I went to Walter Hall last night to see a couple of Mahler works in chamber reduction played by the Faculty Artists Ensemble conducted by Uri Mayer.  I think I like Mahler in chamber reduction a lot.  With one instrument to a part complex textures become clearer.  No doubt there are conductors that can produce that clarity with a big orchestra but there are also, sadly, too many who reduce it to a grisly stew of unidentified body parts.  It also allows singers to be heard without screaming.  The only time I want to hear a tenor sounding like a goat being slaughtered is in that Dean Burry piece.  I guess chamber reduction might not work for, say, the 8th Symphony but for the orchestral song cycles, the 4th Symphony, and, I’d hazard a guess, the 2nd Symphony I like it just fine.

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