Dresden starts its first Mahler cycle
OrchestrasThe Italian Daniele Gatti took over last night as chief conductor of the Dresden Sataatskapelle, one of the world’s longest-running orchestras. He opened with Mahler 1, inaugurating the first complete Mahler cycle in the orchestra’s somewhat introspective history.
A fine Mahler conductor and a great great orchestral. Should be a magnificent cycle..
Indeed. His Mahler cycle in Paris was excellent and his Mahler 1 with the Concertgebouw exceptional. His Mahler, already in Dresden, too.
Alas, there is a very big disconnect between the unifying vision offered by the program notes and the disjointed performance schedule:
https://www.staatskapelle-dresden.de/en/concerts-and-tickets/mahler-cycle/
Why bother to describe the continuous chronological unity of the 4 symphonies, but perform them out of order over a 9 month period?
To fulfill the vision laid out in the program notes, this first part of the Mahler cycle could have been performed like many Beethoven cycles, in a single week.
Is it that the Dresden Staaskapelle’s opera schedule interrupts any symphonic programming?
Call it what they will, but it’s no “cycle”.
(Reminds one of the story that Kurt Masur once read, by chance, one of the NY Phil program notes of a concert he was giving and was so incensed to discover that the notes had nothing to do with his interpretation, he demanded a change in how program notes were written.)
If his 5th from many years ago is any indication this could be a very good Mahler cycle. Will it go on record? Not that we don’t have an abundance of Mahler already…but there’s always room for more!
There is so much Mahler around that the AfD, the German extremist rightwing party, has declared it a public nuissance. Maybe Mahler will be censored in Saxony, as an ‘unwanted foreign element’ (source: Stürmische Beobachter, issue August ’24).
About 10 years ago I heard Gatti lead a revelatory Mahler IX with the Concertgebouw, a performance which still resonates in my head. On Saturday I am going out to Grafenegg to hear him lead the Staatskapelle in „Verklärte Nacht“ and Mahler I.
Four days later I will hear Leif Ove Andsnes play Rachmaninoff III followed by Mahler V played by the „Originalklang-Project” band called Mahler Academy Orchestra led by Philipp von Steinaecker. This could be very interesting …
Four days after that, Martha Argerich and Sophie Pacini are playing Mozart and Liszt (including some of those wild opera transcriptions). And then Jonas’s „Die schöne Müllerin“.
It’s been a hot, dry, and boring summer and I am starved for some music, theatre, and ballet!
Larry. enjoy the music. i admire your
taste.
Kevin, Joe, or Nick Jonas?
Lucky you, for all the concerts.
is this all at Grafenegg? I agree on the starvation, I resorted to some off-piste chamber and academy concerts in Berlin in August to get me over the hump.
One of my greatest memories is a concert at Dresden. I hope Gatti does well.
Actually, taking a trip back in time, Ernst von Schuch not only conducted a fair amount of Wagner, Bruckner and R. Strauss, but also Mahler. https://www.google.com/search?q=ernst+von+schuch&oq=ernst+von+schuch&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTU4MjBqMGoxNagCCLACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
The picture, where he is looking-up to a statue of a player, should send warnings through the orchestra.
Mahler….how bold! Strange career for Gatti… maybe he can accomplish something from this new start. I wish him the best.