MAHLERIA

posted by James Reel

    Kyle Gann has figured out why Mahler appeals to some of us much more than Shostakovich does:

I spent all day writing program notes for the Shostakovich Eleventh Symphony, and I finally pinpointed why I can't love his music as much as I do Mahler's. It often demonstrates the same contrapuntal saturation, timbral variety, and rhythmic drive as Mahler, but it lacks meaningful background harmonic movement.

    If the explanation that follows in Gann’s post is too technical for your taste, allow me to direct you to Benjamin Zander’s Mahler cycle on Telarc. Not only are Zander’s performances among the most compelling and insightful in the catalog (and I’m not forgetting Leonard Bernstein’s), but each release comes with a bonus disc in which Zander spends an hour and a quarter discussing the technical aspects of the symphony in great detail, without ever speaking over the heads of average music lovers. He employs generous musical excerpts to illuminate his remarks, and he never makes the common music-appreciation mistake of assuming his listeners aren't as intelligent and curious as he is. Go forth and listen.