Mahler: Symphony No. 6 in A minor 'Tragic'

“Luisi recognises that this work’s downbeat emotional trajectory is made more effective with plenty of light and shade...this is an affectionate, lyrical reading of a slow movement which needn’t descend into maudlin gloop.” The Arts Desk, 11th May 2013

“what a performance! Pappano treats Mahler's opening movement with a restraint that reveals the itchy energy inside...[he] builds towards the finale with a sense of the inscrutable and a pile-driver bite.” Classic FM Magazine, February 2012 *****

“Pappano’s Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia has an exuberance that comes across most strongly in the opening Allegro energetico ...Pappano, like his Roman musicians, is still building up experience in Mahler. Where he scores is in the quieter, song-like stretches of music, such as the first movement’s dream sequence and an Andante of con amore warmth.” Financial Times, 5th November 2011 ****

“Anyone wanting to hear an Italian orchestra play Mahler is likely to be fascinated and impressed by this performance...the Santa Cecilia Orchestra plays with a fine feeling for nuance and shape in the more tender music...there is a lot to admire in Pappano's account and while his view of its emotional trajectory doesn't engross me as I hoped it would, it is still starkly effective.” International Record Review, January 2012

“Pappano’s first Mahler recording with his Roman orchestra demonstrates an attention to detail in the score unobscured by biographical hypotheses. He plays the work in the published (and musically logical) order. The opening march has terrific thrust, the scherzo is laden with Mahler’s sardonic black humour and nostalgia for folk music. The Accademia prides itself on its Mahlerian associations, with justice on this basis.” Sunday Times, 27th November 2011

“His expansive approach to the first three movements won't be to everyone's taste, though it often yields surprising results...The Scherzo has rarely sounded as implacable as it does here, though the Andante, in contrast, feels altogether too laid back, until its final climax where Pappano suddenly unleashes a maelstrom that takes your breath away.” The Guardian, 5th January 2012 ****

“[an] enthralling account...terrific, ear-scorching climaxes” The Observer, 6th November 2011

“If you’re going to tone down Mahler’s febrile neuroticism, you have to replace it with something equally valid, and that is exactly what Antonio Papppano does here in his first recording of the composer. Out goes the tortured intensity, in comes a blazing energy and warmth that pays dividends all the way through” The Telegraph, 2nd December 2011 ****

“Never before has the shade of Verdi seemed so close in the bustling rhythms and the marching strings; Puccini’s shade, too, in the melodies’ long, arching, songful ache...Everything [Pappano] conducts is characterised by fiery drama, soaring lyricism, and bold projection as if through a proscenium arch...in this uplifting, operatic performance the endgame matters less than the music’s heroic fight for life. Buy this CD and marvel.” The Times, 4th November 2011

“The Philharmonia plays with well-mannered grace, but it’s all too even-tempered...All told, this is a thoroughly professional off-the-cuff performance, rather than the product of special commitment and rehearsal” Financial Times, 5th November 2011 ****

“[an] electrifying performance...Salonen suggests continuity by taking first and second movements at the same, slightly brisker speed. The Philharmonia benefits from some wonderfully aristocratic horn playing” The Observer, 6th November 2011

“If a gorgeously refulgent sound and heaven-storming rhetoric are what you look for in a recording of Mahler’s 6th Symphony, this one won’t be your first choice. If an intelligent and subtle shaping of its huge span and alertness to each telling detail count for more, you’ll find it richly rewarding. The delicacy of the Philharmonia’s playing is miraculous, particularly in the lovely andante movement.” The Telegraph, 5th November 2011

“Salonen calcuates every detail prudently...But when I say Salonen calculates every detail that's not the same as being 'calculating', and his performance is purposeful and revealing.” Classic FM Magazine, March 2012 ****

“these suites have tended to fall in the shadow of Bach’s great keyboard exercises. Smirnova shows what we – and most pianists – have been missing, for she paints the gigues, fugues and sarabandes with such spirit and wit that it’s impossible not to be won over by their joy and sophistication.” Financial Times, 18th February 2012 ****

“In showing how Mahler opens the door to new possibilities, Salonen's appraoch is consistently hard-edged and unfussy, although he will occasionally take a passage haltingly as if intensifying the gloom...Rubato is carefully rationed, which makes much of the score turn mechanistic and dark. The Andante alone seems rather pale; the finale is uncommonly cogent.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2012

“[The Mahler] all starts trenchantly enough, allowing the nightmare of the first movement development and its gracious idyll [to] take wing..The first disc is gorgeously brilliantly programmed and gorgeously played” BBC Music Magazine, September 2011 *****

“Holding these divergent works together is Boulez's crystalline clarity of line, seasoned with masterful timbres that let each piece blossom of its own accord...the young musicians of the Academy Orchestra do consistently rise to the occasion, with a palpable sense of discovery in their playing” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2011

“Tender and affectionate, with wonderful gradations of truly soft playing leading to a genuinely moving climax that never becomes overwrought, this manifests a glowing tribute to the subtlety and concentration of these gifted musicians. Much more needs to be heard from them, especially given the superb recording.” International Record Review, July/August 2011

“The Nightingale (wrongly titled in the sleeve notes) receives a glittering account – not sumptuous exactly, but dashingly dramatic and vividly coloured.” The Guardian, 16th June 2011 ***

“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 ****