Gus arranges Ludwig - WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING! LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1823)/GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911): Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125.

Description: Today, we take care of the problem of massive string sections vs. the small number of winds in this music by cutting the strings and/or performing on period instruments. In 1895, Mahler did it by doubling all the winds, adding a piccolo and E flat clarinet, and adding brass (including a tuba) while expanding their parts and adding another timpanist (really thunderous timpani in the first movement now). There are octave transpositions, range expansions of violins and flutes, reducing strings to two or four stands in soft passages, stipulations of special ways of playing, exacting details of volume, prasing, articulation, rubato and caesuras and even deleting repetitions and groups of bars in the scherzo (and the notes tell us that Mahler's changes in the rest of Beethoven's symphonies are "more frequent and more significant"!). He performed this version ten times, including three in New York in 1909/10. The critics savaged him but the audiences were thrilled. You'll never have heard Beethoven sound like this! Total time: 59:44. Järvi channels Carlos Kleiber and the live performance (from 2006 in Vienna) is electrifying. Gabriele Fontana (soprano), Barbara Hölzl (alto), Arnold Bezuyen (tenor), Reinhard Mayr (bass), Slovak Philharmonic Choir, Lower Austrian Tonkünstler Orchestra; Kristjan Järvi.