Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Frühe Lieder (orch. Luciano Berio 1986-87) [27:54]
Luciano BERIO (1925-2003)
Sinfonia (1968) [33:17]
Matthias Goerne (baritone) (Lieder)
The Synergy Vocals (Sinfonia)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Josep Pons
rec. 26-27 September 2015, Maida Vale BBC Studios (Lieder); 7 December 2012, Barbican Centre, London, UK (Sinfonia)
HARMONIA MUNDI HMC902180 [61:29]
The two sides of Luciano Berio are well represented on this
disc: orchestrator/arranger of other composers’ music, and creator of
his own works. I have to say that while I greatly admire the former, I have
always had difficulty with the composer’s original compositions. My
favourite Berio pieces include his Folk Song arrangements, “completion”
of Schubert’s Tenth Symphony, titled Rendering, and the orchestral
versions of the early Mahler songs on this programme. Of all his own compositions,
Sinfonia is undoubtedly the best known and most often heard. This
is due in some degree to Berio’s use of the scherzo movement from Mahler’s
Second Symphony, which forms the basis of Sinfonia’s third
and longest movement.
While I have never completely come to terms with Sinfonia, I have
grown to appreciate what the composer was attempting in this rather cluttered
score. As Jérémie Bigorie points out in his enlightening notes in the accompanying
booklet, the title Sinfonia is not meant to be regarded as a “symphony,”
but to be “taken in its etymological sense: voices (eight of them) and
instruments (an orchestra with expanded keyboard and percussion sections)
‘sounding together’.” Bigorie sums up the reaction to the
work as “a hodgepodge of gratuitous quotations for some, an in contestable
masterpiece for others.” I was first exposed to the work in its four-movement
original version composed for Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic
back in the late sixties or early seventies. On CD my reference is the Decca
account by Riccardo Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. This new
recording, though, has provided me with a greater appreciation of the score—particularly
the way the vocalists are recorded. There is little to choose between the
two accounts as far as the orchestras are concerned, but the clarity of the
various quotations from such writers as Claude Lévi-Strauss and James Joyce
among others, makes the piece far easier to comprehend. At the same time,
the orchestra is not relegated to the background and does not play second
fiddle to the spoken or sung texts. The dry acoustics of the Barbican Centre
may well have contributed to this impression, but there is more warmth than
one usually expects from recordings in that venue. Josep Pons clearly relishes
the score and brings it across as well as one could hope, particularly the
Martin Luther King tribute in the second movement and the third movement with
its references not only to Mahler, but also to Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss,
and other composers.
Nevertheless, what make this disc special are the Berio orchestrations of
early Mahler songs. Berio scored ten of Mahler’s songs into two sets
of five for male voice and orchestra and six for baritone voice and orchestra,
respectively, where he repeated the last song from the first set, Erinnerung,
as the ultimate song in the second set. Thus, there are eleven altogether,
if you include the repeat of Erinnerung. Seven of these songs originated
in Des Knaben Wunderhorn that Mahler hadn’t orchestrated, though
there was the orchestra-only version of Ablösung im Sommer the composer
used as the basis of the scherzando third movement of his Symphony
No. 3. Berio’s orchestrations are totally idiomatic, because he was
respectful of Mahler’s own orchestral versions of his other songs. They
sound like pure Mahler, not the Berio of his own compositions. David and Colin
Matthews also scored seven of Mahler’s early songs for orchestra in
1964, including some from Des Knaben Wunderhorn that are in the Berio
collection. There is an RCA recording of four of the early songs in their
edition sung by soprano Ruth Ziesak with the Royal Philharmonic under Daniele
Gatti on a disc containing the Symphony No. 4. As with other Mahler lieder
they suit the high voice as well as the low.
Matthias Goerne is a superb exponent of these songs with his rich, dark baritone.
He captures the romantic longing and the bitterness of death equally well,
while one might prefer a lighter voice in the songs touched with earthy humour.
Thomas Hampson is just such a performer. He recorded both sets of these songs
with Berio conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, along with other early Mahler
lieder for Teldec, back in the early 1990s when his voice was at
its freshest. Actually, there is little to choose between the two baritones.
They complement each other well. Goerne is especially eloquent in Erinnerung,
which, incidentally, Hampson includes twice on his disc, as the last number
of each set. Goerne also excels in Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen
Wald and Phantasie where he sings with great feeling and varies
the lyrical and more darkly romantic passages well. Hampson, on the other
hand, is terrific in such songs as Ablösung im Sommer, Hans und
Grete (where he imitates a yodel that some others also do, but Goerne
does not), and Frühlingsmorgen. Goerne is recorded up-close and can
be overpowering at times, whereas Hampson is slightly more distant and better
integrated with the orchestra. One really needs both recordings to fully appreciate
these songs, which should be every bit as popular as the ones Mahler orchestrated
himself.
As a programme demonstrating the talents of Berio as composer and as orchestrator
I cannot think of a better place to start than here. Pons and the BBC Symphony
do him proud in the Sinfonia, and enlisting Goerne in the songs was
inspired.
Leslie Wright
Track listing of Frühe Lieder
From “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” (1-4, 6, 7, 10)
Ablösung im Sommer [1:37]
Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz [3:49]
Nicht wiedersehen! [4:32]
Um schlimme Kinder artig zu machen [1:49]
Erinnerung (R. Leander) [2:47]
Hans und Grete [2:03]
Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald [4:26]
Frühlingsmorgen (R. Leander) [1:59]
Phantasie (from “Don Juan,” Tirso de Molina)
[2:24]
Scheiden und Meiden [2:28]
|
Support us financially by purchasing
this from
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|