Double Double.(comparative analysis of sound recordings)(Column)

In this installment, Tom Lyle and I are back to our usual shtick, comparing two versions of recordings of music by good old Gustav Mahler. Face it, when it comes to the music of Mahler, Tom and I are just TWO WILD AND CRAAAZZZYYY GUYS!! Mozart fans will just have to look elsewhere, I'm afraid.

So here we go, comparing two recordings of Mahler's Symphony No. 6, both of them on the same label, Deutsche Grammophon. Back in the 1980s, noted Mahler champion Leonard Bernstein led the Vienna Philharmonic in a noted recording (D 215076). Tom and I thought it would be worthwhile to compare that venerable DG recording with a recent DG release that features another noted Mahler conductor, Claudio Abbado, with the Berlin Philharmonic (DG 00289 477 5684).

Ever faithful to our principles, Tom and I have refrained from discussing these two recordings with each other and have done our listening and writing completely independently. Because this is an even-numbered issue, Tom will lead off with his findings and then I will close with my take on these two recordings.

TL: I forgot how powerful a version the Leonard Bernstein Mahler Sixth with the Vienna was. I hadn't heard it in a while; instead I listened to the Boulez/Vienna ever since it was released in the mid 1990s. I preferred it because I thought its recording quality was so much better, but now that I've had the chance to revisit the Bernstein I don't know what I was thinking. I guess my priorities were all mixed up back then.

The Vienna Philharmonic under Bernstein comes out like gangbusters right from the start. Wow. And they keep on going. It seems like their taking the tempo at a breakneck pace, but looking at the timings of the movements they seem pretty much the same as the Abbado/Berlin. It's just that Bernstein seems to slow down the slow parts much more, and speed up the fast parts much more, and it more or less balances out. I guess. The slow parts slow things down quite a bit and that's where his timings come out longer. But he makes every note count, and whether or not one feels that he is wearing his heart on his sleeve, so to speak, I've never heard a more involving version of this symphony.

The sound quality is not as bad as I remember it for some reason. It is very up-front, a tad harsh sounding, and there is no soundstage depth to speak of, but it matches the interpretation perfectly--front-row-center and in-your-face. And the bass is excellent.

The Abbado is the opposite. Where the Bernstein is detailed and up close in both the reading and recording, the Abbado is rounded off and distant sounding in both the reading and recording. Judged on its own it is a fine rendition of the symphony, and I don't mean to imply that it is not by ...