Michael Gielen has died, aged 91

[gurnemanz]

Did you note that the male and female songs in that issue of Das Lied von der Erde were recorded a decade apart? Not that immediately obvious to the ear, is it?

I read that but, as you suggest, I don't think I'd have noticed. I was pleased to hear Christiane Iven and Hanno Müller-Brachmann in the Wunderhorn songs. Both made fine contributions to the Naxos Schubert Lieder Edition. Cornelia Kallisch has had a long and distinguished career but I only got to know her voice quite recently via the Othmar Schoeck Lieder. (Incidentally, may be niche repertoire but a good value voyage of discovery).

[DublinJimbo]

I was excited to have a ticket for a Michael Gielen concert in Berlin in 2014. He was scheduled to conduct the Berlin Staatskapelle in a Mahler programme in the Konzerthaus. Unfortunately, he had to cancel for health reasons, which was a great disappointment, but this was the evening when the young Israeli conductor Lahav Shani deputised for him in what turned out to be a triumphant debut (Mahler's 1st Symphony that night was given an astonishingly wonderful performance).

Two years earlier I'd been in Freiburg, Michael Gielen's stamping ground for many years. He wasn't involved in either of the concerts I went to in the magnificent concert hall there, but at least I'd experienced the wonderful acoustic which was such a feature of his great Mahler recordings.