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GUSTAV MAHLER, SYMPHONY 5, CRITICAL EDITION
FIRST PERFORMANCE, BREGENZ FESTIVAL, 22.07.2002
DANIEL NAZARETH, VIENNA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
A GUSTAV MAHLER “PREMIERE”
Overwhelming Vienna Symphony first Festival Concert.
All who love strong interpretations experienced an exciting evening at the Bregenz Festival first Orchestra Concert. Daniel Nazareth conducted a superlative first performance of Mahler’s Fifths Symphony in the Critical Edition.
The lavish orchestra and musical disposition tempt many interpreters to indulge in the sumptous sound, to depict blatant imagery. Not so Daniel Nazareth. His was a poignantly expressive reading of Mahler’s Fifth.
This conductor’s highly professional approach to Mahler’s Opus made for an interpretation unmatched in musical intensity.
True Emotion
Nazareth’s well contoured phrasing and keen sense for the long line created auditive perspectives in which thematic relationships, motivic recapitulations and references attained plasticity. In the second movement, sarcastic sound patterns were highlighted, thematic groups were piled one over the other with virtuosity.
In the Scherzo the Solo Hornist played with a soft velvety tone, bringing out with meticulous articulation the potent energy of the main themes.
In the famous Adagietto the strings and harp evoked spherical regions where dynamic lines were never sentimentalized but always forged within the musical context.
Daniel Nazareth’s penchant for unravelling thematic juxtapositions and contrapuncted lines was most evident in the playful Finale. Abrupt changes of mood, plastic overlapping of motives and quiet, chamber-music-like sound zones ensured absolute transparency in the overall architecture.
VORARLBERGER NACHRICHTEN, 24.07.2002
A PIONEERING ACHIEVEMENT IN MAHLER PERFORMANCE
The first Vienna Symphony Concert at the Bregenz Festival was devoted to one single work: Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, interpreted however, in a manner never heard before. The Indian conductor and Mahler specialist Daniel Nazareth led the first performance of the Critical Edition…
In the manner of a Talk-Concert, Daniel Nazareth, together with Reinhold Kubik and the Vienna Symphony, demonstrated several significant points. He thus was able to sensitize and focus the audience’s reception for the performance that followed.
Daniel Nazareth, the charismatic Indian conductor , seems coalesced with Mahler’s score. The Vienna Symphony follows him with the utmost precision and alertness. The clarity of the dynamics is exemplary. The melancholic funeral march assumes contours, eruptions of sound burst with strident colours.
Waltz lilt and pain, zest for life and grimaces go hand in hand with Mahler and Nazareth brings them out with an unerring sense for shaping sound and with the sheer power of his personality.
In the Scherzo, the Solo Hornist plays his important part from upfront like a soloist, the balance shifts and the movement, often a dark Death Dance, now alights with colour.
The Adagietto with its endless surge of emotion … sounds fragile, chamber-music-like, delicately woven under one giant breath. The horn signal leads into the Finale, throwing us into a turbulent world that Nazareth portrays with energy and vigor, culminating in a glorious Brass Choral.
Vociferous acclamation and enthusiasm for a pioneering achievement in Mahler performance and for highly motivated musicians.
SCHWÄBISCHE ZEITUNG, 24.07.2002
MUSICAL WINDOW CLEANING
…(Kubik) called his editorial work ‘window cleaning’: the opus remains the same, but we get a clearer vision of it. … Conductor Daniel Nazareth, Austrian of Indian descent, seemed to adopt the same analytical approach to his performance.
Climaxes of his very successful interpretation were surely the powerful movement conclusions and transitions. The conductor sent the last notes of the second movement floating into the Cosmos; he took much time over the transition from the Adagietto to the Finale. The work concluded in a giddying and breathtaking accelerando.
It was Gustav Mahler’s intention to create a whole world through his music. This was certainly accomplished on this evening, as the strong ovations of the audience clearly evidenced.
NEUE VORARLBERGER NACHRICHTEN, 26.07.2002
FIRST PERFORMANCE OF MAHLER’S FIFTH IN THE FINAL VERSION
FRENETIC OVATIONS FOR DANIEL NAZARETH AND THE VIENNA SYMPHONY.
Conductor Daniel Nazareth turned the eventful evening into a Gustav Mahler Celebration… After two breathtaking hours, Daniel Nazareth and the Vienna Symphony were inundated with vociferous acclamations and ovations.
In a short half hour seminar Nazareth and musicologist Kubik explained the new features of the Critical Edition of the Fifth Symphony…
… first came the carefully administered Theory, then the emotionally charged Practice…
Daniel Nazareth and the Vienna Symphony did more than recreate Mahler’s world: they accomplished a spectacular and emphatic interpretation of his colossal Opus.
APA, 23.07.2002
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