My grandmother's birthday is on Boxing Day. My family gave me a mandate for her birthday present: find $50 worth of Mahler CD's. My initial reaction was to get her 1, 2, 5, and 9. 2 is my favorite at the moment, 9 is so profound, and 1 and 5 are so famous, how could I go wrong with those? Looking through the 9's, I came across this recording, paired with two pieces by Pierre Boulez. I think Notations is a real knock-out piece (I found the old Erato recording at For the Record used some years back), but can I really get it for my grandmother?
Yes, I'm an unashamed evangelist of great music. I would love it if everyone would give Boulez the chance his music deserves (and think that a lot more people would find they actually like it if they just listened to it with their ears open).
But can I really get some Boulez for my grandmother? I'm already getting her Mahler, so she does listen outside of the tightly confined 1700-1900 WCRB box. Am I such a partisan that I will get my grandmother Notations for her 85th birthday?
The answer is no. I ended up picking out some nice recordings conducted by Bernstein, because she probably fell in love with his recordings forty years ago. I guess there are some lines even I won't cross.
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