Mahler: Symphony No. 7 in E minor (Das Lied der Nacht)

“Nott's is the latest in a hard-to-choose-from field. Every Bamberg soloist, from the artistic tenor horn solo right at the start, is given room to breathe...This performance may not be quite as incandescent as the same team's recent Third Symphony, but it's still well up to the overall standards of Bamberg's Mahlerian success story.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2012 ****

“We've come to expect certain qualities from this Bamberg/Nott Mahler cycle - not least real stylistic awareness and exceptional attention to detail - and this beautifully prepared and acutely well-heard Seventh is no exception. Perhaps Nott's most notable achievement here lies in uncovering beauty and fascination and a certain sensuousness beneath the often strange and misshapen...One to hear - and superbly engineered, too.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2012

“Nott adopts a gradual but far from cautious approach to a first movement that inches forward from its initial pensiveness...no one who hears this account is likely to be disappointed, not least when the Bamberg Symphony's playing reaffirms its current standing among European orchestras” International Record Review, May 2012

“Nott's reading has many of the virtues that distinguished the finest of his earlier discs – formal clarity and directness; lean, crisp textures; and a total lack of indulgence. He is at his most impressive in his clear-sighted handling of the long span of the first movement” The Guardian, 14th March 2012 ****

“[it is] as if Järvi wants to stress beyond all doubt that the symphony represents a new direction for Mahler: more experimental, more abstracted...[He] plainly revels in the spookhouse effects of the nocturnal inner movements” Gramophone Magazine, August 2010

“here is playing of a very high international standard throughout. Never once do the musicians let their conductor or composer down, and the internal balance of the vast instrumental forces Mahler demands is admirable. Everything is clear, sonically, from the most finely detailed solos to the largest tuttis...This is a fine achievement all round.” International Record Review, October 2010

“There’s a lithe energy and carefree sweep to the playing that is infectious...Jansons’ reading bears the stamp of his St Petersburg training: very classical, with not a shred of indulgence.” Financial Times, 2nd January 2010 *****

“A frankly provincial small-scale outfit of Janson's arrival in 1979, the Oslo Philharmonic is heard here towards the end of his tenure, unmistakably an ensemble of international stature, capable of remarkable feats of virtuosity and depth of tone. The central Scherzo is already over-lit, the finale remorselessly bright, yet with the string body sounding heftier than in a previous Jansons/Oslo pairing of the First and Ninth (7/03), this must be a contender for those who prefer their Mahler without too much grit and angst.” Gramophone Magazine, January 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 Czech Philharmonic is on fine form, boasting evocative winds and lean, diaphanous strings. Thanks in part to Exton's extraordinary sonics, this is a Seventh in which the narrative emerges afresh… transmuted into a Mitteleuropean glow.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2009

“A classic reading of Mahler's 'problem' symphony, with rich, warm analogue sound. Never relaxing his grasp on the overall structure Solti even succeeds in making the mishmash finale sound both coherent and genuinely joyful.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2009 ****

“a performance of the Seventh Symphony as cohesive and powerful as I can remember. This was a blinder from start to finish …” Financial Times **** (concert review)

“In glossing over the leering monsters of this gilt ballroom of sound, Gergiev finds a more or less cohesive - if not always satisfying - epic thread, although the central Scherzo still rebels. Gergiev and a lively LSO sweep up the finale bells and whistles with exhilarating energy.” The Times, 26th July 2008 ****

“Valery Gergiev treats [the Seventh Symphony] as an exercise in orchestral virtuosity that primarily strives for effect rather than attempting to explore underlying substance. It's thrillingly played, but Gergiev's speeds are at times self-consciously extreme. A sense of garbled excitement pervades the outer movements, which could do with more consideration and shape. The morbid central scherzo and the two nocturnes that frame it are more adroitly done: the second nocturne is sexy as well as ironic, which makes it very unsettling.” The Guardian, 8th August 2008 ***

“Right from the start, with those dark, dragging rhythms, there's a sense that something special is afoot here. Driven and grittily intense though his direction often is, it isn't ruthless. …I can't think of another recording of this symphony that not only brings so many of its extraordinary features to life, but ultimately balances them so satisfyingly.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 *****

“Valery Gergiev's dark, pumped-up Seventh might prove to be the high-light of the cycle … it holds in tight unity a score that can sprawl into incoherence.The playing is consistently assured; the sound powerfully immediate” Gramophone Magazine, October 2008

“For some Valery Gergiev's dark, pumped-up Seventh might prove to be the high-point of his Mahler cycle. True, the over-the-barricades manner precludes much in the way of subtlety but it does hold in tight unity a score that can sprawl into incoherence. Much is paced a notch faster than usual, though not the introduction which is spacious and strong. The playing is consistently assured; the sound powerfully immediate. The reading has a monolithic drive that is nothing if not distinctive.
What Gergiev doesn't deliver is a sense of this music's teeming inner life. No point looking here for either Claudio Abbado's delicate attention to line and colour or Leonard Bernstein's emotive, micro-managed rubato. Gergiev's inner movements come across as diligent but brusque.
While his idiosyncratic seating arrangements (including antiphonal violins) make for some interesting effects, it's the resilience of the LSO brass at high decibels you're likely to remember, not the meaningful interplay of independent and interdependent strands.
The applause which greeted this performance at London's Barbican Hall has been surgically removed for this hybrid SACD incarnation.
The critics will be as divided over its merits as they were following the live performance.
Happily, LSO Live's competitive pricing means you can decide for yourself.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Abbado's account of Mahler's Seventh was always a highlight of his cycle and remains the ideal choice for collectors requiring a central interpretation in modern sound. Steering a middle course between clear-sightedness and hysteria, and avoiding both the heavy, saturated textures of 19th-century romanticism and the chilly rigidity of some of his own 'modernist' peers, he is, as the original review reported, 'almost too respectable'. That said, it's all to the good if the forthright theatricality and competitive instincts of the Chicago orchestra are held in check just a little. Even where Abbado underplays the drama of the moment, a sufficient sense of urgency is sustained by a combination of well-judged tempos, marvellously graduated dynamics and precisely balanced, ceaselessly changing textures.
For those put off by Mahler's supposed vulgarity, the unhurried classicism of Abbado's reading may well be the most convincing demonstration of the music's integrity. This is a piece Abbado continues to champion in concert with performances at the very highest level.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Abbado's command of Mahlerian characterisation has never been more tellingly displayed than in this most problematic of the symphonies; even in the loosely bound finale Abbado unerringly draws the threads together.” Penguin Guide, 2010 ****