The new Rattle/Berlin Mahler 5 or how I learned to distrust reviews

Posted by: Edot on 11 November 2002

I've been looking forward to this recording for a while so I was dissapointed to read a less than favorable NY Times review of the concert from which the recording was made. I think the words disjointed and rushed to market were tossed around. My local pu blic radio station played the disk last night and I liked it, so I will be picking it up. Maybe the negative review was just sour grapes and a bit of a backlash over the "not so live" live Gurrelieder that EMI/Rattle/Berlin previously released. Any opinio ns yet?

As a side note I saw Martha Argerich with Dutoit / Philadelphia a couple of nights ago. Ravel's Concerto in G was on the program. A work I'm very familiar with and like quite a bit. Philadelphia held their own. Argerich was great in the slow pass ages but completly lost it with the fast & furious. No one seemed to notice the missing notes / memory lapse. The crowd loved her as did the NY Times reviewer. I am an Argerich fan and have been fortunate to see her several times in the last couple of years but It seems all she has to do is show up, to get ovations these days. So much for reviews.ยง
Posted on: 11 November 2002 by herm
Indeed, Ed, the Times review of the Argerich Dutoit Phil concert was short and very sweet, and full of band-aid phrases. It was quite noticable. It was very positive, but I didn't feel sorry I hadn't been there one minute.

Herman
Posted on: 11 November 2002 by Phil Barry
I find reviewers extremely useful, once I get used to them. For example, I expect that I'll like a flick if Ebert likes it. I find I'll like a performance if von Rhein (Chicago Tribune) dislikes it. Ah...yeah...there was the time he panned Barenboim's Symphonie Fantastique because it was too much like a nightmare....vR is right sometimes, but....

Regards.

Phil
Posted on: 12 November 2002 by Edot
I don't mean to say that I distrust everything all reviewers have to say all of the time.
I've just learned to take what they say with a bit more salt. Particularly music reviews. I do eagerly await each new Anthony Lane film review in the New Yorker.

So, how about some opinions on that new Mahler 5. Surely there are a few Mahler fans on the forum.
Posted on: 12 November 2002 by herm
quote:
Originally posted by Ed Tringali:
I do eagerly await each new Anthony Lane film review in the New Yorker.


Well. Alex Ross's music reviews in the New Yorker are pretty good, too, aren't they?

quote:
So, how about some opinions on that new Mahler 5. Surely there are a few Mahler fans on the forum.


But not all of them are Rattle fans. And some were kind of Rattled by the heavy media onslaught to get this disc out of the stores.

Herman
Posted on: 12 November 2002 by David Sutton
Look what they said about Rattle's Mahler 2. It does not stand up to scrutiny against the other "greats". (I mean Klemperer and Solti)

David