The Fourth Symphony
is the last of the Wunderhorn group
and a link back to the Third is confirmed
by a quote from that work's fourth movement
in the finale of this one. After the
Fourth Mahler's sound and intellectual
world-view would change profoundly,
but there was still much to be gleaned
from what had meant so much to him in
these extraordinary poems. The principal
work on the Fourth occupied him in 1899
and 1900, though one of its movements
dates from 1892. This is the orchestral
setting of the Wunderhorn song "Das
Himmlische Leben" ("The Heavenly Life")
which he first thought of as finale
for his Third only to set it aside and
carry it forward to be the unusual finale
of this work. Clearly the words detailing
heaven as seen through the eyes of a
child painted a potent image, and the
existence of this movement before the
composition of the preceding three tells
us this is the ideas "cluster" around
which the symphony is constructed. What
we have is an examination in music of
the special nature of childish perception,
specifically as it is brought to bear
on those matters Mahler had wrestled
with in his two previous works: questions
of existence, of what happens after
death, of what lies behind the everyday,
all with the poems and world of "Des
Knaben Wunderhorn" like a beating
heart. In the Fourth he would use this
connection to lay before us a proposition.
Nothing less than that the perceptions
of childish innocence are not innocent
but, in fact, all-knowing and uniquely
percipient. It's a set of ideas he would
return to in the future. So in this
work there is no actual wrestling with
the questions of existence and hardly
any concern with conflict and resolution
either. For this reason the Fourth is
often portrayed as Mahler's least troubled
work and there is some truth in this
on a surface level. It certainly means
there is less the conductor can do to
harm it and this is reflected in the
recordings under discussion where differences
are quite slight, unlike those that
present themselves when recordings of
the Second are compared, for example.
For this reason my core selections of
recordings remain constant in this revision
though there are some new versions to
be considered and one final thought
to the future at the end. Since this
is Mahler's shortest symphony and the
one with the prettiest and most tuneful
textures it's earned its place as his
most popular and approachable. But be
careful about viewing it as entirely
untroubled. There are dark shades cast
on the filigree textures and piquant
colours, as Deryck Cooke recognised
when he wrote of "figures moving behind
a veil which obscures their naked horror
and makes them like the bogeymen which
appear in illustrations to books of
fairy tales." Grimm rather than Anderson,
then. For the conductor this has always
meant a balancing act. Accentuate the
dark elements, pile the work with too
much emotional drag, and the special
fairy tale nature is lost. But play
down the shadows, take too far a step
back, and those bogeymen disappear from
view. Most conductors pull off the trick
admirably and tell us this is one Mahler
work whose secrets may have been unlocked.
But there are still comparisons to be
made in a field of excellence and still
a case to be made for selecting what
I believe is the "crème de la
crème" which is what I shall
now do.
This is the only complete
Mahler symphony where we can compare
and contrast recordings by the two conductors
most closely associated with Mahler's
work in his lifetime: Willem Mengelberg
and Bruno Walter. Mengelberg sat in
the audience in Amsterdam in 1904 to
hear Mahler conduct the symphony with
the Concertgebouw Orchestra twice in
the same concert. He also attended the
rehearsals, discussed the work with
Mahler, and made copious notes in his
score with Mahler's co-operation. Mahler
in turn had a very high opinion of Mengelberg's
conducting of his music so any recording
by the Dutchman must carry a degree
of authenticity but with the caveats
that need to be applied to that word
in this context. Whether what we hear
in the "live" concert recording from
November 1939 (Archipel ARPCD006) can
be said to represent Mahler's own wishes
is another question. I would only point
out that by this time twenty-eight years
had passed since Mahler's death and
Mengelberg, a conductor known for a
very expressive style, must have developed
his interpretation in those years however
much it may have been influenced by
Mahler to start with. However, I think
we can say this recording gives us a
window into the way the generation nearest
to the composer saw and performed his
works.
If you are only used to more recent
recordings the opening will come as
a shock and the shock will hardly leave
you as the work proceeds. Mengelberg
is more mannered and more moulded than
anyone else, with sharply accentuated
tempo changes forward and back, often
in the space of a few bars. This extreme
interventionism continues right through
the work but in the first movement especially.
Passages of nostalgic repose are delivered
with every ounce of care and feeling,
wrung from them like ripe fruit being
made to yield every drop of juice. The
movement contains a double Exposition
and it's in the second of these you
also hear the full treatment of string
slides the era this performance comes
from, and which Mengelberg's and Mahler's
audiences would have been used to and
have expected, provides. But Mengelberg
is good at the menacing shadows of the
work, the lyricism and the nostalgia.
Though I do wonder how much we today
have ears that can take the bar-to-bar
control he exercises, however brilliantly
or authentically. In spite of his interventions,
though, the underlying pulse of the
music never flags. You know Mengelberg's
intimate knowledge of this music, and
that of his orchestra with it and his
methods, means there is clear vision
right through and it's this which ultimately
saves the recording and makes for a
remarkable experience. In the centre
of the movement comes one of the few
points of real crisis as the music is
whipped into a dissonance that comes
down on a trumpet fanfare Mahler will
later recall at the start of his Fifth
Symphony. Mengelberg's treatment of
this shows him aware of the link forward,
but he is also aware enough of the internal
structure of the movement to make the
clinching climax that follows it soon
after more imposing where nostalgia
and good humour carry the day. Following
this, Mengelberg's second movement sees
very much the same approach. He invests
every bar with character and detail.
We also hear what a superb instrument
the pre-war Concertgebouw was and how
at home they were with Mahler's music.
Note especially the mellow sound of
the superb principal horn. In general
this is an orchestral style and sound
now lost in an age where orchestras
sound alike.
The slow movement is
one of Mahler's most noble and moving
creations. A vision of a child asleep
in death carved in stone atop a tomb
was in his mind. Mengelberg and his
players rise to the occasion with an
account that, more than most with his
expressive style, shows the ebbs and
flows to superb effect. Mengelberg's
interventions also seem less pronounced
than in the first movement and I am
struck by a wonderful honesty that more
than confirms the high regard Mahler
felt for his friend's work. The playing
of the woodwind is a special delight
and also the piercing solo trumpet at
the climax. So this is an important
recording, a recording that can be enjoyed
on its own merits irrespective of historic
nature, even though a deep breath might
be needed for those who prefer their
Mahler more circumspect. The mono sound
may be a big problem for some too. It
was recorded on discs and these have
a degree of surface noise. But if you
can listen through this, and the slightly
pinched quality of the sound, you will
come to regard this performance as an
essential supplement.
Mengelberg’s successor
at the Concertgebouw, Eduard Van Beinum,
did sterling service restoring Mahler
to the European continent in the 1950s
following the music’s banning by the
Nazi occupation. In 1951 he recorded
the Fourth for Decca and whilst it may
be hard to find this is still worth
seeking out for those interested in
an age of Mahler interpretation now
sadly lost to us. However, if you are
expecting a Mengelberg-like interpretation
you will be surprised. He is swift and
classically-thorough, an antidote to
Mengelberg and to Walter whose recording
was made four years earlier. What Van
Beinum might take away in warmth and
personal involvement is balanced by
the Concertgebouw players whose experience
under Mengelberg must still have been
potent so what you are left with is
a superb balance of head and heart with
head just predominating. Margaret Richie
is a wonderful soloist too and whilst
this fine Decca mono recording can never
be a front line choice it must be in
the pantheon of Mahler Fourths.
There
are a number of recordings of the Fourth
by Mahler's friend, assistant and disciple
Bruno Walter available but I'm going
to deal with the one made in New York
in 1946 (Sony 5153012 coupled with the
Fifth, or Naxos 8.110876) as broadly
speaking his interpretation remained
the same and this one is the easiest
to obtain as well a being the only official
one he ever made. Comparing him with
Mengelberg's recording is especially
interesting in that it warns us straight
away not to be too quick to regard one
way of playing Mahler as authentic.
Walter knew Mahler even better than
Mengelberg did. He also heard Mahler
perform this and other of his works.
So it's fascinating to hear Walter take
a different approach, much less mannered,
much less indulgent. One caveat must
be made, however. Though this New York
recording was made on discs which allowed
takes of around sixteen minutes, Walter
would have had to take note of the fact
that it would be issued on 78rpm sides
of around four minutes. This must have
had an effect on some of the overall
tempi adopted. Indeed, in an interview
with Mahler biographer Henry-Louis de
La Grange, the recording's soprano in
the last movement Desi Halban confirmed
this to be the case. That said, Walter's
recording also deserves its place in
the Fourth's discography, both as historic
document and also a recording to be
enjoyed on its own merits. I like the
lighter, more pastoral approach Walter
adopts at the start because this is
allied to a definite underlying tread
that never seems to leave him. It's
a remarkable effect, a tempo that allows
for a degree of expression that doesn't
weight the music down with unnecessary
mannerism. There is some quite tart
playing from the woodwinds to which
gives him the opportunity to respond
to the special sound of this work and
balance Deryck Cooke's ghosts with the
good humour. There is a price to pay.
The climax on the dissonance is not
as deep or profound as Mengelberg's,
or some of the other conductors we will
deal with. Also the symphonic thread
is maintained, it seems to me, at some
cost to the little amount of conflict
there is in the work. But Walter's good
sense is very engaging. In the second
movement Walter makes his solo violinist
sound more sinister than Mengelberg
and this is correct as Mahler asks the
player to tune his instrument up a tone
to sound more diabolical. This, according
to Mahler, is "Friend Death" leading
a dance rather in the manner of the
Pied Piper - Death as friend, a beguiling
character. The playing of the New York
Philharmonic, another great Mahler orchestra,
is full of character and security, fully
aware of the idiom in which they are
playing.
Walter's account of
the third movement is broad and noble
but it moves forwards a little more
than Mengelberg and so seems more true
to Mahler's marking of "Restful" than
Mengelberg's who, in comparison only,
appears more troubled. This, as so often
with Walter in Mahler's slow movements,
carries the feeling of the Lied, and
we must never forget how much of Mahler
is allied to song. A feeling confirmed
when the last movement enters. Even
though a quite fast overall tempo is
adopted, Desi Halban is encouraged to
sing out rather than meld into the texture.
Halban has a very distinctive voice
too, not an especially attractive one,
not the usual creamy modern "diva" soprano
we are often used to, and I believe
this is a gain. One of the great pities
of recordings of this work is that none
of the sopranos achieves the childlike
quality Mahler wanted and neither does
Desi Halban quite. But at least she's
distinctive, at least she has character.
One day a conductor will engage a choir
girl to sing it and then we might have
a recording that gets us to what Mahler
really wanted. Two conductors (Bernstein
and Nanut) have recorded the work with
boy trebles but the results, to me at
least, sound bizarre. There is a link
to Mahler in Walter's choice of Desi
Halban for this recording, by the way.
Her mother was none other than Selma
Kurz, one of the great stars of Mahler's
glittering ten years at the helm of
the Vienna Opera at the start of the
twentieth century and a particular favourite
of Mahler‘s. For this and other reasons
this too is an essential recording.
Not a reference version, but one to
be considered in the same way as the
Mengelberg as historic and illuminating.
The clear mono sound is better than
that of Mengelberg but remains rather
boxy and unatmospheric.
Another conductor associated with Mahler
in his lifetime, though to a lesser
extent, is Otto Klemperer. There are
a number of "live" Klemperer
recordings of this work available but
my advice is to stay with the studio
recording (EMI 7243 5 67035 2 0) which
dates from 1962 and is the first of
the modern stereo recordings for us
to consider especially now it has been
remastered for the Klemperer Edition.
This recording is frequently overlooked
by surveys of this work and I think
that's a pity because it has a lot going
for it, not least Klemperer's mordant
wit, structural integrity and superb
ear for detail. It's certainly superbly
played and recorded with Walter Legge
in the control room and the great Philharmonia
Orchestra in front of the microphones.
The first movement is a lot statelier
than under Walter or Mengelberg. In
fact, it's on the fringes of being underpowered.
But there are gains in the much clearer
detailing of textures and parts, notably
the woodwinds, always a fingerprint
of Klemperer. Not for him the excessive
indulgence of Mengelberg, or the softer
grain of Walter, however. For Klemperer
everything is clearly presented in bold,
Breughel-like primary colours. The crisis
on the dissonance emerges superbly from
the structure, always a strong point
in a Klemperer account, bold and grand.
So too does the "big tone" Mahler asks
for in the climax that follows. True,
he misses some of the sourness, some
of the filigree lightness too, but overall
the distinctive playing is a joy. If
the tempo seems a little under-paced
in the first movement in the second
it seems right where Klemperer's primary-colour
sound palette again pays off along with
our first real experience Klemperer's
divided violins, left and right. There's
no lingering for effect in the Trios
but that's in keeping with the astringent
approach, allied to superbly balanced
recording. It's in the third movement
the biggest surprise awaits us.
Klemperer was capable
of confounding critics as the supposed
master of slow tempo and this is no
more in evidence than here where he
gives the quickest account of the slow
movement of many I know. It alters the
character of the piece and promotes
this recording to one of even greater
interest than it might have been, offering
an alternative to the, under lesser
men, often comatose accounts we can
encounter. Sometimes Mahler would speak
of this movement as an Adagio, sometimes
Andante and this used to annoy his friend
Natalie Bauer-Lechner so he told her
he could just as well call it Moderato,
Allegro or Presto "for it includes all
of these." Klemperer has his justification.
I also want to draw attention to the
playing of woodwind against strings
in this movement as it's like having
the score in front of you, so clear
is the balancing. Overall I think Klemperer
gives a more unsettled view of the movement
than most and for that reason this recording
has a special place in the list. Notice
too how well he manages the increases
in tempo between bars 222 and 282: an
acid test for the conductor in this
work. Then the moment of climax, when
Mahler depicts the flinging open of
the gates of heaven, timpani hammering
out the bell-like motif hitherto heard
quietly on harp and reminiscent of the
bells in Wagner's Parsifal, really bursts
with joy and is played for everything.
It's a fine preparation for the last
movement where we come to the most controversial
part of this recording, the reason why
many people dislike it so much. Singing
in the fourth movement is no less than
the great Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and
it's clear from her first entry her
approach is wrong for this music. That
she is far too worldly, far too knowing,
far too "arch" for what the strange
and simple words and music need is obvious.
And yet, for all that, she does it all
so beautifully, even though I always
shake my head when I hear her. And smile
too.
The
Klemperer recording wasn't the first
Mahler Fourth by the Philharmonia Orchestra
of the old era with Walter Legge producing.
As early as 1957 Paul Kletzki had made
a version which Legge must have felt
was going to be hard to equal, even
with Klemperer (Royal Classics ROY6468).
This must be at the top of the list
for bargain hunters as well as a contender
irrespective of price. It has always
been a favourite of mine and I've always
felt it has been overlooked because
Kletzki is not a conductor usually associated
with Mahler and was never one of the
big names. He does superbly well and
is supported by an orchestra which,
at the time, was at the height of its
considerable power. Some would say their
response is not Mahlerian enough and
I suppose I can see what they mean,
but the gains they bring to their account
are remarkable and, like the Concertgebouw
of 1939, bring us a style of playing
now lost. Straight away there is more
lift to the first movement than with
Klemperer, more bounce and optimism
to aid the jocund woodwind - "Legge's
Royal Flush", as they were known. Kletzki
seems determined to press forward, accentuating
a more spiky feel, less likely to lay
back and contemplate. In the development
this is even more in evidence where
the principal horn of Dennis Brain makes
a wonderful impression. More details
beguile us including the shrieking clarinets
as the point of crisis approaches. I
think this recording has an almost ideal
sound balance for home listening with
every detail clear. Though a little
age is betrayed by a touch of harshness
at the climax even though I loved the
tam-tam being allowed full rein. This
is followed by a remarkable similarity
between the textures of this section
and the music of the Third Symphony's
third movement, something no other conductor
but Kletzki seems to have noticed. An
illuminating touch from the conductor,
but I think Kletzki draws more out of
the textures of this movement generally
than Klemperer and can't help but wonder
whether Legge realised this. There is
a rather veiled quality to Kletzki's
account of the second movement which
is quite appropriate and refreshing.
This isn't at the expense of important
details since you can hear the clarinet
really chuckling, showing us Kletzki
is well aware of the humour in the music
that is so often forgotten in the "It's
Mahler so it must be depressing or ironic"
school of thought. The more inner quality
is apparent in the slow movement which
emerges as deeply felt and noble with
a hint of tragedy. Kletzki’s soprano
is Emmy Loose who seems far better suited
to this symphony than does Elizabeth
Schwarzkopf bringing a more child-like
and wide-eyed approach that is more
appropriate.
Leopold Ludwig will
be fondly remembered by Mahlerites of
a certain age for a recording of the
Ninth Symphony with the London Symphony
Orchestra that achieved wide circulation
in the 1960s, first through Everest
and then through the much-missed World
Record Club. Coupled with Rudolf Schwarz’s
recording of the Fifth Symphony on the
latter label it served us very well
when there was little else available.
His recording of the Fourth (Berlin
Classics BC 2119-6) was made in Dresden
in 1957, not long after the Kletzki,
and has appeared sporadically over the
years. In 1957 Mahler’s music was still
quite rare in the concert hall and these
Dresden players especially must have
approached the work as something of
a novelty. Maybe this partly accounts
for the fact that this is a very straightforward,
supremely unmannered performance compared
with many other versions – an antidote
to those who take the view that every
expressive opportunity in Mahler’s scores
must be attended to as though under
a magnifying glass, perhaps. But that
can’t be the only explanation. Leopold
Ludwig was a fine conductor with a high
reputation and must have decided his
own approach from the start. Though
I still cannot help wondering whether
he felt he couldn’t really test the
players as much as he may have liked
in music they hardly knew. More experienced
Mahler listeners may be disappointed
with the "hands-off" approach
that emerges. But there are still some
dividends to be had from this recording,
especially when the orchestra concerned
is one of the greatest that, even in
late 1950s East Germany, had clearly
maintained standards through hard times.
In fact it’s interesting today to hear
a performance taking Mahler at apparent
face value in the first movement. Mahler
does appear to have written something
that implies sunshine and that is certainly
what you get from Ludwig. It’s almost
as if he is determined to tell us there
are absolutely no clouds and no storms
on this horizon. The brisk tempo
he sets and keeps, one probably closer
to what Mahler intended than we may
now be used to, helps. This is very
much a feeling that is continued in
the second movement too. Other recordings
will offer you more edge to the "Friend
Death" off-key solo violin passages,
as well as greater character to the
woodwind textures, but what we have
in this movement is very much in keeping
with what has gone before and what will
come – plain, unadorned, uncomplicated
playing. It was only in the third movement
that I felt the lack of any personal
involvement most strongly. Again the
tempo is kept moving along and whilst
there is still warmth and consolation
to be felt it is only the fine phrasing
of the Dresden strings that prevents
this wonderful music leaving us feeling
short-changed. The movement doesn’t
really linger in the mind as it can.
Then in the last movement there is a
little hesitancy in the delivery of
the bursts of reprise from the first
movement that punctuates the Wunderhorn
setting. The only tangible impression
of unfamiliarity with this music on
the part of the players, I feel. Almost
as if the music takes them by surprise.
Anny Schlemm is no more than an adequate
soloist and certainly doesn’t manage
to deliver the heart’s ease that other
sopranos can at the very close. Unfamiliarity
with the genre again, perhaps? Mahler’s
Wunderhorn settings are a very particular
mix of humour and fantasy which it has
taken a generation for singers and players
to really master. However, this is an
interesting recording from an era prior
to the Mahler boom and from behind the
Iron Curtain.
Benjamin Britten's admiration for Mahler
went back long before the "boom" of
the early sixties and in his notes to
the BBC Legends issue (BBCB 8004-2)
containing Britten's 1961 Aldeburgh
Festival performance of the Fourth Donald
Mitchell identifies his friend as one
of the leading figures in the early
renaissance of Mahler's music. This
BBC mono recording with the LSO in Orford
Church has a rich, deep sound with some
church reverberation but no distortion
to playing which breathes humanity and
involvement. In 1963 Britten talked
about this performance to an interviewer
and said: "My experience of conducting
the Fourth Symphony at Aldeburgh showed
me what a master of form he (Mahler)
is, particularly in the first movement
of that great work." These thoughts
seem to partly explain the decision
for his very brisk tempo in this movement.
The effect from the start and throughout
is of lightness and optimism, classical
tautness rather than romantic weight,
and I think this suit’s the character
of the music well. One of the sounds
one takes away from this recording is
the attention Britten pays to articulating
the lower strings, helped by the acoustic.
At the close of the Exposition there
are some lovely slides, as idiomatic
a Mahler sound as you could hope for,
and this also applies to the spicy woodwinds
at the start of the Development where
Britten injects a more dramatic cloak
to the proceedings. The "climax on the
dissonance" is well observed but not
to the extent that it protrudes and
holds up the sense of momentum the structural/formal
approach has brought. It's a delicate
balance this "form versus detail" dichotomy.
Though Britten clearly veers to the
former he seems well aware enough of
the latter pulling him back since, in
the closing section, his ability to
bring out points of detail without diminishing
the sharp focus shows that a conductor
doesn't really need to slow up and "ham
up" in order to seduce the ears of the
listener. By not lingering over the
Trios in the second movement Britten
keeps momentum up here too. I must also
draw attention to the deliciously played
violin solos which make their out-of-tune
effect without appearing too ill-mannered.
There is some superb solo horn playing
also. The performance of this movement
comes out on the side of the angels
to come rather than the Devil, whose
violinist Death dances around us but
never really threatens.
If freshness and classical
rigour seemed the keynote in the first
and second movements it's clear Britten
reserves the true emotional heart for
the third in an interpretation which
is one of the finest I have ever heard.
Listen to the meticulous care for dynamics,
both in the string parts and the woodwind
solos, and the flinging open of the
gates of heaven is big, powerful and
warm also. It sounds perfectly integrated
with the rest of the movement. Barry
Tuckwell's horn section are resplendent
over timps that are admirably reined
back for a change too. Sometimes the
final song can sound as though it's
been tacked on as an afterthought. Under
Britten and his care for through-thinking
there is no question that he accepts
Mahler's decision to end like this and
is able to make it sound a natural progression.
Again he is quick and pungent with some
sharp interruptions and is aided by
his lively soprano, Joan Carlyle, who
has a Tomboy quality to her: a Cherubino
rather than a Susanna.
At the same time as the release of the
Britten recording, BBC Legends also
gave an official release to one by Sir
John Barbirolli and the BBC Symphony
Orchestra made in Prague in 1967. (BBCL
4014-2). Although Barbirolli was of
the "interventionist" school of Mahler
conductors his brand of expressionism
never sprang from self indulgence. Michael
Kennedy found a quotation from Russell
in the conductor's papers: "....underneath
the passion there should always be that
large impersonal survey which sets limits
to actions that our passions inspire."
There is about his reading of the Fourth
a remarkable air of calculation underpinning
the emotion that throws a frame around
what, under other conductors, might
sound like hamming. The feeling that
thought and careful planning has gone
into every bar and every sound too as
this is a recording where the sound
of this symphony has been rendered to
a more vivid degree than I have heard
in a long time. You could also say this
is Mahler's Fourth in retrospect from
later works. Barbirolli doesn't at all
indulge in the excesses of Mengelberg,
but he's closer to the Dutchman than
many. In the tapes made by William Malloch
of the old New York players who played
under Mahler himself we hear how the
composer would interpret the opening
theme of this movement and it's as if
Barbirolli had heard this too for in
the fourth note you hear the same drag
that with Mengelberg is so accentuated
it can annoy on rehearing whereas under
Barbirolli it has the effect of a rather
arch "Once upon a time" and is quite
charming. Likewise his rendering of
the second theme marked "Broadly sung"
where Barbirolli really takes Mahler
at his word. But that appears to be
the hallmark for the strings, the cellos
especially, in this performance. One
of the other glories of this recording
is the prominence given to woodwinds
with some particular phrasing in the
oboes and the sound of the bassoon against
high flutes in the development especially
notable - reminder of Mahler's propensity
to pitch highest and lowest against
each other that would reach its apogee
in the last movement of the Ninth. In
sum, I think Barbirolli sees this movement's
darker, unhinged side more than most.
The pizzicatos and spiky high woodwinds
really protrude from the texture.
In the second movement
I liked the woodwind chuckling in the
Trios and the clarinet shrieking like
a startled bird. In performance Sir
John always positioned his harps at
the front of the platform beneath him
and this may account for the prominence
of the harps in the performance as a
whole. The way it underpins the texture
bell-like is another memorable sound
to come out of this recording, again
apparent in the third movement which
receives a performance in the grand
manner, spacious, well-upholstered,
broadly sung, but also consciously moulded
with the most elastic approach to tempo
in the whole symphony. There are many
fine points of detail brought out. Most
notable are passages for the woodwind
that take on an autumnal colouring.
Just before the passage where the gates
of heaven are flung open Sir John achieves
a real sense of stillness akin to that
at the end of the Ninth which makes
the outburst that crowns the movement
that much more towering. I want to pay
special tribute to the coda under Sir
John. He sees a perfumed garden, exotic
and hazy, and I couldn't help but see
Mahler here as a distant musical cousin
of Frederick Delius. The last movement
is a relative disappointment, though.
Heather Harper has the wrong kind of
voice for this movement. She is too
matronly for the childish quality needed.
Barbirolli also does himself no favours
by adopting a slow tempo for the stanzas
and an even slower one for the final
stanza of all. The effect is a bit dreamy
most of the time, broken only by the
sudden jolt of his quicker tempo for
the incursions of the bells. It would
be wrong to let this reservation spoil
what is a remarkable, if very individual,
reading of the work which has needed
to be restored officially to the catalogue
for years.
Rafael Kubelik's recording with the
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra can
be found singly on a Deutsche Gramophon
Eloquence release (469 6372), otherwise
it's in the boxed set of his complete
cycle. As always Kubelik's tempi are
on the quicker side compared with others,
but this is never at the expense of
inner detail, quite the opposite in
fact. Early in the first movement notice
the solo clarinet chugging away around
the strings and listen also to how Kubelik
sours the music in the Development.
He has a great line in the grotesque
with the bassoon especially memorable
and, as the central crisis approaches,
notice too the squeals of flutes and
oboes. In fact at this point Kubelik
is perhaps the most harsh and most abrasive
of all. Kubelik is another conductor
who realises this symphony needs a particular
treatment, a light touch in front of
the grotesques for them to make a more
distinctive mark. The climax on the
dissonance is superb with the bass line
especially accentuated by the sharp
recording against the piquant woodwind.
Then, when the music resumes, the effect
is like that of a day dream passing,
which seems to me to be what Mahler
intended. The second movement follows
on from the kind of mood Kubelik is
trying to portray in the first with
the solo violin balanced forward to
make its "out of tune" effect well.
Then the Trios strike a very four-square
pose with clipped woodwind contributions
attended to in a performance that radiates
attention to detail right down to really
malevolent clarinets at the close. A
fine prelude to the lovely performance
of the slow movement where Kubelik maintains
the same kind of singing line as Walter.
He even brings in the movement at around
the same overall timing as Klemperer
but by speeding up more in the faster
sections gives himself that little more
space in the lyrical passages. So his
handling of the surprisingly many tempo
changes, some of them quite drastic,
in a movement too often referred to
as the "slow" movement is one of its
most remarkable features. Not least
the passage between 222 and 282 we noticed
under Klemperer where Kubelik is even
more convincing in handling the step-by-step
increase in tempo. I also want to draw
attention to the way Kubelik treats
the sound of woodwind against strings
in this movement and how they are reproduced
in the recording. One early commentator
dubbed this delicate sound "Klangfarbenmelodie"
("Tone-colour Melody"), a term used
later by Schoenberg and that link between
these two great Viennese composers never
seemed more significant in these passages
as interpreted by Kubelik. Again the
soprano in this work, Elsie Morrison,
fails to really deliver a childlike
response in the last movement, but she
sings with great meaning and Kubelik
seems more anxious than most to mark
the relationship between aspects of
this last movement and the second. The
faster sections also are very impish
and the work is rounded of beautifully.
One brief sidelight
on Kubelik's recording which I leave
you to ponder is the following. In 1900
Mahler told Natalie Bauer-Lechner that
the Fourth Symphony would last forty-five
minutes, which is a surprisingly short
amount of time when you consider most
recordings and performances. But notated
in pencil in the autograph score, on
the title page of the fourth movement,
can be seen the numbers 15, 10, 11,
8 and 44 which is their total. Do these
represent Mahler's ideas for the duration
of the movements ? If so they are very
quick, much quicker than we are used
to. Of all the recordings before me
Rafael Kubelik's comes closest: 15:48,
9:05, 18:50, 7:58, which total 51:41.
The third movement is the problem, but
since Kubelik is one of the two fastest,
a few seconds only short of Klemperer,
we can allow for that if we accept the
figures for what they appear to be.
Whatever the truth, for me Kubelik's
recording is one of the supreme accounts
of this work. It's care for detail,
its sense of the special sound of the
piece, but above all its care for this
work as it stands rather than as precursor
of what is to come make it a must for
all aspiring and established Mahlerites.
It lets the symphony be itself.
Following concert performances in October
1970, Jascha Horenstein went into Barking
Town Hall in London with the London
Philharmonic to record the Fourth (in
between bursts from pneumatic drills
doing road works in the street outside).
This was to be one of the first recordings
for the new Classics For Pleasure bargain
LP label and the result was musically
deeply satisfying even though the sound
on the LP left a lot to be desired.
For what ever reason, the recording
failed to sell very well so was never
really considered among the recommended
versions in the way others have been
down the years. Then for a long time
it was out of the catalogue leading
many to be unaware of its existence
until a fine remastering job was done
for an LP reissue by CFP in the 1980s.
Now that remastering has been reissued
for CD (5 74882 2) and it can more than
hold up its head among the greats at
last. Horenstein's first movement starts
out a degree more distanced than Kubelik's,
less distinctive, but just as aware
of the work's special tone colouring.
Compared with Kubelik, Horenstein is
more "through-thought" and symphonic,
preferring a slightly tighter rein on
proceedings. So this is not a performance
in the Mengelberg tradition. Horenstein
was a different kind of conductor even
though he admired the Dutchman. Even
so, this is Horenstein more unbuttoned
than we are perhaps used to, showing
what anyone who has ever heard his recordings
of Viennese Waltzes knows that he can
charm and beguile with the best of them.
Listen to the way he gets his cellos
to slide if you want more convincing,
for example. In the Development a slight
hesitancy pays off in introducing a
degree of trepidation. As if, master
of the developing argument that he was,
Horenstein makes us aware that the one
true crisis in this work is casting
a very long shadow back. His slower
tempo, judged to near perfection, allow
for the ghosts to peek out from the
filigree with real drama and the climax
itself to be grand and imposing. So
the first movement under Horenstein
is remarkable for its structural integrity,
breadth, but also charm, delicacy and
feelings of menace. Again in the second
movement Horenstein is that bit more
distanced from the music than Kubelik
and some others - his woodwind not quite
as prominent and his tempo just that
little broader - but this approach is
not to be discounted. By keeping a degree
of distance Horenstein seems to accentuate
the dream-like quality. His clarinets
chuckle wonderfully and there is a trace
of elegy in the Trios Kubelik misses
rather. More nostalgia with Horenstein,
I think. I also like the way the music
seems to be fading into the distance
as the movement draws to a close. It
is as if we are walking away from the
scene.
As you would expect,
Horenstein hardly intervenes in the
phrasing of the slow movement. If he
does it's the lightest of hands on the
rudder. As so often, he chooses at the
outset a tempo that suits the music
and let's it speak for itself. However,
such simplicity of utterance is also
strength of utterance for what we have
is more towards the repose Mahler is
asking for, I believe. There is at the
start a cool beauty that refreshes.
This more cerebral/ intellectual approach
needs time and repeated hearings to
make its effect, but those passages
of greater drama, of pain and yearning
grow from this sustained opening and
gain from the comparison. After this,
Margaret Price is a very creamy-toned
soprano who pouts a little too much
for my liking. But she's as good in
this as most sopranos and her contribution
rounds off as performance I cannot recommend
too highly especially at the super-bargain
price. It is, as with Horenstein’s recordings
of Mahler’s Third, one of the finest
Mahler performances ever committed to
tape. The sound is showing its age when
compared with the best of the most recent
but the performance more than compensates.
George Szell and Fritz Reiner had much
in common. They were both born in Hungary,
both enjoyed success in post-war America,
both led two of the greatest of American
orchestras, and both had a reputation
for their authoritarian styles. And
they both left us great recordings of
Mahler's Fourth. The Szell recording
with the Cleveland Orchestra (Sony SBK
46535) has never been out of the catalogue
since its release in the 1960s and such
is its reputation it's traditional for
Mahlerians to genuflect at the flame
every time discussion of the Fourth
comes up. One almost has the feeling
that criticism of it is not to be countenanced
under any circumstances. The first movement
presents a nicely median tempo with
some magical playing from an orchestra
that was, at the time, arguably the
finest in the world. There is great
poise and refinement too, but maybe
a degree of polish that means we cannot
penetrate quite as deep beneath the
surface as we would like. Szell's concentration
on refinement has always rather blunted
the first movement climax for me and
always seems to confirm that, great
though this recording certainly is,
it's an example of what might best be
described as "controlled risk" conducting.
The feeling that Szell is prepared to
go so far with character and expression
but not too far that perfection of playing
are compromised even the cost of the
music's deeper meaning. Consider the
recording alone and this is not a problem.
I know many who swear by this recording.
But I have to report that in close comparison
with those already dealt with I find
myself yearning for more depth. In the
second movement there is again a wonderful
attention to tonal beauty but I wonder
whether Szell is really aware of what
the music really means, or whether he
is just giving a very good impression
that he does. No praise can be too high
for that playing, though. Myron Bloom's
horn is magnificent. But the sourness
and grotesques written into the woodwind,
which Kubelik and Horenstein and others
bring out to a greater degree, don't
make as great a point. Certainly Szell's
account of the slow movement is deeply
moving. I am aware many will find my
slightly negative feelings towards the
Szell recording disappointing, shocking
even, but I would not be honest if I
didn't report them. The recording should
have, and fully deserves, its place
among the greatest and that is why I
mention it here and by doing so recommend
it to you. It's just that I think others
penetrate the piece more than Szell
does. One authority once went on record
as saying he believed Szell to be "no
Mahlerian". I have heard "live" recordings
of Szell in Mahler's Sixth, Ninth and
Das Lied Von der Erde, and count them
among the best I have ever heard. His
Mahler repertoire was small but so was
Klemperer's.
Fritz Reiner also exercises great control
over his orchestra, the Chicago Symphony,
and even more on the music. (RCA 82876679012[SACD]
or 09026640022). Where George Szell's
emphasis was on beauty of tone, Reiner's
is on clarity. There are gains here
in that you are aware to a remarkable
degree of the texture of the piece,
but there is a brittle quality to it
that can be rather wearing on repeated
listening. Like the Szell recording
this has a rightful place in the pantheon
of Fourth recordings, but what is missing
here is that sense of repose that is
so important especially in passages
of nostalgic reverie. Reiner can bring
out the grotesques, but there is less
context for them, less ability for us
to reflect on what they mean to us,
because we have little with which to
compare them. It's a very sharp ride
then, but one that should be experienced
by those interested in how this symphony
ticks and in hearing a great conductor
and orchestra again at the height of
their powers.
Also
from the USA of the same period comes
Leonard Bernstein’s first recording
of this symphony with the New York Philharmonic.
It was made in 1960 though it would
be 1971 before it was released in Europe.
As a statement of intent, if that is
the way it was perceived at the time,
it must have struck American collectors
as quite a style change from this orchestra’s
previous recording of the work under
Walter. The first movement is sassy
and sharp in its pointing up of every
small detail, woodwinds especially cheeky,
and is a sparky realisation of Mahler’s
happiest music. Though I think the development
section is a shade too fast I can compliment
the NYPO for holding on so well. This
does betray what sounds like impatience
on Bernstein’s part though I’m sure
that is not what he meant. The second
movement is equally colourful and helped
by a sound balance that is exemplary
for home listening with only the top
edge betraying age. The third movement
starts serene and becomes volatile but
only occasionally strays beyond the
tasteful and full marks to Bernstein
for the snappy tempo he adopts in the
last movement. That must have sounded
more controversial then than it does
now. Reri Grist has a distinctive enough
timbre but I cannot escape the impression
that she doesn’t really know what she
is singing about. At least she is a
woman. In his second recording of the
work on DG Bernstein casts a boy treble
in the last movement which I think rules
it out completely. Had Mahler wanted
a boy to sing the last movement I am
willing to believe he would have said
so in the score.
My choices for recordings of this work
so far have come from at least thirty
years ago but it would be wrong to think
that in the case of this symphony as
opposed to the Third only "the
old boys" have it. Far from it.
There are still new things being said
by the present generation of conductors
in this work. Daniele Gatti's recording
is a case in point. He is forging a
well-deserved reputation as a Mahler
interpreter and there is room in a very
crowded list for his Fourth Symphony
with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
on RCA (75605 51345 2). His grasp of
the many-faceted nature of this work
is impressive. Though some of his extremes
of tempi, some of them from bar to bar,
might bother those more experienced
Mahlerites whose predilection is for
the hands-off approach. I think Gatti
comes out of the tradition of Mengelberg
and Barbirolli in this work, controlling
and interpreting every bar and note.
There is no doubt he submits the first
movement to a very deep analysis with
the slower, reflective passages lovingly
and warmly conveyed and the sharper,
quicker ones very jerky and piquant,
not missing the grotesqueries that lie
beneath the surface of a work too often
seen as light and amiable. This central
idea of the symphony having two distinct
faces - reflection contrasted with restlessness
- continues in the second movement where
the Trios have even more moulded contours
than their counterparts in the first
and border on the mannered. But they
are delivered with such style and aplomb
you cannot help smiling at their returns.
There is humour in the mix of this movement
and it's surprising how few conductors
realise this and bring it out. At times
you even have the impression Gatti is
sending the piece up here. The "out-of-tune"
violin solo has never sounded more sinister
either and a special word of praise
is due to the principal horn. In the
slow movement there is much intensity
in the hushed pianissimos that is swept
away by a remarkably muscular attack
in the climaxes. After all of asset,
even at the extremes of tempi that her
conductor maintains, bells jangling.
The playing of the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra is exemplary in all departments
with some spiky woodwind well caught
by the spacious but sharp sound, especially
in the fourth movement where Gatti doesn't
forget the animals that are being depicted
in the accompaniment.
The
recording of the Fourth by Pierre Boulez
and the Cleveland Orchestra on DG (463
275-2) will divide opinions just as
the others in his cycle have. Ever the
clear-eyed interpreter of Mahler, Boulez
barely acknowledges the availability
in the score of the many expressive
opportunities other conductors use to
the full. At the fourth bar of the first
movement, for example, where others
have been known to almost bring proceedings
to a halt, Boulez’s mere Gallic shrug
in the direction of Mahler’s marking
(and the performance tradition) itself
stands out. An expressive opportunity
more conspicuous in the breach rather
than the observance, I think. This general
attitude will be one of this recording’s
most obvious fingerprints as the same
sharpness of focus continues through
the first movement where a brisk, clear,
neo-classical effect is aimed for and
achieved. This impression is assisted
by a care for balancing every section
of the orchestra so nothing protrudes
to rock the boat. To some this will
be evidence of coldness, to others it
will be a refreshing "back to basics"
that takes us further into the origins
of this work as representative of Mahler’s
"Wunderhorn" period. Not least
with the trumpet figure Mahler called
the "Kleiner Appel" and later
recalled at the start of his Fifth Symphony.
Here this crucial appearance, half way
through the movement, is buried by Boulez
within the texture rather than trying
to override it which it sometimes does
in other versions where conductors try
to make a link to a work Mahler had
not even considered when he wrote this
one. Then the second movement continues
Boulez’s general approach but deepens
the music with superb woodwind solos
from the Cleveland players caught by
the fine recorded balance.
What we hear in the
third movement is remarkable for its
lack of pretension and its greater stress
on classical poise. I was even reminded
of the slow movement of the Schubert
String Quintet at the start, so fine
is Boulez’s sense of stillness achieved
without an especially slow overall tempo.
In the first main variation notice too
the balance of oboe against horn and
then the surprisingly expressive quality
that emerges chaste on the strings.
Another point to listen out for is how
the timpani are never in danger of overwhelming
the more passionate, climactic passages.
So Boulez’s watchwords of "balance",
"poise" and "transparency"
really reveal details others can miss.
The aftermath of the central climax
of the slow movement, where the gates
of heaven are flung open by Mahler,
is especially fine in this respect and
also structurally accentuates the arc-like
design of the movement. Juliane Banse
sings beautifully in the last movement,
making no attempt to impose herself
too much as some singers make the mistake
of doing. Of course some will say she
should sound more child-like, just as
Mahler intended, but she’s not alone
in concentrating on the notes and words
and I was delighted by her contribution
as it’s beautifully tailored to the
rest of the performance which is, after
all, as it should be. For many this
new recording will be just too clear-eyed,
too lacking in character, too tidy a
performance of this lovely work. For
me it represents Boulez’s Mahler at
its very best and does, in the end,
show a certain degree of warmth that’s
crucially tempered by that classical
poise to give another refreshing view
of a work we might think we are all
too familiar with.
By
some strange alchemy Benjamin Zander
has managed to vividly convey the last
movement as the real culmination of
the Fourth, the homecoming for the whole
work and it is that that in the final
analysis makes his recording with the
Philharmonia (Telarc 2CD-80555) a satisfying
one. Indeed I have heard other recordings
where, in comparison to this one, it
is almost as if the conductor is rather
embarrassed by such an apparently
trite ending to such a spacious work,
especially following one of the greatest
and most profound movements Mahler ever
wrote. As always with Mahler there is
profundity to be found in the most unlikely
places and juxtapositions and it takes
a conductor who knows his Mahler to
bring this out. His soprano soloist,
Camilla Tilling, is charming too. Far
more the "tomboy" than many
of her colleagues and her contribution
undoubtedly assists Zander in marking
the performance of this movement out
as distinctive. Something which might
not have been the case with a more established
diva. As if to further prove
he has thought very deeply about how
this movement should be presented, in
his discussion disc Zander plays an
extract from a concert performance of
the work he conducted in Vienna where
he used a boy soprano for the movement.
This has been done a couple of times
on record (by Nanut and Bernstein in
his second recording on DG) but I have
never been in favour of it. Not least
for the fact that Mahler asks for a
soprano and not a treble. So I’m glad
Zander resisted the temptation to cast
a boy in the recording, as it must have
crossed his mind to do. In the first
movement Zander appears suspended on
the cusp between neo-classical restraint
and zeal to deliver surface lustre.
It certainly seems as though he is wary
of crumbling the music’s petals so the
movement emerges in a rather patrician
fashion: all symphonic and score details
attended to but lacking degrees of fallibility.
I don’t think he is helped by the recorded
sound that I find a little too general
and bass light to make a great impact
and deliver the music’s character. Contrast
this with the Kletzki recording, for
example. Even after all these years
this is still an object lesson in how
to balance this work with bags of detail
in perfect proportion. The second movement
is more persuasive in both cases with
Zander, though. Here he and his violin
soloist, Christopher Warren-Green, really
have gone to some trouble to project
the particular fairy tale evil lurking
behind "Friend Death". I liked
too the character-filled chuckling of
the clarinets and the effortless way
the music segues into the Upper Austrian
trios. You can almost see the orchestra
members, exemplary throughout, smiling
at those points. In the discussion disc
Zander makes the inspired connection
between the solo fiddling in this movement
and that in Stravinsky’s "A Soldier’s
Tale" which was, let us remember,
just eighteen years away when Mahler
completed this symphony. There’s a thought.
I always find connections like that
send me back to the music with new ears
and that, as always, is the great value
of the discussion disc which I suggest
you listen to after you have
heard the symphony.
The great slow movement
receives a luminous, seamless performance
from Zander and the orchestra with great
line that just fails to penetrate beneath
the surface beauty. Here I see Zander
as a collector and connoisseur of Dresden
china who has taken down a much-loved
piece from his shelf that he knows every
inch of and wants you to know every
inch of too and come to love just as
much as he does. As fine a guide to
the movement than you could ask for
but, as with the first movement, he
is rather afraid of dropping his much
loved ornament and smashing it to bits.
The patrician again. Don’t get me wrong.
I like patricians, even in Mahler. There
is a certain streak of the patrician
in Jascha Horenstein and I admire his
Mahler conducting above most. But I
do wonder whether, over time, the extreme
care Zander takes over the first three
movements will mean that this recording
won’t endure, won’t really endear
itself to the listener in the way others
have. Certainly in the great "collapse
climaxes" in the centre of the
slow movement the music opens out wonderfully,
the great vistas as impressive as ever,
and the gates of heaven burst with a
real surge of energy. It is then that
the last movement enters and is able
to make the effect I so much admire.
For that aspect above all this version
earns its place in the discography.
If
Donald Rumsfeld were a Mahlerite he
would hate the recording of the Fourth
by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San
Francisco Symphony (SFSO Media/Avie
82193600042, an SACD release). The third
movement had barely been underway two
minutes when I had written in my notes
"Old Europe" which is something of a
bête noire for Mr. R. It’s
all in the strings. Especially in the
third movement there is a marked degree
of portamenti or sliding between
the notes in phrases that you associate
with a recording made over sixty years
ago. I’m not complaining. Quite the
opposite. Don’t think that what you
are going to hear will distract you
or grate in any way as this practice
can when taken to the extreme. Tilson
Thomas has asked for and been given
by his string players just enough of
that "old world" phrasing to make this
movement a really moving and distinctive
experience getting right to the warm
heart of the movement and therefore
the symphony and bringing memories of
Walter and Mengelberg flooding back.
It’s a fine achievement and a welcome
antidote to some of the squeaky-clean,
machine-tooled Mahler recordings heard
so often. The overall tempo for the
movement is slow, slower than many,
but never drags. Momentum never flags,
such is the attention to detail, to
springing the underlying rhythms and
the marking of the nodal points. Though
you would never know it, this CD is
the result of "live" performances so
perhaps the experience of performing
the movement in one go is paying dividends.
Tilson Thomas delineates
so well the two aspects of Mahler’s
"once upon a time" world making up the
first movement’s symphonic argument.
Mahler was probably describing in music
his own bright-sky exhilaration at arriving
as the conquering hero in Vienna. However
he uses a spiky, unsettled development
of the exposition’s more dreamy and
laid-back material to vary the course
of the movement. Tilson Thomas grasps
this aspect admirably. The ability to
"read" a movement’s topography in this
way is so often the sign of a fine Mahler
conductor. There is a sense of contented
repose to be found in the exposition
and then a full exploitation of the
orchestra’s fine woodwind and brass
players to spice up the development.
These players are heard to excellent
effect in what is a superb sound balance.
All comes to a perfectly judged resolution
at the climax of the development where
the emergence of the trumpet solo, prefiguring
the opening of the Fifth Symphony, makes
its mark. Tilson Thomas and his engineers
are careful not to let this trumpet
moment protrude too much. In the later
stages the string phrasing, the "old
world" slides that will become so much
a part of the third movement, make their
first real appearance and are deeply
satisfying. The second movement accentuates
the mood of the first’s development
with great scope given to the weird
violin solo and the cluckings of the
woodwind players who are again heard
to fine effect in the recording. The
third movement stresses the contemplative
side of the symphony. All that is then
needed to complete the story is an adroit
performance of the final movement to
bring it all to final rest. So much
depends on the delivery of the soprano
soloist who must give a child’s view
of heaven and so must sound young. I
am too much of a gentleman to ask Laura
Claycomb’s age but I think I can safely
say she fits the bill admirably, as
does her feisty "daddy’s girl" delivery.
For his part Tilson Thomas drives the
sleigh bell interludes with a terrific
snap. In this he keeps in our minds,
right to the end, the bipolar element
that exists in even this most amiable
of Mahler’s symphonies. The playing
of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
is exemplary throughout and the recording
rich and detailed. There have been so
many fine recordings of this work over
the years that there are many that can
be recommended to collectors to last
them a lifetime. This latest one is
certainly now among them. If you have
room for another Fourth that is well-recorded
and well played, and with that striking
sense of "old Europe" in the third movement,
this is certainly one to consider seriously
in a crowded field. Just don’t send
a copy to the Pentagon. Tilson Thomas’s
gives us a Fourth from the grand tradition
and one of the most recommendable now
before us.
In Mahler's Fourth
Symphony there is no great wrestling
with questions of existence as there
is in the previous two. Hardly any concern
either with conflict and resolution
as in the succeeding three. The Fourth
is often seen as Mahler's least troubled
symphony. Since it's also his shortest
and the one with the prettiest, most
tuneful textures, it's also his most
popular and approachable. However be
careful about viewing it as entirely
untroubled. There are dark shades on
these textures and a delicate interplay
of emotion and for the conductor this
all means a careful balancing act. Accentuate
those dark elements, pile the work with
too much emotional drag and the fairy
tale nature is lost. Play down the shadows,
take too far a step back and the bogeymen
peeping out from behind the drapes disappear
from view. Leif Segerstam (Chandos CHAN9836)
with the Danish National Radio
Symphony tends towards the former category
and this is in keeping with his approach
to Mahler generally which always tends
to the dramatic, the romantic and, in
some cases, the mannered. Maybe it's
the special nature of the Fourth but
not even Segerstam, some of whose Mahlerian
excesses I have found unacceptable,
can spoil the work and prevent him delivering
a recording with much appeal, though
it could not be called "mainstream"
like those by Kletzki, Szell, Horenstein
or Kubelik are. Segerstam falls more
into the kind of subjective interpretation
represented by Mengelberg or Barbirolli
but with the extra advantage of superb
playing and recording, even though the
latter may strike some as being too
large-scale to suit what is a more intimate
work. The slow third movement is best
representative of the kind of interpretation
Segerstam seems to be offering. The
approach is deeply expressive and the
effect deeply tragic: worlds away from
the Schubert-like poise of Boulez on
DG or the ice- crystal purity of Reiner
on RCA, for example. In fact I think
Segerstam looks to what would for Mahler
be more recent times as he puts me in
mind of the hot house atmosphere of
Wagner's Wesendonk Lieder with its dark
colours and long, sensuous lines. Never
was Beecham's remark about this work
of Mahler's as "the illegitimate offspring
of Tristan and Isolde" more apt. We
should have been alerted to the approach
Segerstam would adopt in the third movement
from his account of the second. His
"hands-on" approach allows him to accentuate
weirdness in the Trios that ought to
have more parody about them. He probably
takes this movement too much at face
value where Mahler has something subtler
in mind - a cartoon world of
fairy tale fears in his portrayal of
"Friend Death" striking up on his out-of-tune
fiddle. In the first movement Segerstam
also invests every bar with special
attention and this brings some nice
touches, like the lower woodwind chuckling
away in the Development. But some may
find his close attention to detail here
ultimately gets in the way of the broader
flow. It only remains to report that
Eva Johansson is a rather anonymous
soprano in the last movement though
Segerstam's accompaniment of her is
exemplary. An expressive, consciously
moulded performance resonantly recorded
and sonorously played. Some of Mahler's
lightness of touch is sacrificed but
Segerstam's involvement offers a persuasive
alternative to more central views.
Klaus
Tennstedt’s fine reading of the Fourth
with the London Philharmonic on EMI
(EMI 5 74296 2) is coupled with his
Third which I included in my survey
of that work. With such a large work
as the Third taking up most of the two
discs it might be the case that the
Fourth Symphony is overlooked and this
would be a pity. Both the first and
second movements see Tennstedt pressing
forward in the vigorous passages so
that when he relaxes in the more reflective
ones he doesn't need to slow down too
much to make the kind of contrast he
seemed unable to make in the first movement
of the Third. It's certainly an impressive
and compelling approach. He is also
blessed again with excellent playing
from the LPO who by then were his to
command. They are on their toes throughout
for the engineers to capture every detail
of their playing and I especially liked
the passage between bars 221 and 238
in the first movement where Tennstedt
conveys a feeling of spiralling out
of control very well. He clearly sees
the third movement as one of Mahler's
greatest slow movements as he phrases
it with a rich depth of tone from the
orchestra. Later on his tendency to
wear his heart on his sleeve in Mahler
intrudes too much but it's always within
the bounds of taste and great depth
of feeling is conveyed. You can argue
for a more detached and analytical approach,
less mannered, but you would have to
have a heart of stone not to be involved
and moved by this. But I think the last
movement is far too dark-toned and serious
for what Mahler had in mind. Tennstedt
has slipped back into his old Third
Symphony ways here as he seems determined
not to break the mood he has established
in the third movement whereas I'm convinced
that is exactly what Mahler wants the
conductor to do. The playing is superb
but too straight-faced to convey any
of the fun the words carry.
The recordings detailed
above are, I think, the most desirable
of all to own in their different ways.
There are many more recordings, of course.
There are fine ones by Lorin Maazel
and the Vienna Philharmonic on Sony
and Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw
Orchestra on Philips. Both are superbly
played and recorded, both would grace
your collection, but neither quite penetrates
the work as deeply as the ones already
dealt with. I am still surprised at
my reaction to the Maazel recording,
though. When I began this survey back
in 1997 I fully expected to include
it among the leading choices then, but
hearing it in context with the others
disappointed me a little and, on a fine
balance, I decided to leave it out and
I must say that I haven‘t changed my
mind now. But I do want to draw it to
your attention again and to some lovely
playing and conducting that is contained
there (Sony SMK39072). Another 
recording
I want to mention is by Franz Welser-Most
and the London Philharmonic on EMI Classics
for Pleasure (5734372).
This offers a fine performance in the
grand and romantic manner at a cheap
price. It's ruled out for general recommendation
for me by a very slow reading indeed
of the third movement. It’s a mind-boggling
twenty-five minutes as opposed to just
eighteen with Kubelik and is surely
far too long no matter how well the
London Philharmonic bring it off. Many
like this recording just for this reading
of the third movement alone. Many like
their Mahler excessive anyway, many
think Mahler should be excessive at
all times. My reply to that is that
what excess there is in the music doesn't
need adding to by the conductor. Excess
is the main problem in Claudio Abbado’s
recording with the Berlin Philharmonic
on DG but you don’t hear it until the
last movement. Abbado’s first recording
with the Vienna Philharmonic was never
very high in my estimation. I always
felt that he was never quite at home
with the mixture of fantasy and classicism
and never really reconciled them. His
new recording is rethought somewhat
but to no great effect. The Berlin Philharmonic,
as usual, show little corporate Mahler
feeling and then in the fourth movement
Rene Fleming stands up and ruins everything.
If I say that the manner she adopts
would have better suited "Daddy
Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow-Wow" I think
you will catch my drift. Casting star
sopranos in what ever new Mahler Fourth
passed through the recording companies
seemed to be quite a practice once.
It knocked the final nail in the coffin
of the, too hyper-sharp, Solti recording
in Chicago for Decca when Kiri Te Kanawa
arrived and might just as well have
been singing the small-ads from "Exchange
and Mart" for all the attention
she seemed to be paying to the words.
Simon Rattle’s EMI recording might well
have likewise been spoiled by his soloist
Amanda Roocroft, a fine artist but here
with her feet in quite the wrong wellies,
were it not for the fact that his own
mannered delivery of the previous three
movements had already done that pretty
conclusively. Rattle is no Mengelberg,
certainly not in this symphony. In Christoph
Von Dohnanyi’s recording with the Cleveland
Orchestra on Decca it is the soprano
soloist, Dawn Upshaw, who is the highlight.
In the rest, as so often is the case,
Dohnanyi just fails to get inside the
special world of this symphony and certainly
comes nowhere near delivering as great
a performance as the last time the symphony
was recorded in Cleveland by Szell.
There is just too much of the routine
about it, the slow movement especially,
and there is a feeling that the orchestra
are not on top form either. That fine
and invariably interesting Mahlerian
Michael Gielen is not quite at his best
in this work either. Strange how this
seemingly most simple and "easy"
of Mahler’s symphonies can bring even
the best conductors to grief. Are they
perhaps beguiled by its apparent simplicity?
Yoel Levi does much better in his Atlanta
Symphony recording on Telarc. He is
blessed with superb sound and excellent
playing but isn’t he just a little too
studied, too careful, too punctilious
for his impeccably played and pointed
version to add up to anything more than
the lightweight and the superficial?
We hear lots of detail, but what’s going
on beneath? Readers of these surveys
will not be surprised to know that the
word "superficial" is also
one I choose to apply to Riccardo Chailly’s
version on Decca with the Concertgebouw
Orchestra. He is as well recorded as
Levi and his orchestra play even better
and with more idiom, the strings particularly
fuller, but then stand Chailly and Levi
up against Horenstein and Barbirolli,
to name just two, and the deficiencies
of the two modern conductors are only
too obvious. Where is their heart, where
is their soul? As always in Mahler,
the performance to convince is the one
that is the sum of all the parts - those
are the ones with the heart and the
soul.
A consequence of writing
surveys like this is the amount of "lobbying"
one receives from people anxious that
favourite recordings may have been overlooked
by me. Maurice Abravanel’s Mahler recordings
have come in for their fair share of
lobbying and his Fourth in particular
has many advocates. Abravanel was a
Mahler pioneer but I think today that
his Utah orchestra just do not have
the class or the Mahler pedigree to
match even the worthy Mahlerian he was.
Another piece of lobbying I have received
since starting these surveys and which
refers particularly to the Fourth comes
from the existence of an arrangement
of the work for fifteen chamber players
(including piano!) that was made by
Erwin Stein in 1920 for Arnold Schoenberg’s
Society For Private Musical Performances.
This short-lived organization was dedicated
to performing new and under-performed
works and as Mahler’s symphonies were
still of sufficient novelty at that
time the Sixth and Seventh symphonies
were presented in two piano arrangements
and "Das Lied Von Der Erde"
and the Fourth Symphony in reduced chamber
versions. The Fourth would seem a natural
for such a treatment as it is the most
chamber-like of Mahler’s major
works. In the time since the appearance
of the first version of this survey
a number of recordings of this Stein
arrangement have appeared and, if my
lobbying is anything to go by, is highly
regarded by many people. For myself
I see nothing at all to get excited
about. Quite the opposite, in fact.
No matter how felicitous, no matter
how much care, no matter how much integrity
Erwin Stein brought to his work in 1920
the fact remains that Mahler’s miraculous
scoring is here literally butchered
before our ears, rendered down like
a prime carcass in a meat factory into
something easily chewable for the fast
food industry. If Mahler’s Fourth in
its finished form is a big juicy turkey
fresh from the oven the Erwin Stein
chamber arrangement is a plate of underdone
Turkey Twizzlers. Not to put too fine
a point on it, I loathe it with a passion.
I loathe it because I love the original
so much, and am at a loss to know why
so many people who also love the original
can apparently find anything in this
abomination to detain them. I suppose
it served a purpose at a time when it
was not possible to hear in performance
what Mahler really wrote. But now we
have lots of performances, many recordings
and frequent broadcasts so there seems
no need for the Stein arrangement other
than as a bizarre curio from a bygone
age with a sound more suited to a Palm
Court tea dance complete with lukewarm
tea urns, curling cucumber sandwiches
and the distant snap of arthritic hips.
If you do still want to hear it after
I have just trashed it so enthusiastically
(and that means you probably do now)
then the fine recording by Douglas Boyd
and the Manchester Camerata on Avie
(AV
2069)) is the one to have. Not least
for the delicious singing of Kate Royal
in the last movement and the clear balanced
recording all at super bargain price.
These players at their full strength
would do well to consider performing
the real thing as it stands because
let us hold the thought of a chamber
orchestra in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony
a little while longer as I deal with
one more recording that I wouldn’t want
you to overlook.
Playing Mahler’s Fourth
as it stands in the finished score but
with a chamber sized string section
is not as mad an idea as it may at first
sound. In his chapter "Mahler’s
Kammermusikton" in "The Mahler
Companion" Donald Mitchell writes
in fascinating detail about two performances
of Kindertotenlieder and other songs
that Mahler himself mounted in Vienna
in the small Brahmssaal in 1902. The
orchestra comprised members of the Vienna
Philharmonic formed into a chamber orchestra
and subsequent research points to an
ensemble of approximately thirty-six
players, a lot less than we are used
to in Mahler’s songs. Research by Renate
Hilmar-Voit suggests strings of about
8-10 violins, 6-8 violas, 4-6 cellos
and 2-4 basses. (In a 1966 Aldeburgh
performance Benjamin Britten gave Kindertotenlieder
with 17 violins, 4 violas, 5 cellos
and 2 basses and that with no access
to any research just his own instincts.)
In an earlier chapter in the Mahler
Companion, this time specifically about
the Fourth Symphony, Mitchell goes further
when he writes of Innocence and Experience
manifested in this work and pursuing
Innocence he cites, among other things,
"the shift towards a chamber-orchestra
style that Mahler was soon to establish
in Kindertotenlieder and the late Ruckert
settings, his ‘Kammermusikton’ as he
was himself to describe it." (The
italics are mine). Then in a footnote
Mitchell draws our attention to that
very 1902 Brahmssaal concert already
mentioned. So why not try performing
the Fourth Symphony with such a chamber
orchestra? Leave aside the chamber arrangement
by Stein completely if small forces
only are possible? Well this is largely
what Daniel Harding and the 
Mahler
Chamber Orchestra seem to have
done in their recording for Virgin Classics
(7243 5 45665 2 3). The first movement
is crisp and clear with great bounce
and optimism with great care given to
the dark and light contrasts. The smaller
than usual string section really allows
the winds to stand out here. In the
second movement there is more character
and great wit too with the smaller string
body again making the detail stand out
in sharper relief than we are used to.
Some may find the third movement the
place where the strings are needed more.
That would only really be the case if
you are determined to view this movement
as a lush, romantic meditation instead
of being the product of a more neo-classical
sound world. With Harding and his players
it emerges with a chaste purity to start
with but there is some power too in
the later sections. The overall tempo
is also very moderate and is sustained
superbly. As with the two previous movements
the perspectives on the winds are changed
profoundly but don’t think there is
no power there. But it is often a latent
power and the flinging open of the gates
could not be more dramatic coming as
a real shock. The last movement fits
quite naturally and Dorothea Roschmann
is a lovely soloist who seems in complete
accord with her conductor. An unusual
choice to end this survey with, therefore,
but one that I think points us in a
direction for this work which is novel
and worth considering very seriously
in the light of Mahler and is ‘Kammermusikton’
and worth considering for the setting
of future performing trends.
To sum up, Mengelberg’s
immortal recording from 1939 remains
hors concors, Barbirolli's is
in the same category. Following these
I would not want to be without Horenstein,
Kubelik and Kletzki from the past generation,
and Gatti, Boulez and Tilson Thomas
from the present. The Tilson Thomas
recording is, I think, a truly great
version and certainly the best all round
for performance and recorded
sound together. Benjamin Britten is
on hand for the profound insight of
a fellow composer and Daniel Harding
for a new insight that, in fact, may
not be new at all but which, as I have
tried to indicate, might take us back
in time to some of Mahler’s own thinking
about how his orchestra can sound; a
challenge to how we listen to this work
and I, for one, am always up for a challenge
in Mahler. With which thought, albeit
a tentative one, I will leave you to
enjoy Mahler’s loveliest work again.
Maybe with new ears.
Tony Duggan
©
Tony Duggan May 2006
Mengelberg
Walter
Klemperer
Kletzki
Britten
Barbirolli
Kubelik
Horenstein
Szell
Reiner
Bernstein
Gatti
Boulez
Zander
Tilson-Thomas
Tennstedt
Welser-Most
Boyd
Harding
There is a 2020
update for recordings post-2006 by Brian Wilson