Das Lied von der Erde Centenary Nov 20 1911

[Petrushka]

This Sunday, November 20, is the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde given in Munich under Bruno Walter.

I'd be interested to know whose version any members will be playing that night. I think it has to be one of the Bruno Walter recordings and I daresay many will opt for the VPO/Ferrier/Patzak disc. I'm intending to play the 1960 live performance on the Archipel label with the NYPO and Forrester and Lewis. Does anyone know what the rest of the programme was on the Munich fp?

And does anyone have any thoughts on what revisions Mahler might have carried out had he lived to hear the work in performance?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Does anyone know what the rest of the programme was on the Munich fp?

Surprisingly, perhaps, Dame Ethel Smyth's Hey Nonny No for choir and orchestra; also receiving its premiere.

I am away on Sunday but I shall mark the anniversary sometime later by playing the Ferrier - a performance I might suggest would've led to Mahler "revising out" the option for Baritone!

Anyone know Walter's earlier recording from the 1930s?

[Tony Halstead]

[QUOTE

And does anyone have any thoughts on what revisions Mahler might have carried out had he lived to hear the work in performance?[/QUOTE]
Well, I hope he might have 'slimmed down' the orchestration in Movement 1 so that the Tenor didn't have to shout so much...

[Chris Newman]

Surprisingly, perhaps, Dame Ethel Smyth's Hey Nonny No for choir and orchestra; also receiving its premiere.

I am away on Sunday but I shall mark the anniversary sometime later by playing the Ferrier - a performance I might suggest would've led to Mahler "revising out" the option for Baritone!

Anyone know Walter's earlier recording from the 1930s?

I doubt if dear Dame Ethel would have been premiered in Munich. I do not know Walter's earlier recording. The nearest to a successful baritone version I heard was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau but even he was swamped at times.

I am very fond of the Schoenberg reduced version.

[Flosshilde]

I doubt if dear Dame Ethel would have been premiered in Munich.

Well, according to Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music (http://www.enotes.com/music-encyclop...yth-dame-ethel)

"Smyth studied with Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1877 but soon turned to Heinrich von Herzogenberg for her principal training, following him to Berlin. Her String Quintet was performed in Leipzig in 1884.
Her first opera, Fantasio, to her own libretto in German, after Alfred de Musset's play, was produced in Weimar in 1898. This was followed in 1902 by Der Wald, also to her own German LIBRETTO, first produced in Berlin. It was produced in London in the same year as The Forest, and in N.Y. by the Metropolitan Opera a year later.

Smyth's next opera, THE WRECKERS, was her most successful work. Written originally to a French libretto, Les Naufiageurs, it was first produced in a German version as Strandrecht in Leipzig in 1906. The composer herself translated it into English, and it was staged in London in 1909. The score was revised some years later and produced at Sadler's Wells, London, in 1939."

The early training in Leipzig is confirmed by the Oxford Dictiobary of Music, & both that & the above source describe her music as having strong Germanic influences or charateristics.

So a premiere for Hey Nonny No in Munich would be completely possible, or even probable.

[Chris Newman]

OK, Floss. It is possible, or even probable, but you would expect Dame Ethel's supporters to have pointed out the connection to advance the case for her much neglected music.

[Roehre]

And does anyone have any thoughts on what revisions Mahler might have carried out had he lived to hear the work in performance?

We do have some clues of what structural changes Mahler was thinking: there are differences between the version for orchestra and the one for piano and two soloists - reason for the Mahler Gesellschaft to publish both scores, with the later not being a mere piano reduction of the former, and Mahler prepared it after the orchestral score was finished, therefore representing his later thoughts about the piece than the orchestral version.

One of the changes which caught my eye immediately was the 5 bars longer introduction of "Der Pavillon aus Porzellan" (in the orchestral version called "Von der Jugend") as well as an insertion of 7 bars after ...zu den Pavillon hinüber... and corresponding places further down the score, if I count correctly thus lengthening the piece by nearly half a minute.

The ochestral texture of Der Abschied might have become even more sparse then we know it now.
I doubt whether mahler would have changed the first song before hearing it in concert, as there are hardly any differences between the piano and the orchestral version. But IMO he would have made some changes regarding the audibility of the solist afterwards (though one cannot exclude the possibillity -give Mahler's experience as composer as well as conductor and orchestrator- that the effect is inteded).

[hafod]

The premiere of Smythe's Hey Nonny No would appear to have been on 26 October 1910

http://musicandhistory.com/music-and-history-by-the-year/171-1910.html

That does not of course rule out the possibility that it was on the programme of the premiere of DLvDE.

[Flosshilde]

OK, Floss. It is possible, or even probable, but you would expect Dame Ethel's supporters to have pointed out the connection to advance the case for her much neglected music.

Perhaps the Germanic connection became a touch embarrassing between 1914-18 & 1939-45?

I was really just pointing out that, surprising as it may seem, she had very strong connections with Germany.

Anyway, back to the topic, I doubt if I'll make a point of listening to DLVDE on Sunday, but if I do, I'll have a choice from the following recordings - Ludwig/Wunderlich, Philharmonia cond. Klemperer; Baker/King, Concertgebouw cond. Haitinck; Cargill/Botha, BBCSSO cond. Runnicles

[Barbirollians]

Possibly the Ferrier/Lewis/Barbirolli on APR( a magnificent rendition if missing the first bar !) . I love this work more than anything else Mahler wrote except perhaps Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen.

I see I have nine versions Ferrier/Patzak/Svanholm Walter 1948 & 1952, Ferrier/Lewis/Barbirolli, Ludwig/Wunderlich/Klemperer, the 1937 Walter, DFD/Wunderlich/Krips, Baker/Mitchinson/Leppard ( excellent) , Baker /Kempe. Hodgson/Horenstein,

[Serial_Apologist]

I still have my cheapo Turnabout version with Grace Hoffman, Helmut Melchert and the Southwest German Radio SO Baden Baden under Hans Rosbaud, bought back in the early 70s. It has a bad scratch at the beginning of Side 2, but luckily for me the needle has "retrained itself" to track without skipping; and, to me, this version still outdoes all the others I have heard in terms of clarity, luminosity, and the quality of the two soloists. As a bonus, it has gorgeous (unattributed) Chinese landscape panels down each side of the cover.

I have also heard the Schoenberg economised version which Chris loves so much; it is indeed fine and interesting for Schoenberg's take on Mahler's orchestration, suggesting, contrary to commonly held opinion, that he might after all have been the person of choice for completing the Tenth.

S-A

[Nick Armstrong]

Well, I hope he might have 'slimmed down' the orchestration in Movement 1 so that the Tenor didn't have to shout so much...

Nothing to do with the horns giving it too much wellie down the back?

If I listen to the piece at the weekend, it's likely to be the Janet Baker reading (especially because of her last movement) with the Concertgebouw under Haitink

[DublinJimbo]

I guess I'd return to my old reliable of Jessye Norman, Jon Vickers and the LSO with Colin Davis. Listening in a darkened room to Jessye's Abschied digs really deep every time.

On the other hand, if I can get my hands on it in time, I'd be fascinated to hear Wunderlich and Fischer-Dieskau with the Vienna Symphony and Josef Krips (1964).

[makropulos]

I doubt if dear Dame Ethel would have been premiered in Munich. I do not know Walter's earlier recording. The nearest to a successful baritone version I heard was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau but even he was swamped at times.

I am very fond of the Schoenberg reduced version.

Since most of Ethel Smyth's works were published either in Leipzing (by Breitkopf) or Universal Edition (in Vienna), it's certainly possible.

But...

According to Stephen Hefling in his Cambridge Handbook on Das Lied von der Erde, p. 57), the first performance on 20 November 1911 was an extraordinary affair: Das Lied in the first half and the Resurrection Symphony in the second - a concert that lasted three hours according to Hefling (who doesn't mention Smyth at any point in his description of the event). The relevant pages are on google books, but here's the sentence about what was performed: "Das Lied von der Erde opened the second evening [20 November], with tenor William Miller and Madame [Sarah] Cahier as the soloists, with Bruno Walter conducting the Munich Konzertverein Orchestra; to conclude the program, which lasted a full three hours, Walter had chosen the "Resurrection" Symphony, obviously to mitigate the melancholy of the new work, as several critics noted."

[maestro267]

Ah yes, another Mahler centenary rolls into town. Thanks for the reminder. At present I only have one recording of this work, the CBSO conducted by Sir Simon Rattle (a tenor/baritone recording) so I shall be giving that a spin on Sunday.