Every November I scour the critics' "Want Lists" from Fanfare, my favorite classical music periodical. Then I go and spend a lot of money. Here is the list of all the new recordings, from 2009, which were mentioned by more than one critic:
1. Mahler's 4th, conducted by Ivan Fischer.
2. John Adams, Doctor Atomic Symphony.
3. Mahler: The Complete Symphonies, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, remastered edition.
4. Kurtag's Ghosts, by Kurtag and Formenti.
5. John Adams, Transmigration of Souls, and other works conducted by Robert Spano.
6. Oppens Plays Carter, by Ursula Oppens.
Of that list, #6 received the most selections. Here are the meta-list picks from last year, all of which turned out to be excellent, if you like that sort of thing that is. I hope to be passing along more meta-lists soon.
I find Mahler to be a frustrating composer at times. He was sort of a gasbag who needed 20 minutes to produce an effect composers of greater talents might have produced in two minutes. This is why Mahler’s symphonies tend to be so interminable. The notes don’t have that feeling of necessity and inevitability. Consider the third symphony. It’s an absolute mess! It’s the longest symphony ever written AND he had to cut out a movement. This movement he cut out, by the way, he made the final movement of the fourth symphony. So the third and fourth symphonies are both based around the song “”Das himmlische Leben.” Why not base the fourth symphony around something else? Possibly because Mahler wasn’t creative enough to come up something else. He was not a melodic genius.
That said though, I think the fourth symphony is brilliant, especially the final movement.
I also adore the Resurrection Symphony. Many times I think he’s so brilliant but then I’m confronted with something like the last movement of his Fifth symphony and I’m astounded by what a boring gasbag he could be.
Dr. Atomic is, not surprisingly given the title, a bit over-the-top. I’m a huge Adams fan but this isn’t him at his best. If I bit on the Bernstein Mahler set I think it would be the third time I’ve purchased Bernstein’s Mahler cycle. I can’t anymore. I am intrigued by the new recording of “On the Transmigration of Souls” — I own the first recording and apart from the feeling of being rip-off by paying full price for 25 or so minutes of music it is one of my favorite recordings.
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