Das Lied von der Erde Centenary Nov 20 1911

[Richard Barrett]

Pardon me for resurrecting this thread but I've been immersing myself in this work recently, and listening to numerous recordings of it (in fact I listened to nothing else for several days), so I was digging around to see what people here had to say. And the last post until this one is in praise of the 1975 Kubelik recording, which is a nice coincidence since I heard this for the first time last week and found it very beautiful, apart from a fluff or two in the orchestra which is no shame in a live recording. Actually I find that discussions of Mahler recordings often omit mention of Kubelik for no reason I can fathom. I prefer listening to his (and the Bavarian Radio orchestra's) Mahler than that of many more famous conductors with more famous ensembles.

Now I hesitate even to talk about comparing recordings/performances of this work because I feel like I have such a deep and intimate long-term relationship with it, and talking about this or that ephemeral detail seems to me somehow tasteless or even indecent. But at the same time I don't think one should necessarily be governed by taste and decency, so... I wouldn't want to say I have a favourite recording of it, because almost all the ones I've heard are sung, played and conducted with such commitment and concentration; but the one I listen to most often, which isn't the same thing, is the one conducted by Klaus Tennstedt with Klaus König and Agnes Baltsa, and I think one reason is that it has a much more realistic recorded balance between voice and orchestra than most others, especially in the first movement. Some might say that Mahler over-orchestrated it, but I wonder how they could think this was a miscalculation on his part, given how delicate the vocal accompaniments are in the rest of the piece (and indeed given how sensitive he is to such balances throughout his work)... nevertheless most recording engineers seem to think that they need to give the soloist a helping hand in this movement, and I absolutely disagree. Haven't they read the sung text, for ¶€§º# sake? Anyway the EMI people working with Tennstedt seem to have grasped it better than most.

Also I wonder why people take seriously Mahler's little aside about people shooting themselves after hearing it. How is a composer supposed to speak about a piece of music as incandescently expressive and almost unbearably truthful as that one? I can completely understand him making light of it in that sort of way. Hearing from "Die liebe Erde" to the end (with everything that comes before this, obviously!) is every single time one of the most heartwarming moments in all of music as far as I'm concerned. Please excuse my effusiveness..

[Bryn]

... Actually I find that discussions of Mahler recordings often omit mention of Kubelik for no reason I can fathom. I prefer listening to his (and the Bavarian Radio orchestra's) Mahler than that of many more famous conductors with more famous ensembles. ...

Now there's a preference you share with John White, IIRC.

[Richard Barrett]

Now there's a preference you share with John White, IIRC.

I'm sure it wouldn't be the only one.

[gurnemanz]

Pardon me for resurrecting this thread but I've been immersing myself in this work recently, and listening to numerous recordings of it (in fact I listened to nothing else for several days), so I was digging around to see what people here had to say.

It might also be of interest to resurrect this thread from the old BBC Message Board a few years ago. Since then I have downloaded the Tennstedt/Peter Schreier/B.Finnilä which I do not like very much at all.

[Beef Oven!]

Pardon me for resurrecting this thread but I've been immersing myself in this work recently, and listening to numerous recordings of it (in fact I listened to nothing else for several days), so I was digging around to see what people here had to say. And the last post until this one is in praise of the 1975 Kubelik recording, which is a nice coincidence since I heard this for the first time last week and found it very beautiful, apart from a fluff or two in the orchestra which is no shame in a live recording. Actually I find that discussions of Mahler recordings often omit mention of Kubelik for no reason I can fathom. I prefer listening to his (and the Bavarian Radio orchestra's) Mahler than that of many more famous conductors with more famous ensembles.

Now I hesitate even to talk about comparing recordings/performances of this work because I feel like I have such a deep and intimate long-term relationship with it, and talking about this or that ephemeral detail seems to me somehow tasteless or even indecent. But at the same time I don't think one should necessarily be governed by taste and decency, so... I wouldn't want to say I have a favourite recording of it, because almost all the ones I've heard are sung, played and conducted with such commitment and concentration; but the one I listen to most often, which isn't the same thing, is the one conducted by Klaus Tennstedt with Klaus König and Agnes Baltsa, and I think one reason is that it has a much more realistic recorded balance between voice and orchestra than most others, especially in the first movement. Some might say that Mahler over-orchestrated it, but I wonder how they could think this was a miscalculation on his part, given how delicate the vocal accompaniments are in the rest of the piece (and indeed given how sensitive he is to such balances throughout his work)... nevertheless most recording engineers seem to think that they need to give the soloist a helping hand in this movement, and I absolutely disagree. Haven't they read the sung text, for ¶€§º# sake? Anyway the EMI people working with Tennstedt seem to have grasped it better than most.

Also I wonder why people take seriously Mahler's little aside about people shooting themselves after hearing it. How is a composer supposed to speak about a piece of music as incandescently expressive and almost unbearably truthful as that one? I can completely understand him making light of it in that sort of way. Hearing from "Die liebe Erde" to the end (with everything that comes before this, obviously!) is every single time one of the most heartwarming moments in all of music as far as I'm concerned. Please excuse my effusiveness..

Funny enough, I fancied listening to this work a few weekends ago after listening to a Sinopoli Mahler symphonies box-set that had recently arrived, but I couldn't get into it (Sinopoli's performance of Das Lied), so I tried Haitink and that didn't work either.

What did work, was digging up the BIS chamber version (Vanska, Sinfonia Lahti Chamber Ensemble, Monica Group et al) and playing just 'Der Abscheid'. I have found that playing segments from compositions really seems to work for me these days.

I've played Der Abscheid a few time since and I have really enjoyed it. Maybe the reduced orchestration (chamber version:arr Schoenberg) means that questions of orchestral balance and voice are less taxing, which perhaps, gave me a better handle on the work.

[Roehre]

.... Actually I find that discussions of Mahler recordings often omit mention of Kubelik for no reason I can fathom. I prefer listening to his (and the Bavarian Radio orchestra's) Mahler than that of many more famous conductors with more famous ensembles...

As I do. For some reason I cannot recall ever to have listened to Kubelik's LvdE, hence I cannot comment on that one.
My own preferred recording is the 1963 Haefliger/Merriman/COA/Jochum on DGG (despite Merriman's for some irritating vibrato). Very transparently recorded, to such an extent that it is audible that somebody is dropping something during Der Abschied. But there are other very good performances/recordings too, Tennstedt springs to my mind too.

As far as "over-orchestrating" of the Das Lied vom Jammer der Erde is concerned: it isn't IMHO.
Mahler knew exactly what he was doing, and this is a song of drunken despair - a text more meant to be screamed than properly sung. Mahler exactly realises that. It is significant that the piano-version which Mahler made really doesn't clarify the tenor's lines at all. Obviously he's heard better than in the orchestral version, but that has got more to do with the limitations of the piano than anything else.

It is that despair which pervades this first song as well as Der Trunkene im Frühling to which Mahler's "people will commit suicide" remarks relates to. It isn't coincidence IMO that the continuity draft for the Tenth's 2nd mvt hints at LvdE's "Jammer"-lied, the 3 middle mvts of 10 being by far the grimmest music of the whole symphony (12-note dissonance in the 1st mvt and the bass-drum at the beginning of the 5th aside)


There are other ones which could be made too, e.g. about the very modern way of presenting the solo-winds, especially the flute, in Der Abschied. Recitative-like, declamatory-like, an almost improvising way, seemingly similar to the flute in the Finale of the "Resurrection", but much more sophisticated, Mahler reaching new grounds here.

[Richard Barrett]

Since then I have downloaded the Tennstedt/Peter Schreier/B.Finnilä which I do not like very much at all.

That's one I don't know... I would have thought that Schreier, whom I admire a great deal, would be excellent in this work but this turns out somehow not to be the case, on the strength of the recording he made with Eliahu Inbal.

I see that the (other) Tennstedt recording I was talking about doesn't even get a mention on that old R3MB thread! Well, it's a very personal matter. I can't listen to any performance of the piece with two male voices, for example, no matter who they are.

[Richard Barrett]

the reduced orchestration (chamber version:arr Schoenberg)

Actually though Schoenberg only got as far as arranging part of the first movement, after which he delegated the rest of the work to Webern, who then didn't continue with it because their "Society for Private Musical Performances" had no more money to give concerts, and eventually the remainder of the work was done by Rainer Riehn in the 1980s.

I did also, by the way, listen (for the first time) to the Jochum recording last week. Ernst Haefliger is another tenor I admire and his singing is exemplary (although both singers do get some unnecessary "help" from the recording engineers).

It's a shame Kubelik didn't record this piece in the studio, that would really have been something.

For me one of its most radical aspects is the way that "melody" and "accompaniment" are so interchangeable, often from one bar to the next - almost nothing in the score (especially in the last movement) isn't thematic in some way.

[Bryn]

As I recall, EMI held back on releasing their Tennstedt recording as they were unhappy with it. What exactly the concern was I can't remember.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How is a composer supposed to speak about a piece of music as incandescently expressive and almost unbearably truthful as that one? I can completely understand him making light of it in that sort of way. Hearing from "Die liebe Erde" to the end (with everything that comes before this, obviously!) is every single time one of the most heartwarming moments in all of music as far as I'm concerned. Please excuse my effusiveness..

Excued and shared as far as I'm concerned.

[Mahler's3rd]

The Philharmonia/Otto Klemperer (Christa Ludwig/Fritz Wunderlich( from Abbey road in 1964

[Tevot]

The Philharmonia/Otto Klemperer (Christa Ludwig/Fritz Wunderlich( from Abbey road in 1964

I'd certainly second that

[Barbirollians]

In my never ending obsession with this work I have obtained a cheap copy of the EMI Gemini release of the Murray Dickie. DFD/Kletzki version with the Philharmonia from1960 .

It is excellent . Dickie can sound a touch strained in places but DFD is completely bark free and sings more beautifully than on any other recording of his I have ever heard. I still prefer a contralto/Mezzo in those songs but this is much the best baritone recording I have heard. Very moving indeed . Superb playing from the Philharmonia too .

Coupled with Kletzki's lovely Mahler 4 - not to be missed.

[LHC]

I see that the Vienna Symphony Orchestra have released a recording of Carlos Kleiber's only performance of Das Lied with Christa Ludwig and Waldemar Kmentt. Bootlegs have been available for some time, generally in execrable sound, but this is the first official release and the sound quality is apparently much better.

The performance dates from early in his career (1967). I wonder if anyone has heard it in either its earlier pirate incarnations, or in this official release?

[Barbirollians]

I see that the Vienna Symphony Orchestra have released a recording of Carlos Kleiber's only performance of Das Lied with Christa Ludwig and Waldemar Kmentt. Bootlegs have been available for some time, generally in execrable sound, but this is the first official release and the sound quality is apparently much better.

The performance dates from early in his career (1967). I wonder if anyone has heard it in either its earlier pirate incarnations, or in this official release?

I saw this the other day - if the sound quality is OK it surely has to be bought !