Listen to Michael Gielen’s new recording of the Mahler Third and you’ll once again be struck by how radical a piece this is. What could the premiere audience possibly have made of its six movements (the first lasting more than 30 minutes), the wildly disparate musical elements, and those deliciously raw and uncouth sounds? It’s these very sounds that Gielen revels in, for he, like no other conductor since Bernstein, shies not one wit away from the music’s coarse and vulgar elements. Whether it’s the sneering, in-your-face trombone glissandos as Pan Awakens in the first movement, or the squealing woodwinds in the circus-band march of the development, or the stark clarinet and oboe portamentos accompanying the serious and somber “O mensch” of the fourth movement, Gielen holds his (and Mahler’s) ground quite firmly. But let’s not forget that this piece also contains much beautiful music as well, which the Baden-Baden orchestra explores with great affection and tenderness, as well as power and showmanship.
The brass playing is bright and bold (though the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony remain unmatched in passages like the Scherzo’s big “laughing” downward scale), while the strings are sweetly radiant in Gielen’s poignant and beautifully paced adagio finale. A slight glitch at the beginning of the fifth movement, where the boys’ choir and bells are briefly out of sync, reminds us that this is a live recording (the sound is somewhat diffuse until you pump up the volume, then everything coheres nicely).
Gielen closes the program with a musical “montage” interspersing Schubert’s Rosamunde music with Webern’s Six Pieces for Orchestra–an attempt to portray both works as “more or less the same thing or as deeply kindred.” It’ll be up to each listener to decide if Gielen was successful in his rather silly aim, but he performs both compositions probingly–and with each movement separately tracked you’re perfectly free to “de-montage” as much as you like. [2/27/2001]
