Catalogue: Details

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 6
Piano Quartet

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Christoph Eschenbach, conductor
Efe Baltacigil, cello
Choong-Jin Chang, viola
Christoph Eschenbach, piano
David Kim, violin

Chamber
Orchestral

Critics' choices

2 Hybrid SACDs (SACD Surround 5.0 / SACD Stereo / CD Stereo - playable on all SACD and CD players); booklet with liner notes in English, French and German; luxurious slipcase

Format:
CD / SACD

Released:
October 2006

Catalogue No.:
ODE 1084-5D

EAN/UPC Code:
0761195108451

54:21

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Symphony No. 6 in A minor

I. Allegro energico, ma non troppo. Heftig, aber markig

23:34

II. Scherzo (Wuchtig)

13:11

III. Andante moderato

17:23

44:17

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Symphony No. 6 in A minor

IV. Finale (Allegro moderato)

30:48

Piano Quartet movement in A minor (1876)

13:23

The elegant Christoph Eschenbach counts among the intuitive conductors who touch the point where it hurts, and where it bleeds. But he also touches the sphere where dreams and an ecstatic idealisation are able to heal these wounds.
Gilles Macassar, Télérama magazine, December 16, 2006, 'ffff'

It's prompted by the end-of-the-world power of the performance, with the orchestra sounding like it's had a triple espresso and Eschenbach's considerable imagination in full tilt. No matter how many Mahler Sixths anybody has, there should always be room for ones this good.
David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 10, 2006, 10 of the Year's Best

This recording of Mahler's Sixth Symphony may well be the Sixth of first choice, sonically and interpretatively.
Jed Distler, Gramophone, November 2006

It's thrilling. (...) No Mahlerian will want to miss it!
David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com, October 2006, Artistic Quality 10 / Sound Quality 10

When vision and virtuosity meet... - For this, their third CD recording together, Music Director and renowned Mahler interpreter Christoph Eschenbach leads The Philadelphia Orchestra in Mahler's monumental Sixth Symphony, an orchestral and intellectual tour de force. The glorious sound of this legendary ensemble can be experienced in finest SACD 5.0 Surround Sound technology. This release also has an added bonus, as it is coupled with Mahler's relatively unknown Piano Quartet, a work composed when Mahler was only sixteen years old. It is performed here by members of The Philadelphia Orchestra with Christoph Eschenbach at the piano. A true discovery. Mahler's Sixth is one of Christoph Eschenbach's signature pieces, as he is renowned as one of the great Mahler conductors of our time ("His approach is fundamentally objective, confident, sharp-edged, and analytical, and yet there is no mistaking the underlying emotional thrust", Gramophone 10/1998).

The booklet includes liner notes written by Reinhold Kubik from the International Gustav Mahler Society in Vienna, as well as rare photographs.