https://www.forumopera.com/cd-dvd-livre/mahler-symphonie-n2/
Bychkov strongly disappoints
We will certainly not claim that any symphony by Mahler is easy to
play, and even less to record. This being said, the Second is
undoubtedly the one that poses the fewest challenges to the conductor:
its rectilinear trajectory from shadow to light, its gradual rise in
power, its logical use of musical means, which add up instead of to
disperse as in the Third, the luminosity of its finale, the story that underlies the musical text, all combine to make the work readable, and
to ensure its effect, in concert as on disc. Just let yourself be
carried away by the fiery breath of Mahlerian lyricism, link the
different episodes of the epic, trust the text, and you're done. We
understand even less the obvious failure of Semyon Bychkov. While his
first two parts of what promises to be a new complete (the Fourth and
the Fifth) laid more than respectable milestones, we are surprised to
see a confirmed conductor collapse in this way in a studio recording.
In terms of interpretation, Bychkov's only project seems to be to
break up the musical text into a multitude of unrelated
micro-episodes, transforming these 86 minutes into a succession of
explosions followed by the most impalpable pianissimi, without that
one perceives the slightest necessity in the passage from one to the
other.
This excessive solicitation of the text is particularly irritating in
the first movement, which never manages to find its unity and which
makes you seasick by dint of hesitating between affects that sound
arbitrary. It seems that the chef takes a malicious pleasure in giving
reason to the critics of the creation, who heard in all this nothing
but hullabaloo. Debussy, who spoke of a "pneumatic giant", can breathe
easily. The second movement is better off, although it still falls
short of its poetic potential, and the pizzicati sequence is much too
slow and amorphous. The scherzo does not advance, and we are surprised
to look at his watch, whereas it is normally a breathless episode,
where we are as if hanging on the conductor's baton. But how stuffy,
heavy, noisy and shallow it all sounds. The Urlicht passes without
problem, thanks to the brass of a Czech Philharmonic Orchestra who
remain great musicians (the trumpets!) and to the beautiful mezzo of
Elisabeth Kulman, who knows how to phrase her lied with pleasure.
Alas, the finale returns to all the flaws mentioned, and never leaves
a sequential and anecdotal tone, making the vast apocalyptic fresco
look like a banal peplum. One might have hoped that the choral
intervention would save the day, but the Prague Philharmonic Choir is
poorly captured at first (a sound that is too diffuse), its German
diction is indecisive, and it trips over the carpet several times. ,
especially when the tempo increases, and the phrases have to bounce
from one desk to another. Rather than fluttering, they drag and the
overall effect is completely missed.
Is this recording devoid of qualities? Certainly not. As we have said,
the Czech Philharmonic remains a first-rate phalanx, and the way in
which the strings detail their different levels of writing can amaze
at times, as well as certain individualities in the woodwinds (the
flutes). Two problems however: these beautiful sounds are hardly distinguishable from those found on the international circuit, and
above all they are not really used by the conductor to build something
coherent at the interpretative level. We will however set aside the
performance of the soprano, Christiane Karg, whose voice escaped from
paradise and the delicate crack hover light years above all this
pensum. Bernstein, Mehta and Haitink can rest easy, their discographic supremacy is hardly threatened.
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