David Zinman - CD

“Zinman's Mahler never peaks too soon, never shows all its emotional cards too early, that that confidence to keep something in reserve as long as possible pays dividends in the second part...Both solo and choral singing are consistently good...but it's the measured, musical nous of Zinman's conducting that really deserves the spotlight.” The Guardian, 22nd April 2010 ****

“the intensity and beauty of the string sound in the long orchestral introduction to Part II is vintage Mahler in Zinman’s loving, but never self-indulgent, hands... it’s clear he remains one of the world’s most inquiring senior maestros, looking for fresh perspectives. In his Mahler cycle, he has certainly found those.” Sunday Times, 25th April 2010

“It sounds tall, wide and handsome in that wonderfully open Zinman way, and in the central development section he and his engineers ensure that we hear right into the texture, our ears led on by every strand of counterpoint.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2010

“…the plaintive singing oboes at the heart of the second movement are heartrending, the mandolin in the dawn serenade very stylish. The scherzo is superlative, with alarming wails from woodwind and strings, the scurrying waltz figures always clearly projected.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2009 ****

“…the careful balance of detail, atmosphere and "Mellowness" obtained by the recording team… is likely to impress. …RCA's… truthful, bass-light sonics allow many passages to emerge here as if fresh-minted.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2009

“The usual criticism [of the Seventh] is that its five movements don't form an emotionally unified whole, an argument that David Zinman's new recording with the Zurich Tonhalle takes great pains to refute...It all comes over as marvellously cogent” The Guardian, 11th September 2009 *****

“The American conductor is scrupulous in his attention to detail — what characterful woodwind soloists, especially the oboe and cor anglais in the slow movement, and horn-players the Tonhalle Orchestra now has — but also in complete command of the bigger picture. The ordering of the central movements has an inevitable musical logic, which is entirely convincing. But this is far from a cool, objective reading — the surging, striving strings dig deep into the yearning melody of the Finale’s opening bars — and the hammer blows of Fate (the third unplayed) register as harrowingly as in more feverish accounts of this great symphony.” Sunday Times, 10th May 2009 ****

“His treatment of the first movement is a model of restraint, and by placing the slow movement before the scherzo (the order Mahler chose for the premiere, reversing that in the first edition of the printed score), he dilutes its baleful intensity even more. Yet that choice allows him to build the tension steadily through the scherzo into the vast finale, which is laid out with remarkable formal clarity, if not the sense of catastrophic power that some conductors bring to its hammer-blow climaxes.” The Guardian, 24th April 2009 ****

“…David Zinman…opts to illuminate the complex web of contrapuntal lines that straddle each movement while at the same time underlining the composer's profound relationship to this symphonic predecessors. Thus the scherzo… has an impressive Brucknerian gravitas rather than the more manic or grotesque urgency favoured by some other interpreters.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2009 ****

“[Zinman's] chamber-music approach that worked well for the earlier symphonies seems less appropriate here, where Mahler's contrapuntal mastery of the orchestra as a whole reaches its zenith.” Matthew Rye, The Telegraph, 13th September 2008

“With very fine playing from the Tonhalle Orchestra and state-of-the-art SACD recording, Zinman offers a direct approach to Mahler to which many will respond.” Penguin Guide, 2010 **/*