Mahler: Symphony No. 9 [DVD] [2004]: Amazon.co.uk: Claudio Abbado, The Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra: DVD

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A performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 9 recorded at the Accademia Di Santa Cecilia in Rome in April 2004.

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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Extraordinary, Moving Experience, 23 Jun 2005

By	J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

I will admit that I cannot listen to or attend a performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony too often because it leaves me exhilarated but wrung out. And this DVD of a performance with Claudio Abbado conducting the group he founded in 1986, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, has had that effect on me. I was so overwhelmed by it that I had to sit in a dark room, near tears, for fifteen minutes after it had finished in order to regain my composure. Certainly that is the effect the music often has on me, but in this instance there were other factors involved. The GMJO is made up young European musicians (plus, strangely, a couple from Cuba) who have gained admittance to the orchestra via auditions in twenty-five cities across the Contintent. Their intense involvement with the music-making is fueled at least partly by their youth and enthusiasm as well as the opportunity for many of them to be playing this masterpiece for the first time. Lest one think that their youth and inexperience lowers their competence in this music, let me guarantee you that their instrumental assurance here is astonishing. Their emotional involvement with the music is almost palpable. In the rhythmic passages -- the L�ndler and parts of the Rondo-Burleske, for instance -- they almost literally dance in their seats. In the ecstatic passages, and particularly in the closing pages of the symphony, their concentration, their almost religious fervor is visible. The Ninth has numerous instrumental solo passages and every single one of them was taken with musicianship, subtlety and �lan. I would particularly single out the solo horn, bassoon, flute, first violin, cello and viola. The very young-appearing first trumpet played like a god.

After a slightly rough edge in the strings in the first movement, the performance settles in and for most of the following 80+ minutes one hears silken, solid ensemble in strings, winds and brass. Abbado, one of the great conductors now working (and looking healthy in this concert recorded in April 2004, after years of appearing gaunt, almost fragile), conducts without score and clearly is in rare communication with his players. He is one of the few conductors I adore watching. Not only are his gestures impressively clear as regards rhythm and articulation, he communicates the pure emotions of the music through his face and gestures. In Mahler, particularly, this is a plus. And he does it without seeming to dance on the podium. One never doubts what he is feeling and conveying to the orchestra. Fortunately we get to see this via a camera trained on him, but without it becoming a vanity project as it was for his predecessor at the Berlin Philharmonic. Television director Bob Coles and producer Thomas Smaczny are pros, and they know how to vary the shots without interfering with the music and indeed the camera movement enhances, in most instances, its flow. In the closing pages of the symphony -- which, as you will recall, is a very gradual, ecstatic diminuendo/decrescendo into nothingness -- the lights on the orchestra are ever so subtley lowered so that the symphony ends in almost complete darkness. This could have been a clumsy, melodramatic maneuver but here it is done so unobtrusively as to be almost subliminal. The effect, though, is to emphasize Mahler's rapt final thoughts.

The performance was recorded at a concert in the visually stunning new hall of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.This is the second Mahler symphony DVD with Abbado. The other, of the Fifth, was with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (which is made up of principals from all over Europe joining with alumni of the GMJO, an ensemble calling themselves the Mahler Chamber Orchestra). It, too, was outstanding. I look forward to more additions to this series, if series it be. These two DVDs make me keen for more.

Very enthusiastically recommended.

1DVD; Sound: PCM Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, or DTS 5.1; TT=84mins

Scott Morrison

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bliss, 2 April 2008

By	Nicholas Casley (Plymouth, Devon, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This is a film of a concert given in Rome in 2004 by the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado. The lights go down in the concert hall at the last climax of the finale, thus leaving a full ten minutes to go until the blissful end.

Blissful? Yes, for I have long considered the finale of Mahler's ninth to be one of those pieces that perhaps would be good to die to, and it was terribly moving to me to watch these youthful players performing such beautiful death music. I do not think I was taking much notice when I first played this disc, but it has since grown on me, so much so that now I think it is an astonishingly brilliant performance. The commitment by the players to give their all right through to the very end is plain to see in the sweat on their faces. They hardly put a foot wrong - no, they do not put any foot wrong! Abbado clearly enjoys himself and one reads great pride in his face at the marvellous progenies under his direction. Abbado's eyes are always on the look out and he clearly knows the score inside out.

It's always arguable whether a DVD of an orchestral performance is better than a CD. I often think the former is just a complement to the latter, but in this instance I was very pleased to have been able to experience something that was quite special indeed.

Alas, there are no extras on the disc. It would have been interesting to have seen Abbado in rehearsal with the orchestra. However, the accompanying booklet includes a good piece by Donald Mitchell and a small spiel about the orchestra itself. At the back of the booklet 124 players in the orchestra are listed and it was shaming to see only two are British. But, if the quality and professionalism of these players are representative of European music teaching, then the future of classical music is assured.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gustav Mahler Symphony No 9, 4 Jan 2006

By	Ayjaybee "woodnymph" (Chulmleigh, Devon United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

A joy to watch and hear. This performance by the Mahler Jugender Orch is played with utter sincerity and youthful enthusiasm, guided by Abbado who displays a masterly knowledge of the score and its many complexities.
I never thought to want to watch a DVD repeatedly, DVD's I own have not stood up to this kind of treatment.
It must be the sheer chemistry that is visible between players and conductor. I cannot fault either performance or production. Two of our grandchildren (ages 6 & 3) watched spell-bound for some 15 minutes!!

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Mahler: Symphony No. 9 [DVD] [2004]

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	73% buy the item featured on this page: Mahler: Symphony No. 9 [DVD] [2004] 5.0 out of 5 stars (3) �19.59
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