-cheques/index_en.htm
Direct bank transfers are a common way to pay bills, wages etc. in
numerous EU and other European countries and have been for ages. So-
called giro services have even been in existence since long before WWII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giro
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bank_Account_Number
"The banks of most countries in Europe publish account numbers using both
the IBAN format and the nationally recognised identifiers, this being
mandatory within the European Economic Area."
Chris
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