When technological innovations hit the consumer world–like Deutsche Grammophon’s May, 2006 introduction of download-only concert recordings on Apple’s iTunes Music Store–journalists often describe the event as a step into a gleaming future. This download, however, is a return to an unfondly remembered past: It sounds like a typical mediocre DG CD from around 1984–grainy and airless, with glaring high string sound and a tendency to clot up in louder tutti passages, particularly when the winds are involved.
Is it the fault of the music being downloaded as m4p files and then converted to standard audio CD files? I don’t think so. I obtained a much better-sounding DG Concerts recording of the Los Angeles Philharmonic using the same routine. I believe more to blame are the notoriously boxy, unresonant acoustics of Avery Fisher Hall and an orchestra that shows little interest (outside some moments in the G minor symphony) in producing beautiful solo playing or well-blended harmonies. The playing can’t really be called sloppy, but too often phrases end limply and the players rarely bother to play at a true “piano” dynamic where indicated–both bespeak musical apathy.
Maazel’s interpretations of the 39th and 41st symphonies could have been done at any time between the death of Bruno Walter and the rise of the period-performance movement–gray and objective, with little style, wit, or warmth. The 40th is better; here Maazel finds urgency and an undercurrent of tragedy. But as a whole these performances do not rise above the average. Even in the best parts this G minor is no more than equal to many other releases of the 40th, and the two couplings are grim, mediocre affairs. It’s a pity, for at $9.99 for 90 minutes of sound this would be a great bargain, if only it included 90 minutes of superior music-making.
