Last month Tony Duggan extolled the virtues
he perceived in both these recordings. However, different music lovers hold
quite different opinions when it comes to performance details so I thought
you might find it interesting to read another point of view - that of Marc
Bridle.
Len Mullenger
Das Lied von der Erde is one of Mahler's greatest, but most
problematic, works. It is also one that has produced only a handful of great
performances. Neither of these BBC discs comes anywhere near the visionary
projection of Klemperer, in his last recording of the piece, or the corruscating,
but intensely colourful, version by van Beinum, the two exceptional, benchmark
recordings of this work.
The problem lies almost entirely in whether one takes a symphonic view of
this piece, or whether one approaches it more as large-scale chamber music.
For Horenstein, Das Lied clearly follows on from the vast symphonic
structures of the Eighth symphony, and this performance, if nothing else,
clearly presages the harrowly finality of the Ninth. There is a similar,
epoch-shattering attempt to recreate the heart-rending beauty of the final
movements in both of Horenstein's performances of these works. However, in
both this Das Lied, and his 1966 Mahler 9 with the LSO, Horenstein
evidently believes the measured distance of the movements' development somehow
refines the tragedy of the unfolding drama. The effect is almost entirely
superficial. The Der Abschied here is unbalanced, and hangs fire as
on no other recording - a similar drawback in his remote conducting of the
final movement of the Ninth symphony. The grief and ecstasy of these movements
is not so much contrasted, rather that they are laid out like a corpse. Emotion
is embalmed.
Similar problems present themselves in Horenstein's pacing of the other
movements. The first song, for tenor, is wilful, the exuberance of the Drinking
Song here replaced by something teetering between the extremes of mild
intoxication and paralysis. There is nothing terrifying here - the lines
'Ein Aff' ist's! Hört ihr, wie sein Heulen/ hinausgellt in den
süßen Duft des Lebens!' neither invoke despair nor have the
existential horror Mahler surely intended. John Mitchinson's attempt to appear
genuinely terrified by these lines is hopelessly hampered by Horenstein's
refusal to draw from the score Mahler's almost schismatic atonalism. The
colouration of the second song, for mezzo, does not conjure up the autumnal
impression one expects - this is an autumn where the leaves have already
fallen from the trees before they have had a chance to turn a melancholic
shade of brown.
More worryingly, this performance has nothing of the chamber-like quality
Mahler surely envisaged. The contrast between the operatic Klemperer, who
carves the rich textured sonorities for oboe, flute and horn into a truly
individual response from his players, and Horenstein who submerges the
plaintiveness of these Mahlerian cadences beneath dense orchestration, is
telling. Had Horenstein conducted more opera - any opera - this performance
might just have been more compelling. Unlike the ever-impressive Klemperer,
Horenstein is incapable of hearing the inner beauty and linear undertones
of Mahler's delicate notation.
It is odd indeed that Klemperer's performance, recorded over a stretch of
26 months, should be a more moving experience than this single take from
Horenstein. Neither John Mitchinson, nor Alfreda Hodgson, are soloists of
the first rank and one feels they are sorely tested by Horenstein's deliberate
pacing of the score. The orchestral playing is generally fine, but string
tone is often emaciated, and there is a general barrenness to the sonorities
that suggests extensive over-preparation.
Raymond Leppard's recording, from 1977, need not detain the attention for
long. It is more conventional in tempo than Horenstein's, the only aberration
being a final movement as long as the former, but it is also a performance
that has a certain anonymity to it. Janet Baker, as one would expect of this
experienced Mahlerian, is fine in Der Abschied but her singing of
this is simply too late to make this performance worth considering.
Recommendable versions of Das Lied von der Erde remain unchanged by
the entry of these two BBC discs into a crowded market. Klemperer is a clear
first choice, but for the adventurous I would suggest Guilini's passionate,
and staggeringly profound account with Brigitte Fassbaender and Francisco
Araiza on DG. It makes Horenstein's performance sound like a rehearsal.
Reviewer
Marc Bridle
No stars awarded for either performance, I'm afraid.
See also earlier review by Tony Duggan
See also Tony Duggans complete
survey of recordings of Das Lied
John Mitchinson
(Tenor), Alfreda Hodgson (Mezzo) BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra Conducted
by Jascha Horenstein BBC Legends BBCL 4042-2 apprx
£12 
