Mahler: Symphony No. 5

This release is the fourth volume in Adam Fischer’s fabulous survey of Mahler’s symphonies. His previous volumes in the cycle have garnered widespread critical acclaim, including two Editor’s Choices by Gramophone. The Fifth Symphony is one of Mahler’s most loved works. Composed during the summer months of 1901 and 1902 at Mahler’s holiday cottage at Maiernigg, the 5th Symphony features a trumpet solo that opens the work with the same rhythmic motive as the famous opening of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. The scope of the work is huge, lasting over an hour and requiring a large number of musicians. The fourth movement, Adagietto, is said to represent Mahler’s love song to his wife, Alma, and is probably the composer’s most performed piece of music.

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REVIEWS:

Fischer’s elastic sense of tempo can be stretched to extremes in the Adagietto. What remains outstanding is the textural clarity and what is among the clearest renderings on disc of the finale’s teeming fugues. A peerless trumpet rides the first-movement welters impressively, too. The strings may not be the weightiest in the business, but every phrase is beautifully detailed and projected.

– BBC Music Magazine

Adam Fischer’s kinship with this music seems to grow exponentially with each successive instalment of what is already proving an exceptional Mahler cycle. There’s a stylistic and emotional understanding which goes beyond the precisely annotated scores. Perhaps the most impressive thing about this account of the Fifth Symphony is the ‘in the moment’ feeling it engenders from first to last.

– Gramophone

Gustav Mahler's death left his Tenth Symphony unfinished, consisting only of an unfinished score and several sketches. Ensemble Mini, a radical collective of soloists from Germany's finest orchestras, presents Michelle Castelletti's fascinating recreation of the work - one of the most powerful sound creations ever written - in a version for chamber ensemble. Ensemble Mini is a radical collective of super-sonic-soloists from Germany's top orchestras that repackages super symphonic music for new audiences. Addressing the need to make classical music cool for the 21st century, its mission is to revolutionize the symphonic concert experience through new style, sound and setting whilst never dumbing down.

Mahler initially had a hard time of it. A few compositional attempts from his youth did not turn out to his liking and were destroyed. When Das klagende Lied finally met with his own critical favor, he stated, "My first work in which I have found myself as 'Mahler'!" Here it is heard in colorful contrast to the fragment from his last symphony and the "Blumine" andante originally intended for the first symphony. The Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn under its resourceful conductor Stefan Blunier is in top form on this fascinatingly detailed look at Mahler's compositional workshop.

The journey starts in Switzerland, in the canton of Thurgau, leading from Steckborn and the Bodensee to the Rhine Falls. From Styria, in Austria, comes Hochosterwitz Castle and from Bavaria Weikersheim Castle, the latter intercut with wild life from the Austrian Assling Nature Park. The tour ends amid the strangely shaped mountains of the Dolomites in Southern Tyrol, a region divided between Austria and Italy. In a remarkable way Mahler, in his symphonies and songs, has seemed to reflect the world of today in all it's bewildering variety and has now won an established place in concert repertoire. Distinguished as a conductor, his fame as a composer has grown over the years since his death. The music included here is Mahler's ymphony No. 1, nick-named Titan, not for it's massive power, but after the book by Jean Paul, a strong influence over earlier romantics and over Mahler at this stage in his career. The symphony breathes the spirit of the Austrian countryside, reflected in Mahler's songs.

THE VOICES OF LIVING STEREO VO

In Gustav Mahler's first four symphonies many of the themes originate in his own settings of folk poems from the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy's Magic Horn). A case in point, Symphony No.?4 is built around a single song, Das himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life) which Mahler had composed some eight years earlier, in 1892. The song presents a child's vision of Heaven and is hinted at throughout the first three movements. In the fourth, marked ‘Sehr behaglich’ (Very comfortably), the song is heard in full from a solo soprano instructed by Mahler to sing: ‘with serene, childlike expression; completely without parody!’ The symphony is scored for a typically large, late-romantic orchestra (though without trombones and tuba) and an extensive percussion section which includes sleigh bells as well as glockenspiel. However, Mahler mostly deploys his forces with a transparency and lightness more akin to chamber music or eighteenth-century models like Mozart or Haydn. The Fourth has become one of his best-loved symphonies and is here performed by Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä, joined by the angelic voice of English soprano Carolyn Sampson.

REVIEWS:

This is a difficult symphony to hold together and far too many performances are let down by indifferently realised finales. Vänskä connects it very well to the closing mood of the third movement, but an immense responsibility lies on the soprano soloist in the closing Das himmlische Liebe from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. The Klemperer studio recording was fatally undermined by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf’s too-knowing, overly sophisticated, rendition: the work needs a mixture of radiance and simplicity – this is a child’s vision of heaven, with Saint Martha in the kitchen. I have never heard the piece as I hear it in my head, but Carolyn Sampson captures very much of the radiance, despite some darkness in the lower register and some indifferent articulation. Perhaps the ideal voice would be that of a younger Emma Kirkby, and she certainly performed the piece, notably with Norrington at the Carnegie in 2001, but, to the best of my knowledge, never recorded it.

The first two movements are splendidly realized, combining poetry with a sense of momentum, and just the right touch of the spectral in the soloist’s tuned-up violin in the second movement.

The quality of recording is beautifully clear – as one expects from BIS – and I like very much their robust, bio-friendly, slim packaging, a huge improvement on easily-broken jewel cases.

Make no mistake: this Mahler 4 ranks with the very best, and I shall return to it very often.

– MusicWeb International

This cast does not generate as dreamy, airy, wafting textures as those of Szell and Bernstein; the textures here are plainer but make something no less convincing: the matter-of-fact clarinet, the barely-poco-vibrato string tone, and Sampson’s warm but never sugary tone.

Some will complain that Vänskä still doesn’t conduct Mahler as we know and love; judging by only the second movement, I would agree. But for the rest, I find his approach perfectly subjective and cinematic. The outstanding recording quality and superb musicians combine with Vänskä’s light touch to make a wonderful addition to this cycle.

– TheClassicReview

The series of the Mahler Symphonies with the Dusseldorf Symphonic under the baton of Adam Fischer has come to this end with the release of the Symphony No. 6.

Over the last four years Adam Fischer's Mahler recordings grew to a most successful recording project, winning the BBC Music Magazine Award, and the OPUS KLASSIK Trophy in Germany and many splendid and outstanding reviews from around the world.

In the Dusseldorf Tonhalle in late February and early March 2020, we gave Mahler's Sixth Symphony in three live concert performances which we recorded for this CD. This date in the calendar had special significance: the first lockdown period due to the Corona pandemic set in immediately thereafter.

The orchestra was playing in full line-up in front of a full house for the last time for a long while. The mood was ominous: we all felt something was amiss, and the next day everything had to be cancelled. We strongly associate those circumstances with our work on the Sixth, and with the foreboding we felt of a catastrophe that has since ruined the livelihoods of many musician colleagues and deprived us all of a meaningful period in our lives. Mahler's Sixth is always a major event for the orchestra and for the audience. One leaves the concert hall weary and exhausted; time is required to regain one's composure. This symphony requires a gigantic orchestra: here, once more, Mahler was attempting to stretch the boundaries of what was possible in his day.

Not to achieve a mere effect, but simply because he needed such a gigantic instrumental apparatus to express his feelings. The sheer amount of emotions we deal with in this symphony is almost unbearable. The controversial third hammer blow provides a good example: Mahler most certainly crossed it out after a rehearsal, overcome by emotion, afraid of dying. In his very bones he thought and felt that this symphony would prompt his demise.

The New York Philharmonic - America's preeminent symphony orchestra gave 'A Concert for New York' to mark the tenth anniversary of the events of 9/11. What work could be better suited to the occasion than Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony with it's 'evocation of every aspect of life' and 'it's profound sense of hope', as the Philharmonic's Music Director Alan Gilbert put it? This concert became an unforgettable event, a 'consistently impressive' performance with 'gripping playing', 'magnificent' soloists and an 'excellent' chorus (New York Times).

Classical Music

A paradigmatic example of the Wiener Symphoniker's core repertoire, Mahler's First Symphony in D major was written only four years before the orchestra was founded in 1900. Not surprisingly, Mahler's symphonies and their interpretational challenges were among the main intersts of the orchestra and it's many renowned conductors from the very beginning. Above that Mahler's Symphony No. 1, being the first oeuvre of a Vienna revolutionary, is more sutable for the start of this new Vienna Orchestra label.

MAHLER Symphony No. 5 • James DePreist, cond; London SO • NAXOS 8.557990 (72: 43)


The Mahler symphonies have had a somewhat episodic history on Naxos: most of the recently completed cycle features Antoni Wit conducting either the Polish National Radio-TV Orchestra or the Warsaw National Philharmonic; but the recordings of the First, Seventh, and Ninth Symphonies were conducted by Michael Halász. Now, another Fifth appears, conducted by a distinguished American with the mighty LSO.


Whatever its provenance (and why look such an attractive gift horse in the mouth?), this is a sturdy, musically solid performance. The first movement is characterized by commanding fanfares and the steady tread of the funeral march. DePreist doesn’t linger over the latter, but he isn’t as hasty as Sir Roger Norrington in his view of the fanfares, either. One unusual gesture is the sudden ritenuto immediately after the eruption of the quicker tempo at the first Trio; this seems to suggest that the struggle is almost too much. The timpani introduction to the second Trio is muted, becoming almost an echo at the end of its phrase, an effect repeated at the end of the coda, where the muted trumpet, which echoes the opening fanfare, is almost inaudible—a very haunting effect, made that much more interesting by the final note, which is decisively sforzando.


The second movement is a convincing extension of the first, as the stormy opening gives way to the subdued echo of the funeral march. The two themes are convincingly alternated, the occasionally imploring character of the second theme suddenly giving way to optimism in the chorale that ends the development section; this is reinforced by its later D-Major variant, aptly described by Dr. Floros as “Vision of Paradise.” This performance amply demonstrates how apposite that characterization is, while the coda plunges the listener back into the maelstrom.


DePreist takes Mahler’s indication of nicht zu schnell to heart for the Scherzo, as a very expansive tempo (very similar to that of Michael Tilson Thomas in his new Fifth) produces music of geniality rather than robust jollity, and it is a bit short on vigor for a movement marked kräftig (the last minute is an exception, as the music dashes to the end). The LSO copes easily with the relaxed tempo, producing music of strength in addition to good humor. The sound production from Abbey Road Studios is clarity itself, allowing the wide variety of instrumental effects in this mammoth score to be heard while producing the necessary sonic punch when required. The soundstage is satisfyingly wide and deep, and on the whole this recording can stand comparison with most of the Mahler Fifths on the market. Fanfare ’s headnotes used to include the producer’s name, so I am happy to note here that the producer of this splendid-sounding recording is our own Michael Fine.


The Adagietto is decidedly old school, clocking in at 10:42; as with the MTT performance, this can work if one accepts that there are often conflicting feelings being voiced, and if, as is the case here, there is some flexibility in the tempo. The prominent harp assists in giving the illusion of movement in this otherwise timeless music. On the whole, DePreist makes a better case for this kind of interpretation than Tilson Thomas.


An echo of the amiability (and tempo) of the Scherzo is heard as DePreist ushers in the finale; the movement gains momentum as the rondo takes shape. The tempo marking Allegro giocoso , and the term Frisch, are utilized by Mahler to characterize this movement; “jolly” and “fresh” this interpretation certainly is, and the whole performance comes to an exhilarating close.


For a symphony as oft-recorded as the Mahler Fifth, there have been (surprisingly) few featuring this orchestra; I for one am grateful to Maestro DePreist and his crew for producing such a successful performance with one of the world’s premier Mahler orchestras. At the Naxos price, this is one of the Mahler bargains of the decade.


FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

When the Bamberg Symphony and their principal conductor Jakub Hruša went on tour in Germany with Mahler's Fourth Symphony in January 2020, no one would have thought that this symphony in particular would become a kind of "symphony of fate" of the year, for only two months later, the performance of major symphonic works was impossible for a long time after the "corona lockdown" in Germany, which hit cultural institutions particularly hard. The Bamberg Symphony were involved at an early stage in investigating the effects of making music together on the spread of the virus and helped to develop concepts for safe concert performances. This enabled their renowned Mahler Competition to take place in early July 2020, with Mahler's Fourth Symphony at its center. Even though it is the smallest Mahler symphony, these were the first symphonic performances after months, which then led to one of the first symphonic album recordings in times of the pandemic - seated apart, but musically closer than ever.

The journey starts in Switzerland, in the canton of Thurgau, leading from Steckborn and the Bodensee to the Rhine Falls. From Styria, in Austria, comes Hockosterwitz Castle and from Bavaria Weikersheim Castle, the latter intercut with wild life.

This OehmsClassics release of Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony coupled with sole Mahler-completed movement (Adagio) from the Tenth signals the completion of the Markus Stenz led Mahler cycle with the Gürzenich Orchestra, Köln. Critical acclaim for this cycle has been outstanding, with the Third and Seventh Symphonies in particular being singled out as among the finest recordings currently available. 2013-14 marked Mr. Stenz’s tenth and final season as Principal Conductor of the Gürzenich Orchestra.

In this great program of music, Daniel Raiskin and his Koblenz Orchestra prove they are at the highest standard, producing superb sound and very musical playing.

Homelands is a powerful album of classical art song about exile. Featuring Ian Bostridge, Jennifer France, James Atkinson, Wonsick Oh, and pianist Aron Goldin, who curated the project. The songs (include many favorites by Tchaikovsky and Faure) are on the theme of exile and yearning for home. A performance of Homelands at the Royal Academy of Music in London on World Refugee Day in June 2022, with Olivier Award, Bafta and Tony Award winning actor Sir Simon Russell Beal reading poems by Auden, Brecht and Carol Ann Duffy with ancient Hebrew and Chinese poetry raised over �200,000 for the 30 Birds Foundation, a charity that enabled 500 Afghan school girls to escape the Taliban and fly from Kabul to Canada.

Mahler: Symphony No. 1

MAHLER Das Lied von der Erde • Hans Graf, cond; Jane Henschel (mez); Gregory Kunde (tenor); Houston SO • NAXOS 8.572498 (62:46) Live: Houston 11/19–22/2009


Just as I noted with some dismay the relative dearth of recordings of the original version of Das Lied for full orchestra ( Fanfare 35:4), this new CD arrives from Naxos. It’s also encouraging to see an American orchestra and its music director featured on a major label, since new recordings of orchestras in the U.S. increasingly originate from in-house labels like SFS Media and CSO Resound (though the lack of the former necessitated the latter).


Any performance of Das Lied lives or dies by its soloists, and taste in voices is a particularly individual foible. I’ve found that I have no tolerance for the type of ripe, chocolate-thick mezzo or contralto common to many recordings (and that, alas, includes such greats as Maureen Forrester and Kathleen Ferrier). Given those constraints, I find this performance to be one of the best I’ve heard.


Gregory Kunde is described in the bio included in the notes as a bel canto singer, but he proves more than adequate in the Heldentenor demands of “Der Trinklied” (hard to fake in a live concert recording). His sensitivity to the text, however, may be his strongest quality; the reiterations of “dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod” are each sung with a slight diminuendo and a touch of melancholy that are truly heartfelt. His lyrical side is heard to salubrious effect in “Von der Jugend,” while the two styles combine to make “Der Trunkene” a rousing, tipsy delight.


Jane Henschel, the voice of Maria Aegyptiaca for Eliahu Inbal, Simon Rattle, and Bertrand DeBilly in their respective recordings of Mahler’s Eighth, is a fine Mahler interpreter. Her performance of “Der Abschied” will stand up to most of the competition, but I am also taken with her handling of the fast section describing the handsome youths in “Von der Schönheit”: In a manner approaching Sprechstimme , she navigates the treacherous waters with aplomb, then immediately regains the more stately composure of the rest of the narrative. In “Der Einsame” she combines melancholy and resignation with quiet effectiveness.


Hans Graf accompanies with sensitivity and well-gauged tempos that neither drag nor rush; he allows Henschel the breathing room in “Von der Schönheit” while charging “Der Trinklied” with the kind of momentum needed to convey the angst of the narrator. The Houston Symphony plays as to the manner born. I haven’t heard too much Mahler from this source, but on the strength of this recording, I’d like to hear more. The sound production is another sterling effort by Michael Fine, placing the soloists front and center without undue spotlighting, and revealing plenty of inner voice detailing from the orchestra. Altogether, this is a real bargain at reduced price (texts and translation are available on the Naxos website). Highly recommended.


FANFARE: Christopher Abbot


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Time was when Naxos recordings of core repertoire would be considered cheap and cheerful, but hardly designed to compete with the best in the catalogue. That has long since changed, with a growing number of discs that, while still sold at the super-budget price point, are every bit as desirable as established or more expensive performances. Certainly, Antoni Wit’s Mahler Eight must be at or near the top of the list of recommendations for that work, proof that great Mahler recordings don’t all emanate from Vienna, Berlin or Lucerne.
 
The Houston Symphony Orchestra and their Linz-born music director Hans Graf are both unfamiliar to me, as are the soloists, but as I’ve already hinted that’s hardly an issue where this label is concerned. Indeed, listening to a number of more illustrious recordings in preparation for this review I was reminded of just how difficult it is to alight on an ideal – or near ideal – version of this elusive score. Either the mezzo isn’t up to the sustained demands of that long goodbye or the tenor is overstretched by Mahler’s taxing tessitura; and even if the soloists are up to snuff, the articulation and pacing of the music itself may be problematic. And then there’s the recording quality which, while not the key issue, plays an important part in one’s perception of – and response to - this multi-hued score.
 
Of my selected comparisons two – Raymond Leppard on BBC Radio Classics 9120 and Bernard Haitink on Philips 468 182-2 – feature the limpid tones of Dame Janet Baker. The clarity and directness of her vocal style is always pleasing, and while I don’t share Tony Duggan’s out-and-out enthusiasm for Baker/Leppard and the Alfreda Hodgson/Jascha Horenstein version on BBC Legends 4042-2, I like them rather more than my colleague Marc Bridle does. In particular, Baker’s Der Abschied with Leppard – recorded at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in 1977 – has a high goose-bump count, and while she sings with characteristic commitment for Haitink she lacks the intensity of feeling that makes the Leppard disc so memorable.
 
Kathleen Ferrier for Bruno Walter (Decca 466 576-2) and Christa Ludwig for Otto Klemperer (EMI 5 66892 2) are her main rivals, although Ferrier’s artless, somewhat old-fashioned, delivery doesn’t appeal to me. Heresy, I know, but I’ve often wondered whether Walter’s link to Mahler and Ferrier’s early death have given this recording a lustre it doesn’t always deserve. And among more recent recordings Cornelia Kallisch sounds warm but all-too-often uninvolved on Michael Gielen’s otherwise admirable version (Hänssler 93.269). Of the men, John Mitchinson – for Horenstein and Leppard – struggles with Mahler’s near-falsetto writing, while Haitink’s James King – placed quite far back - is rather more secure, if a little too generalised for my tastes. Walter’s tenor, Julius Patzak, is full-bodied but a trifle staid, heldentenor Siegfried Jerusalem and the agile Fritz Wunderlich – for Gielen and Klemperer respectively – both fresh and virile.
 
How does the Houston recording fare in this mixed company? In Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde Gregory Kunde sounds pleasing enough, although his voice is less appealing under pressure; at first I felt the orchestra was rather backwardly balanced, but it suits the intimate scale of this performance. The real revelation, though, is Graf, whose reading of the score is very impressive indeed, becoming more insightful as the piece unfolds. He can’t quite match Klemperer for sheer amplitude and nuance, but he does find an astonishing lucidity that works especially well in the trembling loveliness of ‘Der Einsame im Herbst’.
 
In that song mezzo Jane Henschel sings most hauntingly of the loneliness and the transience of life, her delivery discreet but always subtly inflected. In many ways she is the antithesis of Baker, who sometimes strives a little too hard for effect, notably in her recording for Haitink. And while Henschel doesn’t efface memories of Ludwig here, I was captivated by her glowing, unforced response to Bethge’s texts, notably Von der Schönheit. I particularly liked her honeyed lower registers, but again it’s Graf’s lightness of touch and natural rhythms that beguile the mind and ear.
 
Kunde may be overstretched as the drunkard but his delivery has a youthful charm that’s entirely apt; that said, Jerusalem and Wunderlich negotiate those treacherous vocal lines with aplomb, their innig moments more finely calibrated. In terms of sonics the Naxos disc may not be as weighty or tactile as Gielen’s, or as atmospheric as Leppard’s, but at least it isn’t as rough and ready as Horenstein’s. As for the much-lauded Philips sound for Haitink, it isn’t nearly as refulgent as I remember it. The EMI recording for Klemperer is big and bold and, in its GROC version at least, hardly shows its age at all.
 
And despite initial caveats about the Naxos soundstage I have to say the convulsive gong shudder at the start of Der Abschied is just electrifying, ushering in half-an-hour of sublime music and even more sublime singing. For me, Ludwig is sans pareil here, a perfect match for Klemperer’s stoicism, but I can assure you Henschel is just as commanding of mood and line. This is an abendrot like no other, the trembling air suffused with the scents of loveliness and decay. The Houstonians really do capture the evanescence of this music very well indeed; as for Graf, he maintains a sensible and steady pulse throughout, achieving a rare blend of poise and penetration as well. Thankfully the audience is very quiet, and there’s no applause at the end to break this deep, deep spell.
 
Is there an ideal recording of Das Lied von der Erde? Probably not, but as the talents of this newcomer are so prodigious and its faults so minor I’d say this one comes pretty close.
 
-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

Mahler: Orchesterlieder

Left unfinished at the death of the composer, Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony has exerted an enormous fascination on musicologists as well as musicians – a kind of Holy Grail of 20th-century music. Recognized as an intensely personal work, it was initially consigned to respectful oblivion, but over the years, Alma Mahler, the composer’s widow, released more and more of Mahler’s sketches for publication, and gradually it became clear that he had in fact bequeathed an entire five-movement symphony in short score (i.e. written on three or four staves). Of this, nearly half had reached the stage of a draft orchestration, while the rest contained indications of the intended instrumentation. Over the years a number of different completions or performing versions of ‘the Tenth’ have seen the light of day. One of the most often performed and recorded of these is that by Deryck Cooke. Cooke himself insisted that his edition was not a ‘completion’ of the work, but rather a functional presentation of the materials as Mahler left them. Cooke’s performing version of the symphony is the one that Osmo Vanska has chosen to use for the seventh installment in his and the Minnesota Orchestra’s Mahler series, a cycle characterized by an unusual transparency and clarity of sound as well as musical conception.

REVIEW:

From the outset, Vänskä’s handling of the opening Adagio is sublime, its long themes opening up in endless waves thanks to the clean-toned Minnesota strings and the conductor’s perfectly judged balance between purposeful progress and emotional repose. BIS’s engineering is immaculate, simultaneously spacious and detailed, and presented with convincing weight and clarity. The contrast between the pristine pianissimo strings and the moment the Adagiofinally heaves its heart into its mouth is overwhelming.

The first Scherzo is nimble and fleet of foot, Vänskä’s insistence on delicacy over grotesquery tying it neatly to the first movement. Again, incident is brought out with considerable imagination and there’s some superb solo work from the Minnesota principals. This is musical storytelling at its finest.

In Vänskä’s hands the “Purgatorio” movement is a gossamer reflection of the younger composer in the carefree days of the Fourth Symphony upon which the clouds occasionally darken. Building his argument, Vänskä urges the fourth movement second Scherzo along while ensuring plenty of contrasts. “The devil is dancing this with me; madness, seize me and destroy me,” Mahler wrote at the top of this movement, ending with, “You alone know what it means. Ah! Ah! Farewell my lyre! Farewell, farewell, farewell, farewell. Ah! Ah!”.

Linking the two final movements is a dramatic coup. The sudden impact of the muffled drum – inspired by a funeral procession that Mahler and Alma witnessed from the window of their New York hotel room – is heart-stopping, as is the following progression in which the musical spools of Mahler’s life seem to gradually unravel towards that final page where Mahler scribbled, “für dich leben! für dich sterben! Almschi!” (To live for you! To die for you! Almschi!). Over 25 unmissable minutes, Vänskä interweaves the moving with the mercurial in a riveting demonstration of musical storytelling.

As this Minnesota cycle enters the final furlong, this Tenth is a major achievement.

– Limelight (Clive Paget)

Classical Music

Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony started life as a single-movement tone poem called Todtenfeier (‘Funeral Rites’). Completed in 1888 – one year before Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration – it echoed the composer's vision of seeing himself lying dead in a funeral bier surrounded by flowers. Deciding to use it as his opening movement, Mahler didn't finish the complete five-movement symphony until more than six years later, the longest time he spent on any work. The huge scale of the work apart, its weighty subject matter may well have contributed to the slow progress: Mahler himself outlined a scenario making references to the ultimate meaning of life and death (first movement), recollections of lost innocence and the desperation of unbelief (second and third movements), the return to naïve faith (fourth movement) and final redemption from the last judgement (finale). To convey this he took recourse to the human voice: incorporating a solo alto in the 4th movement Urlicht, he went on in the finale to risk comparison with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony by introducing a choir, as well as a soprano and alto soloist.

Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä have received praise for their previous Mahler recordings (‘Vänskä and the orchestra are among the finest exponents of Mahler’s music...’, allmusic.com). The team is here joined by soloists Ruby Hughes and Sasha Cooke and the Minnesota Chorale in the deeply moving close to the vast and tumultuous panorama that is his Second Symphony.

REVIEW:

[Vänskä] adopts a nicely relaxed approach – and pace – for the second movement. The strings play very stylishly and the recording differentiates very well indeed between the various string parts. The third movement is also largely a success; the sardonic humour comes across quite well – as is in keeping with the original Knaben Wunderhorn song on which the movement is based. The orchestra points the music very effectively with special praise for the woodwind in this regard. The wild premonition of the finale (8:03) is projected with dramatic force and urgency. Sasha Cooke sings "Urlicht" very well indeed.

The huge finale is unleashed in dramatic fashion and the vivid impact of the bass drum stroke is typical of the quality of the BIS recording. Vänskä handles this vast musical fresco pretty well. The drama is projected strongly, not least in the huge march episode that follows those two apocalyptic percussion crescendi (9:21). The grosse Appell is impressive (17:16): the distant brass is very well handled in the recording and the solo piccolo and flute distinguish themselves. When the choir begins to sing (20:01) their sound is hushed but distinct, which is as it should be. Ruby Hughes’ silvery voice rises gently and sweetly from the midst of the singers at the end of the first long phrase. Miss Hughes does very well, too, in the ‘O Glaube’ duet with Sasha Cooke.

The performance is highly accomplished. Vänskä has a good choir at his disposal and two excellent soloists. As for his orchestra, they play the music marvellously. There are many idiomatic touches such as string portamenti while accents – so crucial in Mahler – and dynamics are scrupulously observed.

– MusicWeb International

Alma Mahler-Werfel was born in Vienna 1879, the daughter of a soprano and a landscape painter. Her musical talent was soon recognized and she had lessons with a.o. Zemlinsky. In 1922 she married Gustav Mahler, who explicitly forbid her to continue her composing. Later however, seeing her withering, Mahler allowed her to publish a song cycle in 1910. Alma Mahler was a highly intelligent and cultured woman, surrounded by great artists like Klimt, Zemlinsky, Gropius and Werfel. Her salon in Vienna was the centre of high cultural life. After the war she settled in New York, where she became an iconic figure in the music scene till her death in 1964. Her songs reflect the Zeitgeist of composition: dramatic, brooding, the darkness occasionally lifted by visions of serenity and peace. These are beautiful performances by Catharina Kroeger and Monica Lonero, champions of neglected romantic music. As a bonus they perform a soprano-actress based work called “Penelope” by contemporary composer Patrizia Montanaro.

Neeme Järvi has been recording for Chandos for several decades now, especially with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, with which he has made more than 100 CDs. Many of these recordings have received tremendous critical acclaim and include several Gramophone Award Winners.

This is his second Chandos recording with the Residentie Orchestra The Hague, of which he is chief conductor. The first, of Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony (CHSA5080) was released in April to excellent acclaim. Gramophone wrote: ‘Järvi is too good a musician not to take his players with him. Indeed the Dutch musicians display a certain daredevil nonchalance as they breeze their way through the epic 635-bar finale.’

Mahler’s Seventh Symphony is perhaps the least well known of all Mahler’s symphonies. Its five movements were written over a period of two years, 1904 – 05, and scored and revised in 1906. The symphony has no programme, but the two serenade movements were influenced by the German romanticism of the poetry of Eichendorff, and elements of the fairytale, the macabre, and the sentimental permeate these movements.

Even though the symphony is imbued with a richness of melody, and bold and original harmonies, it is perhaps the most enigmatic of all Mahler’s symphonies. It begins with a striking funeral march, which develops into a powerful allegro, though the music is at the same time full of ‘dream-like’ elements. These dream-like fantasy elements pervade the serenade movements, which are separated by an exciting central scherzo, and the symphony ends with a vigorously contrapuntal finale. Perhaps the symphony can be seen as a journey from darkness to light, from the B minor gloom of the beginning, to the blaze of C major at the end. The journey is fascinating and very rewarding.

Hartmut Haenchen was born in Dresden in 1943 and from the moment of his 1971 Carl Maria von Weber Competition victory onward, he has been a force of nature in the classical music world. These Mahler recordings are being released to commemorate Haenchen's seventieth birthday and a rich career conducting orchestras and opera companies worldwide.

Classical Music

Classical Music

This remarkably original work, with its recurring quotations from the composer’s own songs, notably Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) and Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn), is the perfect expression of one of Mahler’s most quoted sayings, “The symphony is a world; it must contain everything”. The opening movement, filled with sounds that Mahler remembered from his childhood, depicts “Nature’s awakening from the long sleep of winter”, and is followed by an exuberant scherzo and trio based on a Ländler. The disturbing slow movement funeral march, based on the children’s song Frère Jacques, is unlike anything that had been heard before, and the symphony concludes with music of thrilling dramatic intensity.

REVIEWS:

In the finale the brass section is given its opportunity to step forward and they really deliver the goods. The trumpets, tuba, braying horns and tam-tam are thrilling in their impact. There is no distracting applause at the end of the symphony, thank goodness, and this allows for a few seconds thought before realising what a cracking performance has just taken place.

–MusicWeb International

This is a thoughtful performance, very reined-in for the most part, though when Alsop finally lets her Baltimore forces off the leash in the closing peroration the effect is so starling that it blows you away. Earlier on, there are moments when you feel she’s held too much back, particularly in the scherzo, which is overly deliberate. But the sense of wonder of the first movement, together with the ironies of the later funeral march, are breathtakingly done, and all that hard to balance counter-point is beautifully clear.

– Guardian (UK)

Winner of a 2022 Gramophone Award for Best Orchestral Recording!

If one sought a musical manifestation of all the painful experiences and tragic failures of European history in the early 20th century, it would be impossible to overlook the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. Here, there is no harmony where discord is more fitting. Here, life cries out, with all the conflict and joy it proffers humanity. In their performances, Kirill Petrenko and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester have enabled these experiences to resonate in remarkable fashion. What better way to launch the Bayerische Staatsopers new label than with this outstanding live concert recording. (Nikolaus Bachler, General Manager, Bayerische Staatsoper) Kirill Petrenko, general music director of the Bayerische Staatsoper from 2013 until 2020, conducts Gustav Mahlers Symphony No. 7 a pinnacle of the symphonic repertoire in a dramatic interpretation. This is the first audio-recording with Kirill Petrenko as chief conductor of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester.