***1/2 Harold Farberman/London Symphony Orchestra
MAHLER SYMPHONY NO. 6
(Vox)
Think the symphonies of Gustav Mahler are loud, ugly, and
expensive? Try this recording of the dark, tragic Sixth: it's pellucid,
sensuous, and, at $10 for 87 minutes, cheap. Harold Farberman isn't exactly a
household name even among Mahlerites, but this 1982 performance, now finally
out on CD, is an overlooked gem. His tempos are slow, but the sharp contours
and heterogeneous textures keep everything kaleidoscopic -- this is a heroic
reading that debunks the all-too-common view of Mahler's Sixth as a surrender
to nihilistic despair (it's no bleaker than, say, Wagner's Ring).
Farberman won't replace Barbirolli (EMI), Bernstein (DGG), and Tennstedt (EMI)
at the top of my list -- but they all cost a lot more.
Besides, this reissue comes with its own mini-mystery. In his CD booklet note,
Richard Freed, alluding to the controversy surrounding the order of the inner
movements (Mahler changed his mind about them once and possibly twice), points
out that "listeners can make their own call with the present CD, either letting
Harold Farberman's performance run as is, with the scherzo preceding the slow
movement . . . , or programming the disc to place the slow
movement before the scherzo." As it happens, Freed also wrote the liner note
for the original 1982 LP release (on MMG), and at that time he said, "In the
performance recorded here Harold Farberman has opted for Mahler's first
revision in which the slow movement precedes the scherzo." That's right, on the
LP the Andante precedes the Scherzo, but on the CD the Scherzo precedes the
Andante -- and it's the same performance! So which way did
Farberman conduct it? Did he authorize this bit of "editing"? And is Freed
hoping we'll forget what he wrote in 1982?
-- Jeffrey Gantz
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