# Looking for the most over-the-top Mahler set



## Rubens (Nov 5, 2017)

I like my Mahler over-the-top, drenched in pathos and filled with excess. Currently own the Bernstein Sony. Still hungry for more pathos. Any other set I should look into? Thanks for your help!


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

Bernstein DG


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Well, you should augment it with his (Bernstein's) VPO/Fischer-Dieskau/James King "Das Lied" -- which Decca issued as a trade-out for Columbia getting the LSO/Albert Hall Mahler 8th


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

MarkW said:


> Well, you should augment it with his (Bernstein's) VPO/Fischer-Dieskau/James King "Das Lied" -- which Decca issued as a trade-out for Columbia getting the LSO/Albert Hall Mahler 8th


I would not characterize this version as "over the top".


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## Rubens (Nov 5, 2017)

So Lenny is pretty much unbeatable in this department?


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I wouldn't say any are OTT. Some are just more expressive. Takes all sorts.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Rubens said:


> I like my Mahler over-the-top, drenched in pathos and filled with excess. Currently own the Bernstein Sony. Still hungry for more pathos. Any other set I should look into? Thanks for your help!


Have a look at some of Scherchen's recordings. Unfortunately, sound can be in mono. The 7th from Toronto, the 6th from Leipzig, the 5th from Philadelphia, 1+2 in the Westminster recordings, etc.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

I might suggest James Levine's box - it's pretty rousing. Only has symphonies, though, and no 2 or 8.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Totenfeier said:


> I might suggest James Levine's box - it's pretty rousing. Only has symphonies, though, and no 2 or 8.


Yes, but it does have a stupendously good Third, and a very decent full Tenth. Worth getting!


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Oh, yes - his Third is legendary. Best LP cover art of all time, too. Now that I'm thinking about it, damn fine 4th, 6th, and 7th as well. Not actually a stinker in the bunch.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

You mean this one? I had it on cassette before CD, best? Weirdest, certainly!!


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

There's a difference? Maurice Sendak! The wild things are HERE! The moon! The trees! The Angel! Mahler himself! And the shrew, or whatever the hell it is, playing the soprano sax, or whatever the hell it ls! You get high just looking at it, man!


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I'm not sure what over-the-top means in this case. Bernstein is pretty emotional and driven and I can't think of any set that is so consistently like his. But if you want hard driven sensationalism, Solti might fill the bill. I think his 1st and 2nd with the LSO are better, but the Chicago recordings are certainly exciting, whether it should be or not.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Totenfeier said:


> There's a difference? Maurice Sendak! The wild things are HERE! The moon! The trees! The Angel! Mahler himself! And the shrew, or whatever the hell it is, playing the soprano sax, or whatever the hell it ls! You get high just looking at it, man!


If you can come down off the ceiling for a moment, maybe we can work out whether it's a shrew, or a very small aardvark. Admittedly, I do suspect the former.....


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Solti is the first that comes to mind. Bruno's #2 is absolutely hairy. Maybe that #3 by Horenstein which I've only heard about. And I'm a big fan of Otto's #9 - meaty beaty big and bouncy.


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

I agree, you should definitely try Bernstein's later DG cycle, as the older Bernstein once said that, as a conductor, you can't be too neurotic or emotionally excessive or over the top in Mahler (& I paraphrase). You might start with his DG 2nd--which is more drawn out in the finale and 'over the top' than his earlier Sony recordings (which I prefer), and his DG 1st, 5th, & 6th. I generally prefer early Bernstein myself, which I find more dynamic, exciting, and better conducted. In my opinion, he lost a degree of precision later on, and his conducting could occasionally get sloppy, with the slow movements turning flaccid. But that may be what you want. Have you heard Bernstein's live Ely Cathedral recordings of the 2nd and 8th with the LSO, also released by Sony (on DVD)? The sound isn't ideal, but their Resurrection is one of my all-time favorites, & the finale is very intense and exciting (note that the DVD has better sound than the CDs):






You might also try the 2nd by F. Charles Adler, who was the conductor that most influenced Bernstein's Mahler conducting during his formative years, in addition to Bruno Walter.

Adler 2nd: 




Dmitri Mitropoulus might be your man, too (if you can take the poor sound & often ragged orchestral playing), or perhaps Hermann Scherchen, who I have a very high regard for, as a conductor. Plus, have you heard Otto Klemperer's intense 7th (& 9th)?

Scherchen 2nd: 



Mitropoulus 3rd:



Klemperer 7th: 



Klemperer 9th: 




Otherwise, I'd suggest that you look into the Mahler recordings of Bruno Walter, Sir John Barbirolli, Jascha Horenstein, Hans Rosbaud, Klaus Tennstedt's live recordings (especially those he recorded in Chicago & Philadelphia, but also, I suppose, the London Philharmonic live set), Riccardo Chailly's live Leipzig Gewandhaus cycle on Blu-ray (although you may find Chailly a shade too cool), Gunther Herbig's 5th, 6th, & 9th, and Leif Segerstam's Chandos Mahler 1-9 cycle. I expect you can find most of these suggestions on You Tube...

Oh yes, & you should definitely try to hear Bruno Maderna's searingly intense recordings of the 7th & 9th, too.










Hope that helps.


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## Rubens (Nov 5, 2017)

Thanks for the great suggestions, everyone!


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## Rubens (Nov 5, 2017)

Josquin13 said:


> I agree, you should definitely try Bernstein's later DG cycle, as the older Bernstein once said that, as a conductor, you can't be too neurotic or emotionally excessive or over the top in Mahler (& I paraphrase). You might start with his DG 2nd--which is more drawn out in the finale and 'over the top' than his earlier Sony recordings (which I prefer), and his DG 1st, 5th, & 6th. I generally prefer early Bernstein myself, which I find more dynamic, exciting, and better conducted. In my opinion, he lost a degree of precision later on, and his conducting could occasionally get sloppy, with the slow movements turning flaccid. But that may be what you want. Have you heard Bernstein's live Ely Cathedral recordings of the 2nd and 8th with the LSO, also released by Sony (on DVD)? The sound isn't ideal, but their Resurrection is one of my all-time favorites, & the finale is very intense and exciting (note that the DVD has better sound than the CDs):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Excellent, exactly what I was looking for.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

You might try an Abravanel/Utah Symphony Orchestra recording of one of the Mahler's.









I wouldn't say this is necessarily "over the top". I really don't know why anyone would want "distorted" Mahler, or "over the top" anybody else, for that matter. But it is _great _Mahler, and that must count for something.

Among my favorites from the set are Symphonies 3, 7 and 9.

My favorite Mahler recording of all time remains the Bruno Walter/NYP reading of Mahler's _Resurrection_ Symphony (No. 2) on Columbia Masterworks. Maybe not "over the top" but certainly "at the top".


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Josquin13 said:


> ... as the older Bernstein once said that, as a conductor, you can't be too neurotic or emotionally excessive or over the top in Mahler (& I paraphrase).


" At once Barbirolli is more passionate than his colleagues, more involved personally, yet tempers this with clarity of focus that's a living example of a quotation of Bertrand Russell that Michael Kennedy found in Sir John's papers after his death: "Nothing great is achieved without passion, _but underneath the passion there should always be that large impersonal survey which sets limits to actions that our passions inspire._" " (my italics)


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## Rubens (Nov 5, 2017)

SONNET CLV said:


> I really don't know why anyone would want "distorted" Mahler, or "over the top" anybody else, for that matter.


Isn't his music made to be played with excess and a good deal of decadence? That's what I meant by over the top.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

CnC Bartok said:


> You mean this one? I had it on cassette before CD, best? Weirdest, certainly!!
> 
> View attachment 117659


Levine/CSO= Great Mahler 3, overall my favorite, tho Bernstein/NYPO II [DG] is excellent also, and the finale of Martinon/CSO is the greatest I've ever heard..


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Rubens said:


> Isn't his music made to be played with excess and a good deal of decadence? That's what I meant by over the top.


If that's how you want to hear it - but there are many ways to play Mahler all of which are valid. I love Boulez in Mahler perhaps because of his coolness but I also have both Bernstein's cycles in my collection which are completely different to Boulez. 
There in lies the magic of Mahler's music - it can be performed in so many ways which are equally acceptable.
Enjoy discovering the wonderful variety of fine recordings out there.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Rubens said:


> Isn't his music made to be played with excess and a good deal of decadence? That's what I meant by over the top.


No............................


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

SONNET CLV said:


> You might try an Abravanel/Utah Symphony Orchestra recording of one of the Mahler's.
> 
> View attachment 117664
> 
> ...


I wouldn't say Abravenel's Mahler is over the top either. It is certainly quality and heartfelt. Excellent playing and the maestro gets the most possible out of the Utah Symphony, whom I have seen described as underpowered. The highlight for me is an excellent 4th. But in truth none are what I would call weak. A good all around set.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Abravanel is often rather classicist in his approach, as can be heard in his Sibelius too. 

Walter's early Mahler recordings are his most temperamental (mono 1st Symphony, Das Lied/Ferrier, etc.)


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

If you like your Mahler with every emotion laid bare then try Tennstedt


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Personally I find Tennstedt's Mahler over the top, much more than Bernstein. Especially his second recordings (ie, not the EMI/ Warner box). It is totally not my cup of tea, but you can't go wrong with it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Rubens said:


> I like my Mahler over-the-top, drenched in pathos and filled with excess. Currently own the Bernstein Sony. Still hungry for more pathos. Any other set I should look into? Thanks for your help!


The ones to listen to is Klemperer's Mahler 7, and the Scherchen Torronto Mahler 7. Horenstein Mahler 9 is another one.


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## Kollwitz (Jun 10, 2018)

Wyn Morris' Mahler 5 is very dramatic and overblown in all but its fairly swift adagietto. I find it a bit too much for regular listening but it's very enjoyable when in the mood. Based on your request, I think you'd enjoy it.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I do think that a Mahler performance needs character (blandness and mere efficiency can kill it) but OTT? Mahler, himself, wanted to include everything in his symphonies so any good performance is going to be OTT in a way. Mahler is OTT. But Mahler's sprawling structures do need some control and discipline in performance. Bernstein is passionate but when his performances work he is also good at the control and the shaping of the whole. When he becomes indulgent - as he does in several of his DG set (his DG 9 is awful!) - the result is not OTT so much as tedious. But take, for example, his 5 and 6 from the DG set. They are superbly controlled and also enormously powerful. The thing is that good Mahler, Mahler with lots of character, can take any number of approaches but it succeeds when it is a powerful experience. Many of those mentioned in this thread give us that and others not mentioned (because they are not so overtly heart on shirt sleeve) are as well. Bernstein, Tennstedt, Boulez, Kubelik, Gielen and many others all give us great (powerful, focused) Mahler.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> Walter's early Mahler recordings are his most temperamental


Or indeed the 1939 Mahler 9, which I think he talked down as an aberration when he released the second US recording.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I totally agree, but thought that the sound might be too antique for some. Not bad for its age, though.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> I totally agree, but thought that the sound might be too antique for some. Not bad for its age, though.


I've just been listening to Horenstein's Mahler 9 -- it's extraordinary! (Not necessarily in a good way, I'm not sure.)


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

How is it? 

I own some of his Mahler (1st, 3rd and 6th) but I've generally found him rather main-stream, in all his recordings.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Rubens said:


> Isn't his music made to be played with excess and a good deal of decadence? That's what I meant by over the top.


Why? I would say, no. Excess is like gilding the Lilly. The emotion's already written into the music and needn't be exaggerated to express itself and be understood; then the music moves on, often changing moods... Sometimes more emotion comes through when it's played clearly in a more straightforward rather than lingering or exaggerated manner - not to wallow in it like an emotional train wreck - without it wandering all over the place, formless, and dropping its intensity... Sometimes it's worth exploring a more straightforward approach, and I can't think of anyone more straightforward than Pierre Boulez's cycle, who lets Mahler speak for himself rather than overlaying the music with his own excessive personal agenda. I found that quite refreshing starting with the First Symphony... and it's not without sentiment and emotion... And decadence, no, I don't believe so. While Mahler may have been a sensuous man, a romantic man, a philosophical man, a compulsive man, I've never thought of him as a decadent man. He might have been self-absorbed but he was also disciplined. He composed his symphonies on demand when he had time off from his heavy conducting schedule... He had a devastating loss in his family with the death of a child, a heartbreaking divorce from an unfaithful wife that he still loved, and yet he had emotional resilience or he might never have started his Tenth Symphony... He would always bounce back until his health finally broke down from a heart valve condition. How fitting that it was the heart! He had a lot of it.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> I've just been listening to Horenstein's Mahler 9 -- it's extraordinary! (Not necessarily in a good way, I'm not sure.)


The BBC Legends one? I love it and think of it as one of the best.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

It certainly is one of the most inspired!

(That's me done on Mahler, I don't know anything about his music really.)


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Rubens said:


> Isn't his music made to be played with excess and a good deal of decadence? That's what I meant by over the top.


I don't recall seeing the following direction in any of the Mahler scores I've perused: _mit Exzess und Dekadenz_. (And I have several of the symphonies and songs scores in my library.)

Too, if "decadence" implies "a state of low standards in a society; social decay", I fail to see why Mahler would want his so carefully crafted, sublime and detailed orchestrations performed in such a manner. To gain "excess" should the conductor add a dozen trumpets and horns and extra drums and, perhaps, bagpipes to the orchestration? Instead of the alphorn in the Seventh Symphony, why not use a didgeridoo?

No, I'll take my Mahler with intellectual awareness of the score demands, caution and control, cool judgment and scholarly justification on the part of the conductor, and skilled, competent, informed playing on the parts of the musicians involved. After all, Mahler gives us enough of what one _might_ term "excess and decadence" in his scores, when he chooses to, that we need not add anything more except, perhaps, loving commitment in order to properly hear what the master has to say.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

If you are still reading, Rubens, I want to welcome you to Talk Classical. I don't know how long have you been listening to Gustav Mahler, I've been listening to him for three years. I also love a kind of unpredictable and really emotional interpretation for Mahler symphonies, but I am afraid your understanding of Mahler's music is too narrow when you say his music was composed to be performed that way.

If our minds think alike and favour the same kind of approach to Mahler, I also reccomend you to visit DG Bernstein's set (very inexpensive in Amazon UK right now) and Georg Solti's cycle -whenever it is remastered- both from Chicago and London. In another instance, Klaus Tennstedt is another conductor who could deliver what you want, but you need to invest much more money to get his best performances on CD.

I am yet to make a comparison final challenge between my favourite Mahler cycles, many of which perform in very different styles and SQ. I was blessed two years ago to listen to Abbado's broad and expansive Lucerne performances and found them revelatory. I generaly prefer his early Vienna/Chicago cycle over Berlin, but I don't understand how long is DG waiting to release his Lucerne recordings on CD. I could write about many other interpretative approaches to Mahler, but I prefer to focus on something else, which I discovered last summer.

During 20th century, recording technologies were still too underdeveloped to absorb the detail and roundness of a Mahler performance anyone could hear in a concert hall. From this century, independent recording labels partnered or released by top Mahler orchestras have increased the sound quality to great extent. I find the BR-Klassik release of their Mahler symphonies so revelaroty in terms of sound quality, that conducting becomes secondary and detailed playing is the main thing. That was an approach to Mahler I never took into account.

To wrap it up, Rubens, have you listened to Currentzis recording of Mahler's No.6? It may offer what you're looking for.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Look at it this way: if you prefer a cooly objectified, stodgy, unimpassioned Mahler performance, rather than one full of "excess and decadence", then perhaps you are enjoying an "as wrong and as distorted interpretation" of the music as is the other guy.

My thinking is, and I would contend that most of us here at the Forum would agree, that we want an as _real _, an _as true to the composer's intentions_ performance of the music as is possible given the necessary limitations to this endeavor. We trust that a composer will at least attempt to achieve this end, even if his or her interpretation is way off the mark, as we hear it or as we compare it with another interpretation. Two conductors may be completely different in their approaches, but they may still be motivated by a desire to achieve the composers' intentions. What exactly those intentions are remains problematical. Sometimes the composer himself is the conductor and yet seems not to achieve that goal of presenting his true intentions. Composer/conductors have been known to favor others' interpretations over their own, I suspect. The ability to _know what one wants_ (composer) and the ability to _bring out from the orchestra what one wants_ (conductor's role) are different tasks -- take different skill sets.

In any case, I seek out performances that I think the composer might have approved. Still, I often enjoy a performance which I consider errant, too. After all, we're talking about art here, and art by its very nature remains a subjectively felt experience. To each his own, as they say.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

In the case of Mahler, we have recordings from two very different conductors who both have worked with Mahler, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer. In neither case are their performances over-the-top in the manner of (e.g.) Bernstein & Tennstedt. We can also look at much older recordings from the likes of Mengelberg & Adler. Perhaps that should tell us something.

P.S. It seems to me that, rightly or wrongly, many seem to be equating over-the-top emotional with very slow tempi.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Becca said:


> In the case of Mahler, we have recordings from two very different conductors who both have worked with Mahler, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer. In neither case are their performances over-the-top in the manner of (e.g.) Bernstein & Tennstedt. We can also look at much older recordings from the likes of Mengelberg & Adler. Perhaps that should tell us something.
> 
> P.S. It seems to me that, rightly or wrongly, many seem to be equating over-the-top emotional with very slow tempi.


Both Walter and Klemperer were much more temperamental in their conducting say pre-1955. This applies to their Mahler but also their conducting generally.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Becca said:


> In the case of Mahler, we have recordings from two very different conductors who both have worked with Mahler, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer. In neither case are their performances over-the-top in the manner of (e.g.) Bernstein & Tennstedt. We can also look at much older recordings from the likes of Mengelberg & Adler. Perhaps that should tell us something.
> 
> P.S. It seems to me that, rightly or wrongly, many seem to be equating over-the-top emotional with very slow tempi.


You may be right about Klemperer Mahler 7, you may not be. But you are right to say that it's not like Bernstein!



Becca said:


> We can also look at much older recordings from the likes of Mengelberg & Adler. Perhaps that should tell us something.


What should it tell us exactly?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Does anyone know what Neue Sachlichkeit is?


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> Does anyone know what Neue Sachlichkeit is?


I've heard of it... was Mahler a part of this movement? I associate it more so with Hindemith...

Re: OP, I'm very new to Mahler's music myself. But I might recommend Solti. Maybe not drenched in pathos and emotion, but his Mahler is often over the top with intensity and power. I enjoyed very much his 2nd (with the London Symphony). The 8th (with Chicago) was a little much for me, but I have yet to hear a recording of that one that I like.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

flamencosketches said:


> I've heard of it... was Mahler a part of this movement? I associate it more so with Hindemith...


No but maybe Klemperer was,


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Does anyone know what Neue Sachlichkeit is?


I really like George Grosz's drawings. That's art.

In music, I like Romanticism and Expressionism if it's tonal; if it's more modern or atonal, I don't mind the "new objectivity."

I'm using it as if it were a way of looking at things, not just a historical movement.

To the OP; if you need more pathos, try wine with downers. :lol:


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I think Neue Sachlichkeit belongs to after Mahler's death, but before the tendency to more 'objective' Mahler musicianship. If we had Weingartner in Mahler, we might know earlier, recorded examples (?).

As far as I remember, Hindemith for example is associated with Neue Sachlichkeit by some - quite a different soundscape.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

philoctetes said:


> Solti is the first that comes to mind. Bruno's #2 is absolutely hairy. Maybe that #3 by Horenstein which I've only heard about. And I'm a big fan of Otto's #9 - meaty beaty big and bouncy.


I have not heard much Solti Mahler but he absolutely comes into mind in terms of "over the top"


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Since most of "over the top" recordings have already been mentioned, here is another performance which contains "over the top" conducting


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