Last Thursday, the Mahler Academy Orchestra and Philipp von Steinaecker visited the Amsterdam Concertgebouw for the first time. And it felt as if Gustav Mahler himself was back in the building where he conducted his own work…
ReadWhat fascinated Schönberg, Berg, and the avant-gardists after Mahler in this symphony—so strikingly lacking a tonal designation—has never been made so obvious as in this recording. Especially since the revolutionary quality does not remain confined to the…
ReadBut what is this special sound—so utterly different from that of a modern orchestra? The strings are gentle and soft, the woodwinds warmly individual, the brass gentlemanly in their elegance, the balance a source of pure delight.…
Read“You cannot approach this music with geometry,” Steinaecker is convinced. Yet this continual fluctuation in tempo sharpens the music’s expressive power, especially where it approaches death, at the end of the third movement and even more so…
Read