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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This record is a real laugh, full of cultural put downs across a very broad spectrum of tastes while at the same time bringing out qualities in a number of tunes that have by now become almost ho-hum because of over exposure. Highly recommended.
3 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
There are some nice bits - when these talented musicians just play Mahler using klezmer instruments and feel. But they suffer from that annoying late-20th century compulsion to DO something to the music. Why does the "something" always have to be modern jazz of the most painful kind? Their treatment of "The Farewell" from Das Lied von der Erde - with the heartfelt singing of Cantor Aaron Bensoussan using the words of Al Male Rachamim - shows what they COULD have done. But it may encourage others to contact the Jewishness in Mahler.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
28 reviews
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Mahler taken back to his roots
11 Jan 1999
Format:Audio CD
Gustav Mahler described himself as "thrice homeless: as a Bohemian among Germans, as a German in Austria, and as a jew throughout the world." While that may have summed up Mahler well at the end of the 19th century, at the end of the 20th, we call that kind of thing "multicultural," and see it as a strength. Uri Caine recognizes that strength, and his renditions of Mahler's music reveal the roots of the composer's style, in the waltzes and marches of his native Bohemia, in Jewish klezmer music, in the chanting of kantors, as well as the art-music ambience of Vienna. Caine and his outstanding band (special kudos to Don Byron's clarinet in particular) provide a window into Mahler's music that illuminates it even as it distorts it. If you really know your Mahler, you'll find this recording a revelation. Moreover, you'll never again be able to listen to the Mahler 5th, for example, without hearing the klezmer elements in the 2nd theme. And the fact that one of the "Songs of a Wayfarer" works perfectly as breezy tune that might have been penned by Chick Corea implies how far Mahler's influence reaches into the 20th century. As a Mahler afficianado, I adored this; but I suspect that friends who don't know Mahler's work, but who like John Zorn and Carla Bley, are going to dig this as well. Call it Post-Modern, call it an outrage, call it a gas! (And the packaging is as beautiful as the tunes.)
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Raising Caine?
28 Dec 1999
Format:Audio CD
Well, we seem to have a bit of a disagreement below. I hope that I may be able to clarify for those considering this purchase. I am an enthusiastic, if a bit less than fully obsessed, Mahlerite, as well as being a longtime jazzophile. I am also quite skeptical in general of jazz treatments of classical themes; they tend either to be overly reverential (which doesn't prevent their being mediocre) or to simplify the source music (for easier improvisation) to the point where one must question the use of the theme at all. This, to my mind, is an exception. But you must bear that what I like is not always, or even often, what most enthusiasts of jazz OR classical music tend to like. (I'm not inordinately discriminating in my aesthetic judgments, just fussy.) I would venture to suggest that Mahlerians with little interest in jazz would be quite horrified by this recording (as indeed an acquaintance of mine was.) Further, I'd say that fans of contemporary jazz, especially the "downtown" scenesters -- Zorn, Douglas, et al. -- will love this regardless of their taste for classical music. And, as one reviewer noted below, even those who consider Mahler to be an old bloat, but who like challenging jazz, will probably admire this disc. And is Uri Caine one of the most interesting jazz pianists (and arrangers) in decades, or what? His Wagner CD is extraordinary, too, although similar cautions to those cited above (and below) apply.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
The New quintessential performance of Mahler
6 July 2005
Format:Audio CD
This is the story i was told when buying this record, it's been many years so this is as close as i could remember it:
"There is an annual competition where orchestras from all over the world come together to perform Mahler pieces. It's been going many many years... then along came Uri Caine. His orchestra included Cantors (jewish religious singers) and a cacophony of other messy instruments and ideas to perform with. They won to competition to the horror of stuffy stuck-up Mahler purists the world over.. How could this horrible mess win over all ther other very traditional (very similar and boring) performances!? Uri Caine's orchestra has continued to win every year since. Why? Because Uri's interpretation gives a fuller understanding of Gustav Mahlers background, his roots, he brings so much life to the music."
So then i actually listened to the music myself and it was breathtaking, funny, it told stories, it had personality, it was bursting at the seams with new ideas.
I listen to all kinds of music, but rarely jazz and rarely classical. I was not familiar with Uri Caine or Gustav Mahler, but after hearing that story, then listening for myself i had to have this cd. And while often my purchases are terrible mistakes, this one was a resounding success. This cd is my most treasured.
"There is an annual competition where orchestras from all over the world come together to perform Mahler pieces. It's been going many many years... then along came Uri Caine. His orchestra included Cantors (jewish religious singers) and a cacophony of other messy instruments and ideas to perform with. They won to competition to the horror of stuffy stuck-up Mahler purists the world over.. How could this horrible mess win over all ther other very traditional (very similar and boring) performances!? Uri Caine's orchestra has continued to win every year since. Why? Because Uri's interpretation gives a fuller understanding of Gustav Mahlers background, his roots, he brings so much life to the music."
So then i actually listened to the music myself and it was breathtaking, funny, it told stories, it had personality, it was bursting at the seams with new ideas.
I listen to all kinds of music, but rarely jazz and rarely classical. I was not familiar with Uri Caine or Gustav Mahler, but after hearing that story, then listening for myself i had to have this cd. And while often my purchases are terrible mistakes, this one was a resounding success. This cd is my most treasured.
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