Item description for Lucerne Festival Orchestra Mahler Symphony 1 / Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 3 DVD

This listing is for Lucerne Festival Orchestra Mahler Symphony 1 / Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 3 DVD.

Actors: Claudio Abbado, Yuja Wang

Director: Michael Beyer

Producers: Paul Smaczny

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

MPAA rating: Unrated (Not Rated)

Media Format: Multiple Formats, NTSC, Color, Widescreen, Classical

Release date: July 27, 2010

Subtitles: ‎Multilingual

Claudio Abbado conducts the Lucerne Festival Orchestra with pianist Yuja Wang in works by Mahler and Prokofiev, summer 2009.

This is the most amazing performance of Mahler 1 I have ever heard. For many, many years, my favorite has been the Tennstedt EMI recording from 1991 (from live performances with the Chicago Symphony in May and June of 1990). This performance, to my amazement, surpasses even that sublime recording. Abbado holds this performance on edge until the very end: the multitudes of motives and gestures that appear in the first movement are given an extraordinary life and presence; later, they are heard in a beautiful and moving apotheosis in the last movement, which climaxes like nothing I've ever heard before. I don't know of another performance which has so movingly connected this work's beginning to its end. Abbado knows and feels Mahler in such profound, life-changing ways; it seems almost trite to try to find ways to describe the depth of his expression. I'm not surprised that he saved the First Symphony for performance near the end of his Lucerne Mahler cycle, and I'm incredibly grateful for this performance.

Fans of previous Abbado/Lucerne Mahler releases will note some changes in the principal chairs in the orchestra: gone is Kolja Blacher, Albrecht Mayer, and Sabine Meyer, among others. The orchestra does not suffer; indeed, they play with an intense sense of ensemble, and the camera catches many occasions during which players smile and nod at each other. As always, these players realize they are part of something extraordinarily special (witness the hugs and kisses stand partners and principals bestow on each other long into the audience's ovation--a wonderful European tradition that I see only occasionally in American orchestras). Mahler 1 fans will delight in seeing the horns stand in the final minutes (as Mahler instructs), and all will delight in seeing (for the first time, if I'm not mistaken, in any previous Lucerne release) Abbado coming out for a solo bow (to exuberant fans who were probably clapping and cheering for half an hour!) long after the orchestra has left the stage (another truly European experience for American viewers who have never witnessed anything like it). All in all, an extraordinary addition to the already overwhelmingly beautiful Abbado/Lucerne Mahler collection.

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