Mahler: Symphony no. 5

No. 395 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages is this week's Friday Blog and Podcast. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast395

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In this second of a two-part set of montages featuring Hermann Scherchen conducting German repertoire, and in our continuing look at the symphonies 0of Gustav Mahler, today’s Blog and Podcast montage features Scherchen’s 1952 Westminster recording of Mahler’s Fifth symphony.

A survey of discogs suggests Scherchen recorded almost all the Mahler symphonies (in studio and as live recorded performances) – surprisingly, he did not record the Fourth, though he did record two song cycles (kindertottenlieder and Songs of the Wayfarer).

Here’s a portion of a Grammophone review of today’s featured recording:

We are often assured that great conductors of an earlier generation interpreted Mahler without the ‘lurid excesses’ of a Leonard Bernstein‚ always assuming they played him at all. But there is a starker‚ more disturbing quality in Scherchen’s conducting which has made his Mahler recordings much­prized collectors items. Having devoted his career to the promotion of contemporary music‚ Scherchen left relatively few studio recordings‚ but his scholarly reputation and restrained‚ objective conducting style are belied by the white­hot communicative power (and‚ it has to be said‚ the frequent technical lapses) of these pioneering mono LPs.

First the good news: this is […] a complete performance‚ and in many respects a very compelling one Now for the bad news: time and time again the intensity and drive of Scherchen’s conception is scuppered by the inability of his players to keep up.

The review goes on with many examples of the orchestra (which I always thought was an alias for members of the Vienna Philharmonic…) falling short of the conductor’s envisioned performance; yet the reviewer agrees with me with this sentence near the end: “Nevertheless‚ Scherchen and his Viennese forces offer us a piece of history that belongs in any serious Mahler collection.”

For more insiht on the work, I’d point you to a 2018 Tuesday Blog featuring Mahler’s Fifth.

I think you will love this music too!