“

The playing of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is exemplary – beyond praise: not a note out of place, not an entry fluffed, utterly secure, commanding, every dynamic sifted and refined, exactly what you would expect. But not, in the last analysis, really a Mahler sound. It sounds like damning such fabulous playing with faint praise but I prefer something a little more humane and fallible: more rounded, warmer, softer grained. What a pity Boulez didn't record the Sixth Symphony in Chicago rather than Vienna – what a recording that would have been. The famous brass sound, whilst still very lean and powerful, is thankfully reigned back much more these days and only the trumpets, when full out, have that rather cold, glassy tone alien in Mahler. The strings deliver nowhere near the portamenti Mahler frequently asks for. When they do it's almost with a sense of apology. Though I'm sure this is down to Pierre Boulez. What would they sound like under a conductor who demanded buckets of portamenti: a Barbirolli, a Walter or a Horenstein? What the Chicago strings can do superbly is differentiate the gradations of dynamics, probably with more accuracy than most, if not all, orchestras. Sumptuous recording too. An ideal (almost Utopian) concert hall balance which is a touch artificial but with every detail registering equally. Tony Duggan

”

GUSTAV MAHLER (1680-1911)

Symphonie No. 9

1. Andante comodo (29'17)
2. Im Tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers. Etwas täppisch und sehr derb (16'03)
3. Rondo-Burleske. Allegro assai. Sehr trotzig (12'38)
4. Adagio. Sehr langsam und noch zurückhaltend (21'25)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Dir.: Pierre Boulez

Total time: 79'46

Deutsche Grammophon 457 581-2

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