Far more than just a Barnum & Bailey act
In spite of the fact that over a thousand performers are employed here, this is actually a remarkably 'musical' account of Mahler's colossal 8th symphony. The sound quality captured here is equally remarkable for such a challenging, one-off performance. The enlarged choral forces and augmented string section (strings were combined from both orchestras) shift balances away from the brass, woodwinds and vocal soloists, and transfer greater emphasis - logically enough - on to the choral passages. There is, in fact, historical precedence for doing this and I'll elaborate on that point further down.
A previous reviewer suggested that Dudamel should have striven for a more detailed and clearer performance. But we already have two DVD's of Mahler 8 that do just that: Bernstein/V.P.O./DG (combined with an equally fine Mahler 7) and, more sharply focused yet, Chailly/Gewandhaus Orch./Accentus from the 2011 Leipzig Mahlerfest. That's not to mention a whole slough of very fine and...
A great musical event
Gustavo Dudamel's Mahler First on DVD was, as Clive Goodwin points out, quite disappointing: focused on superficial effect rather than substance, especially in comparison with the stunning Dvorak "New World" he recorded with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart (Birthday Concert for Pope Benedict XVI). One could then suspect that the young conductor had not quite plumbed the depth and idiom of Mahler's musical language. So it was with slight trepidation when I ordered the disk, but everything fell into place happily when I played it the first time around. If you want to know my own personal ambivalent feelings about the Eighth - Mahler's last, gargantuan and somewhat desperate fling with late Romanticism - do read my reviews of the Bernstein (with the Seventh) and Tennstedt (with the First) readings on DVD, both noble and persuasive performances, though now dated in audio and video. The outstanding recent recording by Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester brought the oratorio-symphony...
A Mahler Must
You can't get much more exciting than Dudamel, the Bolivars and the L.A. Phil with more than 1000 on the stage!! The backstage interviews and preparation peeks make this a must-have for a Mahler collection. The music is an exceptional undertaking. We won't see another extravaganza like this in our lifetime.
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