Mahler: Symphony No. 10 in F sharp minor

“This reading of the 1989 revision of Deryck Cooke’s performing version is an impressive journey. By the finale, with its dramatic bass-drum death stroke and that exquisitely beautiful flute melody, we have been sucked into the vortex of the music’s swirling psychological complexities, able to see not only Mahler’s tragedies, fears and emotional vicissitudes, but also our own.” Sunday Times, 22nd June 2008 ***

“[This] is a powerfully wrought reading, which seems to gain in authority and conviction as it goes on - Harding's account of the finale is particularly impressive, so that it now seems one of the greatest, and bleakest, of all Mahler's symphonic movements. The opening Adagio, though, never quite generates the intensity one knows that it should, so that the agenda for all that follows is not made as distinct as it might be. Even the characterful playing of the Vienna Philharmonic, especially in the central three movements with their ghosts and distortions of the popular musics that haunt all of Mahler's output, can't quite compensate for that, so, for all its strengths, Harding's performance doesn't quite measure up to either Rattle's with the Berlin Philharmonic or Chailly's with the Berlin Radio.” The Guardian, 20th June 2008 ****

“Harding made his Philharmonic debut with this symphony in 2004, and you feel the team’s mutual comfort the moment those questing viola phrases launch the epic adagio. He’s wise enough not to stop the Viennese musicians from sounding Viennese. Their natural lilt brings major dividends in the fourth movement, where the waltz rhythms spin us into a neurotic nightmare. After this turn round the haunted ballroom, another high point arrives with the finale’s flute solo, so tender and sad, underpinned in the orchestra by another exquisite Viennese touch – phrases hugged as though no one wants to let them go.” The Times, 6th June 2008 ****

“Throughout, the orchestral sound is striking, lighter in the ass than usual, with glorious horn-playing and burnished unanimity from frequently high-lying strings.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2008

'Noseda conducts with breathtaking dynamism’ (The Guardian)

“Gianandrea Noseda coaxes playing from his BBC Philharmonic of unforced beauty. In the interplay between soft dynamics and 'big tone' as Mahler's love of life reasserts itself, Noseda and his orchestra ultimately touch greatness.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2008 ****

“Noseda has real Mahlerian credentials. He directed the massive Eighth in Manchester… even before taking up a post with the BBC Philharmonic yet he does not engender from them what might be thought an "authentic" Mahler sound. There is a dearth of neurasthenic edge to the wind sonorities and the strings lack depth.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2008