Mahler: Symphony No.8
Gustavo Dudamel / Los Angeles Philharmonic (DG)
(scroll down for English review)
2019年的現場錄音，是杜達美繼他2012年在洛杉磯及卡拉卡斯舉行的馬勒交響曲全集音樂會後，再次指揮馬勒八。不同在2012年那次是湊足一千人的演出，所以並非在樂團大本營和路迪士尼音樂廳舉行，那次演出我有去看，不過非常失望，場地不適合，有一千人都無用。確實一千人並非馬勒本意，這個演出用了較為合理及適合音樂廳的三百多人。
不過錄音和現場始終不同，我相信這個錄音是樂團自己錄的，DG不過是在疫情下停頓的時期找一些錄音來出碟。這個錄音的後製，令我最感到不自然是把合唱團調得太大聲，恍似聽流行樂那般，兒童合唱團更是（調得）離譜地大聲。樂團就太細聲，但一些不應起眼的細節卻又太刻意的跳了出來。
從扭曲了的錄音／混音的前提下聽這個演奏，第一部分（軌一至八）實在亂七八糟，杜達美的速度是快，但也是這麼混音才弄成這樣。第二部分（軌九開始）我欣賞杜達美的熱度，令一個個獨唱都充滿腎上腺素般向前推進，總體上傾向歌劇而不是清唱劇。我不列出所有獨唱了，男高音Simon O’Neill最為標青，很有幾十年前華格納男高音那種爆發力。唱貝九、本地級數的男高音可以勝任，但馬勒八的男高音就非要國際級頂尖男高音才唱得好，其實更多時候，知名男高音都唱不好。（以下連結可以免費試聽）
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nYk0kMxJmqezTHcbpY-hzdkT8_D5P0io4
Having conducted it in his 2012 Mahler cycles in Los Angeles and Caracas, Dudamel once again tackled the work in this 2019 live recording. But the 2012 performance (just one in Los Angeles) wasn’t done in the Walt Disney Concert Hall as Dudamel made that an occasion for 1000 performers. I saw that performance at Shrine Auditorium which wasn’t an appropriate venue for classical shows so that experience was practically a spoiled one for me. For the 2019 Walt Disney Concert Hall concerts a more reasonable number of 300-something was used.
But one couldn’t just pitch a live performance against a recording. Yet I found this recording to be remixed in a way that favoured the choruses too much. Who would ever believe two groups of children choruses could make such a big noise on top of a Mahlerian orchestra?
The most obvious flaw of such mixing was found in the first part (tracks 1-8). As Dudamel took brisk tempi the highly contrapuntal chorus parts were reduced to a mish-mash. But in part two (tracks 9 onwards) Dudamel’s rapidness drove the soloists to give very passionate singings, making this work more like opera than cantata. I won’t bother listing the soloists but Simon O’Neill was just matchless in the tenor part, reminding me of some of the greatest heldentenors in the past. Local-level tenors can manage the tenor solo in Beethoven 9, but Mahler 8 requires a world-class tenor. Even so, many famous tenors often failed to deliver the goods.