Description
Maggio Live: Zubin Mehta — Verdi Te Deum & Mahler Symphony No. 1 "Titan" (Audio CD)
Brand new! Factory packaged! As pictured! Buy with confidence!
Product Details:
- Product Type: Audio CD
- Brand / Label: Maggio Live (Opera di Firenze / Maggio Musicale Fiorentino)
- Composers: Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)
- Performers: Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Zubin Mehta (conductor); chorus master Marco Balderi
- Catalog Number: OF 005 (Maggio Live 005)
- UPC: 0805176659003
- Release Year: 2015
- Genre: Classical
- Style: Romantic, sacred choral and symphonic (live)
Product Features
- Format: CD
- Discs: 1
- Tracks: 5
- Total duration: 67:53
- Recording: Live — Verdi at Teatro Comunale, Florence, 1 June 1996; Mahler at Teatro Comunale, Florence, 4 February 2000 (ADD, stereo)
- Booklet with English text
- Made in Italy
- Condition: Factory Sealed (New)
Overview
Two live Florence performances, two very different faces of the late-Romantic orchestra, both led by Zubin Mehta with the forces of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino — the great Florentine festival where Mehta served as music director for decades.
The disc opens with Verdi's Te Deum, the last and grandest of his Quattro pezzi sacri, scored for double chorus and orchestra. It's the work of an old master, written near the end of a life in the opera house, and it ends not in blazing triumph but in a strange, searching quiet. Mehta and the Maggio chorus give it both its monumental power and its mystery.
Then comes Mahler's First Symphony, the "Titan" — the young composer's debut symphony, from the birdsong-and-fanfare dawn of its opening through the village-band funeral march to the shattering finale. Mehta is a natural Mahlerian, and the live Florence account has real sweep and theatrical immediacy. Recorded across two festival evenings and released by the house's own Maggio Live series, with an English-language booklet. A characterful pairing for collectors of Mehta and of great Italian live music-making.
Interesting Facts
- Zubin Mehta has one of the longest associations with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino of any conductor, serving as its music director for many years.
- Verdi's Te Deum is the final piece of his Quattro pezzi sacri, composed late in life and scored for double chorus and orchestra.
- The Verdi performance was recorded live at Florence's Teatro Comunale on 1 June 1996; the Mahler on 4 February 2000.
- Mahler's Symphony No. 1, nicknamed "Titan," quotes his own song cycle "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" and includes a famous funeral march based on "Frère Jacques."
- The album was issued on the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino's own Maggio Live label, drawn from the festival's live archive.
- Verdi's Te Deum ends quietly and ambiguously rather than in triumph — unusual for a setting of such a celebratory text.
Track Listing
- Verdi: Te Deum (from Quattro pezzi sacri), for double chorus and orchestra — 13:55 (live, 1 June 1996)
Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D major "Titan" (live, 4 February 2000)
- Langsam. Schleppend. Wie ein Naturlaut — Im Anfang sehr gemächlich — 14:08
- Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell (Recht gemächlich) — 7:55
- Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen — 11:11
- Stürmisch bewegt — 21:24
Publishers
Released 2015 by Opera di Firenze / Maggio Musicale Fiorentino on the Maggio Live series. Recorded live at Teatro Comunale, Florence. Made in Italy. Booklet with English text.
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