Mahler: Symphony No. 2 - Resurrection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.5

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 - Resurrection Blu-ray Movie Review

Never forget.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 29, 2011

Where were you on September 11, 2001? It’s one of those questions which has come to define an entire generation, a moment in time frozen in everyone’s collective memory for those who lived through those harrowing hours and days that passed in the wake of the most devastating attack on the American homeland in the relatively brief history of our country. Like most of you who are old enough to remember that horrible day, virtually the entire day is emblazoned seemingly in my very synapses, so clear is the memory of that day. Though I believe I may have mentioned these details in another review which had a 9/11 tie-in, they bear repeating as a testament to the force of the events of September 11 on me personally, and by extension, all of you who lived through them, too.

My wife had left for a business trip to Seattle the night before, leaving me completely in charge of our two young sons for the first time in our married life. Just by chance by eldest sister had flown in from North Carolina for a long pre-arranged opportunity to sort through our late father’s military memorabilia which needed to be sorted before being donated to a military museum which he had founded several years previously in Salt Lake City. The evening of September 10, my computer had been acting up, and so I set it to defragment before I made sure the kids were asleep and I toddled off to bed in the wee hours of early September 11. I awoke quite early that morning after just a few hours’ sleep and immediately went to check on my computer to make sure it had completed defragmenting, and logged on to AOL (that was still fairly state of the art back then) and there was a breaking news banner about the first plane having hit the World Trade Center, which at that early stage was still believed to be an a terrible accident. Seemingly within seconds came a violent knocking at my front door, which turned out to be my sister, who had been listening to the radio on the way over to my house and who excitedly told me to turn on the television, that it looked like we might be under attack. And so a somewhat surreal several day odyssey began for me, and I’m sure for many of you as well. For me personally, it entailed watching the nonstop and horrific news coverage while simultaneously having the extremely emotional task of sorting through my late father’s stack of military paper which harkened back to another epochal battle, in his case World War II. On top of that, my wife was stuck in Seattle due to transportation being largely shut down and I was dealing with getting my eldest son off to his first week of kindergarten and my youngest son, still barely a toddler, to preschool while managing the day to day tasks of parenting. I’m not ashamed to admit I spent copious time crying throughout September 11, and I still become inordinately melancholy when I think back to that horrendous time, even from the vantage point of ten years on.

That vantage point is the perspective of recognizing that while the grief may never be entirely overcome, life goes on, as they say, and the living must continue to forge ahead, if only to prove to those who would threaten our way of life that they will be unsuccessful. That’s the subtext of this extremely moving tenth anniversary concert by the New York Philharmonic of Gustav Mahler’s simultaneously melancholy, celebratory and even revelatory Second Symphony, usually saddled with the soubriquet Resurrection. If some of us, especially those who lost loved ones on September 11, may not feel especially resurrected even with the passage of so many years, something in Mahler’s intensely emotional music speaks to the depths of the human condition and to the grace that faith can hopefully provide, even in times of intense turmoil and trial.

This concert almost seems like a citywide affair from the looks of this Blu-ray presentation. While the concert itself took place in Avery Fisher Hall, in the large plaza outside of the hall, huge screens were erected and an overflow audience both sits and stands and takes in the music. The presentation here also includes some touching shots of Manhattan, which become a surprisingly evocative visual analog to Mahler’s music. After a stirring rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, the Philharmonic’s still relatively new Music Director Alan Gilbert makes some brief, though eloquent, opening remarks about what this anniversary means for all New Yorkers, and of course the world at large.

This Blu-ray was my first opportunity to actually see Gilbert in action, and while his interpretation of one of Mahler’s most mammoth scores will probably not supplant memories of Bernstein or Walter, or even Solti (with whom Gilbert studied briefly), he has an overall grasp of the architecture of the piece, even if he seems at times inordinately wed to the score, something that someone like Bernstein of course never was. Gilbert repeatedly returns to the score as if checking with a visual security blanket, and it makes some of his cues somewhat tentative. The good news here is this is after all the New York Philharmonic, an orchestra that could virtually play this piece in its sleep (and indeed some of the soloists—notably the first chair clarinetist—seem whisked away into trances in their moments in the sun, playing with their eyes closed). That means that even without the sort of top-down forcefulness that someone like Bernstein inerrantly brought to his Mahler interpretations with the Philharmonic, the orchestra is just fine in bringing out the flash and nuance of this gargantuan symphony. To be fair, Gilbert rises above his anchoring in the score to deliver a fantastic final movement that is both resplendent and resounding.

A Concert for New York was designed to be both a remembrance and a sort of solemn celebration, and was thus free and open to the public, pre-planned to include the plaza contingent as well as the television broadcast for maximum exposure. While the shots of New York interpolated into the concert are effective, there are a couple of niggling complaints. The Koyaanisqatsi-esque time lapse photography accompanying the opening of the third movement seems silly and, not to pun horribly, out of balance with the sober reflections which should accompany this concert. Also, there’s a slight difference in the audio mix between the in-house Avery Fisher Hall sequences (which to be fair make up by far the largest amount of the television broadcast), and it sounds like there’s even light traffic noise included in the Plaza sequences, which seems a spectacularly bad idea.

Still and all, this event is a remarkable testament both to the resilience of New York and its inhabitants as well as to the continued artistic flourishing of the Philharmonic under its first-ever New York native Music Director (hard to believe, but it’s true). (It should be noted that Gilbert's mother is one of the first violinists with the Philharmonic). The Mahler Second is a perfect amalgamation of sadness and triumph, two emotions which are bound together perhaps more perfectly (if oddly) in this composer’s oeuvre than in any other. Mahler’s work also seems inordinately caught up in memory, recycling the cantorial tropes of his childhood along with folksongs, and that nostalgic aspect is also perfectly suited to an evening that recognizes distance traveled from a horrible event but which also recognizes that we must never, ever forget that event.

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 - Resurrection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Concert for New York is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Accentus Music with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This is by and large a very sharp and clear looking presentation which is best in its Avery Fisher Hall moments, where colors (especially the dark royal blue swaths adorning the stage) boldly pop against the largely black and white appareled orchestra and chorus. Fine detail is exceptional in close-ups, revealing such small details like fingerprints inside the bells of trombones and the like. The Plaza segments are noticeably softer and must have been shot with different cameras. For the most part the New York skyline and cityscape footage looks nicely sharp, with good contrast and black levels (especially in the nighttime shots of sparkling city lights).

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 - Resurrection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Concert for New York features two lossless audio mixes, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track and an LPCM 2.0 stereo fold down, and for about 95% of the concert, these sound immaculate. The somewhat strange decision to offer a different ambient mix for the Plaza sequences (as mentioned above) immediately creates a sonic distance for the listener, especially in the 5.1 track, where it's considerably more pronounced. Though I can't state with 100% surety due to these elements being mixed very low and also competing with Mahler's bombastic tutti passages, it even sounds like minimal traffic and crowd noises are mixed into the Plaza segments, which is another somewhat dunderheaded decision. While this makes the Concert more of an accurate historical representation of the solemn remembrance, as a concert per se, it's seriously distracting. The good news is that the Plaza sequences are relatively few, and there doesn't seem to be similar tweaking in the many cityscape shots that dot the visual proceedings. In terms of the in-house Avery Fisher Hall segments, both tracks offer sterling fidelity with incredible dynamic range. All frequencies are beautifully reproduced and the track handles everything from Mahler's gloriously bombastic full orchestra passages to the delicacy of harpist Nancy Allen's solos.

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 - Resurrection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Alan Gilbert and Zarin Mehta on A Concert for New York (1080i; 14:05). Gilbert and Mehta, President and Executive Director of the Philharmonic, talk about the rebuilding and, yes, resurrection of New York after the attacks and what this concert means for the City.
• Trailers for other Accentus releases

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 - Resurrection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mahler fans have had some fantastic Mahler Seconds on Blu-ray over the past year or two. This New York Philharmonic performance is yet another wonderful interpretation, despite some tentative looking conducting from Gilbert, and it also has the added emotional subtext of all of the memories, sadness and, yes, even anger surrounding our collective reactions to September 11, 2001. While there are some niggling qualms with the audio mix in particular, they pale in comparison to the overall impact of this concert, which is visceral and suitably unforgettable. Highly recommended.