exceptional ... 29

I hesitated a moment between four and five stars, to the extent that it seemed questionable to give full marks to a record "live" with room sounds (ah, those coughing ...) and the inevitable accidents concert (knowing they are reduced by very little, I will come back later) especially for a work whose discography is as rich quantitatively and qualitatively. And it took me three plays to finally decide that registration deserved five stars: the "third" is simply one of the four or five most beautiful that I have heard in almost forty years of "mahléromanie" and that was probably one of the best concerts of the Orchestre National de France (back then it was still called "ORTF") even if one does not necessarily realized at the time. Jean Martinon (1910-1976) has always been acclaimed (and rightly) as a high class interpreter for the French music (Debussy, Ravel, Roussel, Saint Saens, etc) but we tend to forget that it was a leader exceptionally diverse repertoire (Varese Nielsen, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bartok, Berg, Schoenberg) and that it was in the sixties (if we except that it was set Boulez once in office to the BBC, after long rejected ...) the only French conductor regularly conduct Mahler, a composer with whom he had obviously extraordinary affinity. He also received a medal of "Gustav Mahler Geselschaftt" to (I quote) "the number and quality of his interpretations" ... enough said. Recall that Jean Martinon was the third head to head (in Chicago) the Cooke version of the "tenth" after Ormandy and Berthold Goldschmidt (the creator) ... in 1966 and gave in 1967 with the same orchestra a version of the legendary concert of the "third" published in the 1990s by the Chicago Symphony in a commemorative box, found today: we will console without difficulty with the concert of "National" September 1973: what strikes immediately, from beginning to end, it is the correctness and feeling obviously tempi, sound balance, phrasing, sequences and climates which follow throughout this immense sound architecture (Mahler wanted , in his words, "build a world with the symphony, the third is probably one of his works that best fits this definition) can not quote everything, I just mention the masterful way in which the coda of the first movement is "fed" with an almost imperceptible slowdown before the final rush, the explosion of savagery at the end of the scherzo, interiority, intensity almost ecstatic, the profound joy of the fourth movement, absolute authenticity (never without doubt it was as close to the Nietzschean thought, and too bad if the singer, very respectable, not Christa Ludwig and Maureen Forrester ...) natural and evidence-fifth (with a Master ORTF who deserves only praise) all topped by a final simply overwhelming (it is here in the Kingdom of God, do not be afraid of big words) without speaking of the orchestra, which at the time was not very familiar with this music, but covered himself with glory from beginning to end (the incidents of the concert are reduced to two or three trumpets flutters in the first movement, a shift in the part of "posthorn" Third, also beautifully played, and some signs of fatigue brass to the end of the sixth, really trifles ...) if the strings are both transparent and expressive, the woods were still at that time the characteristics of "the French" who unfortunately gradually faded, corns are impeccable in the first movement and ideals in the fourth, and soloists are simply great (violin solo !!! oboe !!! trombone !!! it would include everyone) in a nutshell, thank you in Cascavelle for giving us this marvel, which is in my view a very short distance of what Bernard Haitink, Jascha Horenstein and Leonard Bernstein have left us for this symphony among the "digital", the "challengers" most serious would be, for me, De Waart if it was available (this is the top of its integral, which would deserve a reissue) and Sinopoli, had he a singer at the height ... well, I go back, I do not get enough ...