Botched Mahler legacy

Finally the first complete Mahler cycle on DVD by no other than the great Leonard Bernstein. These performances were previously released on laser disc videos and the orchestras featured are Israel, Vienna Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra (for Resurrection). If you wondered, the videos were made after the complete sets with New York Philharmonic (made in 1960s) released on Columbia (now re-released by Sony) but before the later sets made on Deutsche Grammophon in 1980s. But is it really worth owning the whole DVD cycle?

These videos are excellent testament of Bernstein's art on interpreting Mahler and despite bonus DVD of rehearsal footage, I couldn't help feeling disappointed of the whole set. Sure the performances are great but the biggest drawback is the sound engineering. I tweaked my home theatre system tons of times and realised the sounds does sucked plain ass. One of the main factors are the climaxes which is muffled as if a shackled beast. Not the "Shit, here comes a huge fff, we have to turn the volume down!" but rather "Lets stick it to mf the whole time and little deviations from that" thus performances such as the Finale of Mahler 6th and the Resurrection final chorus suffered. You can sense collossal energy yet what blared from your speakers remains indifferent. Brasses seems "engineered" to be stuck at rear as if fearing they will "stood out". Something is very, very wrong when the dynamics for quiet ppp moments in Mahler 6 may even sound louder than most fortissimos for rest of the work. Listen to the Mahler 6th by the same orchestra on the DG cd. The visceral impact of the CD never fails to grab one by the neck each listening as compared to the DVD performance, and its sad. Obviously the DVD medium is much superior in terms of information storage compared with the CD but in this case, terrible engineering blew what could've been an unbeatable Mahler cycle on DVD. Soundwise, any Mahler by Abbado/Lucerne DVD knocks out the performances in this set. The 8th symphony is a joke, listen to Tennstedt with London Philharmonic on DVD and you get the real collosal "Symphony of a Thousand" as close as it gets.

Also performance wise, I think the DVD set is inferior to the NYPO Sony set and the DG. The Vienna Philharmonic performances are still "work in progress" in learning how to play Mahler, and the differences between the 70s DVD performance and the late 80s on DG cd set speaks for itself. One glaring flaw is the string opening in the first movement of Mahler 1st which the tuning is all over the place. The Das Lied by Israel Philharmonic is horrible, except obviously for the singing of the soloists especially Christa Ludwig. One of redeeming graces of this set is to listen to Vienna Philharmonic giving some Scherzos a "Viennese" feel no other orchestras can supplement. Example are the 2nd mvt of the Third Symphony and the Scherzo of the Fourth, with the Viennese portamento highlighting the singing line sounds unbeatable. The bonus rehearsal DVD is intriguing but the bummer is the rehearsals have no subtitles save when commentators speak. Meaning to understand any instructions by Bernstein to his VPO players during rehearsal process, we're left on our own unless with a translator.

I feel this set is strictly for Bernstein fans. Any top notch live performances of Mahler on DVD will render this cycle forgettable in few years time save for purely nostalgic reasons. Alas one awaits SACD remastering for either NYPO Sony set or the DG for a pure revelation of Bernstein's art of conducting Mahler.