Search - Mahler - Symphony No. 9 / Claudio Abbado, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Accademia Di Santa Cecilia, Rome on DVD

An Extraordinary, Moving Experience

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 06/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I will admit that I cannot listen to or attend a performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony too often because it leaves me exhilarated but wrung out. And this DVD of a performance with Claudio Abbado conducting the group he founded in 1986, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, has had that effect on me. I was so overwhelmed by it that I had to sit in a dark room, near tears, for fifteen minutes after it had finished in order to regain my composure. Certainly that is the effect the music often has on me, but in this instance there were other factors involved. The GMJO is made up young European musicians (plus, strangely, a couple from Cuba) who have gained admittance to the orchestra via auditions in twenty-five cities across the Continent. Their intense involvement with the music-making is fueled at least partly by their youth and enthusiasm as well as the opportunity for many of them to be playing this masterpiece for the first time. Lest one think that their youth and inexperience lowers their competence in this music, let me guarantee you that their instrumental assurance here is astonishing. Their emotional involvement with the music is almost palpable. In the rhythmic passages -- the Ländler and parts of the Rondo-Burleske, for instance -- they almost literally dance in their seats. In the ecstatic passages, and particularly in the closing pages of the symphony, their concentration, their almost religious fervor is visible. The Ninth has numerous instrumental solo passages and every single one of them is taken with musicianship, subtlety and élan. I would particularly single out the solo horn, bassoon, flute, first violin, cello and viola. The very young-appearing first trumpet played like a god.

After a slightly rough edge in the strings in the first movement, the performance settles in and for most of the following 80+ minutes one hears silken, solid ensemble in strings, winds and brass. Abbado, one of the great conductors now working (and looking healthy in this concert recorded in April 2004, after years of appearing gaunt, almost fragile), conducts without score and clearly is in rare communication with his players. He is one of the few conductors I adore watching. Not only are his gestures impressively clear as regards rhythm and articulation, he communicates the pure emotions of the music through his face and gestures. In Mahler, particularly, this is a plus. And he does it without seeming to dance on the podium. One never doubts what he is feeling and conveying to the orchestra. Fortunately we get to see this via a camera trained on him, but without it becoming a vanity project as it was for his predecessor at the Berlin Philharmonic. Television director Bob Coles and producer Paul Smaczny are pros, and they know how to vary the shots without interfering with the music and indeed the camera movement enhances, in most instances, its flow. In the closing pages of the symphony -- which, as you will recall, is a very gradual, ecstatic diminuendo/decrescendo into nothingness -- the lights on the orchestra are ever so subtly lowered so that the symphony ends in almost complete darkness. This could have been a clumsy, melodramatic maneuver but here it is done so unobtrusively as to be almost subliminal. The effect, though, is to emphasize Mahler's rapt final thoughts.

The performance was recorded at a concert in the visually stunning new hall of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.This is the second Mahler symphony DVD with Abbado. The other, of the Fifth, was with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (which is made up of principals from all over Europe joining with alumni of the GMJO, an ensemble calling themselves the Mahler Chamber Orchestra). It, too, was outstanding. I look forward to more additions to this series, if series it be. These two DVDs make me keen for more.

Very enthusiastically recommended.

1DVD; Sound: PCM Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, or DTS 5.1; TT=84mins

Scott Morrison"

Simply amazing!

Emile Myburgh | Johannesburg, South Africa | 11/26/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The orchestra does not sound like a youth orchestra. If they only released this performance on CD, one would never have guessed it was an ensemble of young people. They sound like a professional orchestra. Personally, I think the principal violist is the best, her solos in the Landler are superb. The best part is however at the end when members of the audience go up to Claudio Abbado, shaking his hand and congratulating him. We cannot hear what they are saying, of course, but we don't need to: "Maestro, it is incredible that you could make these young people play like this!""

Superlative Mahler, Incredible Orchestra

HB | Fort Mill, SC | 01/05/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If ever a composer wrote music for the future, it was Gustav Mahler. While his music is best heard live, it is also extremely enjoyable on CD and even better on DVD, especially when it is played by a great youth orchestra. Too see and hear all these good looking young people play Mahler is a real treat. They play with incredible passion and their virtuosity is simply stunning. I have heard Mahler 9 three times in concert and this performance was the best played. And one of those performances was by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, one of the greatest conductor, orchestra cominations of all time. The interpretation by Claudio Abbado is wonderfully conservative. He does not seem interested in draining every ounce of drama out of this great masterpiece. It is a lyrical performance that rises to very great heights. If you love great orchestral music, this DVD is a must."

My Desert Island DVD

John David Philip | 07/13/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The best sound and one of the best rehearsed performances I've ever seen on DVD. All eyes are on Abbado: the players almost seem to have the score down by heart. And the conviction with which the youth orchestra plays is awesome. So wonderful to at last have a DVD Mahler #9, and such an outstanding one."