Chung vs Pappano

Italy took quite some time to appreciate Gustav Mahler as a composer, but now the Bohemian is one of the most often performed authors by large symphony orchestras. In Rome, for the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his birth (2010) and the centenary of his death (2011), two orchestras competed in performing all his symphonies — a mammoth undertaking [see Mahler versus Mahler, 15 May 2010]. In the older, larger and better endowed complex (the Orchestra Sinfonica dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia), Antonio Pappano started the series, on 10 May 2010, not with the first symphony but with the huge second symphony, composed in memory of Hans von Bulow. In this symphony, for the first time, Mahler introduced the human voice, more specifically, the lied, into the symphonic texture...