Next Berglund on the block

Barry Guerrero says:

Oh, boy – where to start. First off, it’s impossible to judge without hearing most, if not all the entire symphony. the third movement, in particular, is tricky to pull off in a fully convincing way. There may be “nothing to conduct” in the final bars of Mahler 1 in the figurative sense, but there certainly needs to be someone there to make sure those final chords are together – in unison. “You can hardly hear the strings” . . . . Do you know what the stings are playing there? . . . Mostly tremolos. Granted, there then comes a series of arpeggiated figures in the upper strings. But not being able hear them better could be partly a matter of acoustics, and/or, the recording itself (which was presumably done on something simple here). Further more, no conductor is going to suddenly have the brass and percussion drop down to nothing, in an effort to make those arpeggiated figures cut through more clearly. Ain’t happenin’. . . . “Her tempo choice is rather hectic” . . . Here I agree with you to some extent. She definitely pushes it on to the faster side of things. But HELLO! . . . it’s supposed to be exciting. ALL of the thematic material has been fully exposed already. Furthermore, even at that tempo, we have no trouble hearing the upper brass executing their ascending triplet figures. . . . . “Watching the orchestra’s faces, they seem not really joyful or under energy, rather uninspired” . . . Wind players have mouthpieces on their faces. They can not alter their expressions. Furthermore, they want to get through that ending without making ‘clams’ – e.g. landing on the wrong partial somewhere. Percussion players have mallets or cymbals in their hands. I’ve yet to EVER see a percussionist look joyful. As for the strings, every string player on the planet hates playing multiple bars of loud tremelos. Of far more relevance, would be how the players looked when they were standing, taking their ovations. Were they ‘joyful’ looking then? Did they give an acknowledgement to the conductor? . . . . And sorry to sound a bit ‘woke’ here, but “women on the podium definitely need to be supported” sounds a bit patronizing, particularly if you truly believe Ms. Berglund hasn’t earned that support. Myself, I would want to hear the entire performance, then judge.