Search - Gustav Mahler, Kurt Sanderling, Philharmonia Orchestra :: Mahler: Symphony No. 9

A nicely done Mahler Ninth, but others are great

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 11/13/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Amazon has confused things by making it seem that this recording by "steafan Sanderling" might be differen from the one by Kurt Sanderling that can be bought at Amazon Marketplace for under $5. It isn't. As you might expect from this respected but not masterful German condcutor, who spent most of his career east of the Iron Curtain, the reading is traditional and mostly low-key. The conductor was quite old at the time, yet he finds moments of sudden energy, especially in the Scherzo. It's too bad that the first movement passes by rather uneventfully. The Rondo-burleske is also a bit underpowred.



But we're not talking about dras6tic defects. This is a decent reading, on the order of what Ormandy might have done if he had gotten around to the Mahler Ninth. The Philharmonia plays very wel, if not up to the astonishing virtuosity of the Berlin or Vienna Phil. During the rather lazy Adagio finale one hears a string body not trying very hard to express either tragedy or passion. In all, this is a good recording that has the misfortune to come up against a handful of great ones, of which my favorites are by Karajan, Bernstein, Levine, and Abbado."