Mahler Symphony No. 2

Audio Review

Review of the new Mahler: Symphony No. 2 with Daniele Gatti and the RCO in Amsterdam. From DSD files downloaded from NativeDSD Music.

Daniele Gatti is a strong presence among the Italian conductors (two out of seven in the history of this prestigious Dutch Orchestra). We remember with nostalgia the decade of Riccardo Chailly, which many important albums have documented in the catalogue (and among them a delicious full selection of Mahler).

The Milanese Daniele Gatti last year took the conductor’s role of the RCO. This collaboration is celebrated in the first significant stage of a new integral of Mahler’s symphonies on the orchestra’s own label “RCO Live”.

As many times as we have said, the orchestral language of Mahler is a high-definition documentary about the expressive possibilities of a great orchestra. It begins with the Second Symphony, “Resurrection”, which in order not to be missed, uses a large choir and organ.

Fortunately, the Amsterdam room used for this recording is an important organ (true, not like the electric one they use at the music park of Rome)! Soft and expressive the sound of these arches and from the first listening relives the tradition of the Dutch Orchestra, strong since the time of Willem Mengelberg. Extraordinary Dynamic Breath, first parties’ parts and always in good evidence the acoustics of this room. In the final, the organ joins the choir and orchestra in a sound building of great effect. Great without being caciarona, noble without suffering, this reading of Mahler’s Second Symphony is among the most reliable among recent recordings.

The interest here is not just for Mahler or for the state-of-the-art DSD technology associated with this recording, which you can now appreciate in the State of the Art sonics up to DSD 256 and in two and five channels. On the point of listening to a symphony of this size and dimensions, I would have to invite the audiophile in a concert hall and show (live) to experience the fact that the sound is “all around you”. If I had the money, my dream would be to buy 500 tickets to the Philharmonic and take you to listen to an octave of Bruckner, a symphony of the Alps or a Second Mahler. Then you go would go back to talking about high fidelity and have an awareness that you were missing something.

The start of this new Mahler cycle from the RCO is interesting, with Daniele Gatti (we remember him in his years in Santa Cecilia) in great shape. How many great Italian conductors come to prestigious posts in the most important world orchestras?

As always on the Native DSD site you could also buy a single movement of this symphony, choosing it in two or five channel DSD. But it would be a shame not to hear the entire symphony all together.

Marco Cicogna - Source