BaL 19.06.21 - Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

[Alison]

Now there's a synchronistic coincidence worthy of Jung. In the conversation linked to by Alison a few hours ago, Schiff and his interlocutor share a point about the difference in musical perception of those who pay to hear and those who get in free.

[richardfinegold]

My very first Das Lied was the 1936 VPO/Walter on a HMV Treasury LP which I bought in 1974 but I subsequently found it very hard to get past Janet Baker, either for Haitink or Leppard, for many years. I saw Dame Janet give a Prom performance of Das Lied in 1983 with Sir John Pritchard and the BBCSO in what must surely have been one of her last of this work. Does anyone know when her last one was?

Nowadays, I've got a wide range of artists and over the years have accumulated 28 versions. If it's not Janet Baker then the Maureen Forrester/Richard Lewis combination is my most favoured, appearing together on several in my collection.

My top choice would be King/Baker/Concertgebouw/Haitink with my second choice being Kollo/Ludwig/BPO/Karajan. Third would be Lewis/Forrester/Chicago SO/Reiner.

The Karajan has a numinous aura about the sound quality that is very appropriate for his reading.

Coincidentally those are the last 3 that I have listened to. The Haitink I mentioned as my go to and like Nick I find it hard to imagine without Baker. I had bought the Reiner when it came out as a 3 channel SACD and listened probably for the first time in over a decade a few weeks ago.
It hadn’t made much of an impression at the time, perhaps because I had bought it amongst a pile of SACDs when Tower Records declared bankruptcy. I was struck this time by the Richard Strauss like feel for most of the songs, except for Der Abschied. Did Reiner record other Mahler works? The Karajan I didn’t know existed until I found it on Qobuz a few months back. It’s a shame that HvK never recorded Symphonies 1-3.

[Petrushka]

Coincidentally those are the last 3 that I have listened to. The Haitink I mentioned as my go to and like Nick I find it hard to imagine without Baker. I had bought the Reiner when it came out as a 3 channel SACD and listened probably for the first time in over a decade a few weeks ago.
It hadn’t made much of an impression at the time, perhaps because I had bought it amongst a pile of SACDs when Tower Records declared bankruptcy. I was struck this time by the Richard Strauss like feel for most of the songs, except for Der Abschied. Did Reiner record other Mahler works? The Karajan I didn’t know existed until I found it on Qobuz a few months back. It’s a shame that HvK never recorded Symphonies 1-3.

Reiner also recorded Mahler 4 with Lisa della Casa as soloist. It's well worth hearing and it's in excellent sound.

[Barbirollians]

Coincidentally those are the last 3 that I have listened to. The Haitink I mentioned as my go to and like Nick I find it hard to imagine without Baker. I had bought the Reiner when it came out as a 3 channel SACD and listened probably for the first time in over a decade a few weeks ago.
It hadn’t made much of an impression at the time, perhaps because I had bought it amongst a pile of SACDs when Tower Records declared bankruptcy. I was struck this time by the Richard Strauss like feel for most of the songs, except for Der Abschied. Did Reiner record other Mahler works? The Karajan I didn’t know existed until I found it on Qobuz a few months back. It’s a shame that HvK never recorded Symphonies 1-3.

As much as I admire Baker's singing with Haitink - James King is in better form for Bernstein . I prefer Baker with Leppard and Kubelík.

Despite having bought many a Das Lied - recently enjoying the live Walter with Forrester and Lewis on Archipel and Ludwig and Kollo with Bernstein - the two recordings favoured by RO in 1983 remain my favourites and especially Ferrier/Patzak/Walter

[gurnemanz]

Nowadays, I've got a wide range of artists and over the years have accumulated 28 versions. If it's not Janet Baker then the Maureen Forrester/Richard Lewis combination is my most favoured, appearing together on several in my collection.

My top choice would be King/Baker/Concertgebouw/Haitink with my second choice being Kollo/Ludwig/BPO/Karajan. Third would be Lewis/Forrester/Chicago SO/Reiner.

Thanks for pointing to Forrester/Reiner. She is a favourite singer and I didn't know this recording. I have listened with great pleasure on Spotify.

I've been checking out my CD versions (a mere 8): Some well-known ones including Baker/Leppard, Fassbaender/Giulini, Ludwig/Klemperer. My only LP version for years was Bruno Walter with Mildred Miller and a favourite tenor, Ernst Haefliger. I have two other essential Walters - the Ferrier/Patzak (I love it when Patzak's Viennese German comes through from time to time) and the historic first recording of the work from 1936, VPO with Kerstin Thorborg and Charles Kullman.

Two less often mentioned versions which I like are Kurt Sanderling, Berlin Symphony Orch with Peter Schreier and Birgit Finnilä. I enjoy Schreier's Liedsinger's precision of diction and word pointing. Also another Fassbaender, this time with Thomas Moser and Cyprien Katsaris playing Mahler's own piano accompaniment. Never going to be a standard recommendation but it's very well done and for me this piano and voice format offers interesting insights into how the music is working.

I'm not in general a fan of two-male versions but I do have one. As a whole the live Montreal recording from Kent Nagano with Klaus Florian Vogt and Christian Gerhaher is probably not a front-runner but Gerhaher's baritone rendition of the mezzo part is well worth hearing.

[vinteuil]

Thanks for pointing to Forrester/Reiner. She is a favourite singer and I didn't know this recording. I have listened with great pleasure on Spotify...

... I see it is also available on CD - I have just ordered a copy :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000026PPM

.

[gurnemanz]

... I see it is also available on CD - I have just ordered a copy :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000026PPM

.

Thanks for link. Reiner looks a bit threatening - buy this CD or else ...

[Lordgeous]

I had a memory of Peter Pears performing in a Das Lied. Indeed it was at the Edinburg Festival with Ferrier & Walter - Patzak went on to make the famous recording though (which I grew up with). I wonder if this was broadcast or recorded???

http://www.operascotland.org/tour/4687/Lied-von-der-Erde-1947

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/16/from-the-classical-archive-bruno-walter-kathleen-ferrier-edinburgh-festival-1947

[cloughie]

Thanks for link. Reiner looks a bit threatening - buy this CD or else ...

L’amico Fritz - quite a no nonsense conductor but made some lovely records with the CSO - I’d forgotten this one - ordered!

[richardfinegold]

Thanks for pointing to Forrester/Reiner. She is a favourite singer and I didn't know this recording. I have listened with great pleasure on Spotify.

I've been checking out my CD versions (a mere 8): Some well-known ones including Baker/Leppard, Fassbaender/Giulini, Ludwig/Klemperer. My only LP version for years was Bruno Walter with Mildred Miller and a favourite tenor, Ernst Haefliger. I have two other essential Walters - the Ferrier/Patzak (I love it when Patzak's Viennese German comes through from time to time) and the historic first recording of the work from 1936, VPO with Kerstin Thorborg and Charles Kullman.

Two less often mentioned versions which I like are Kurt Sanderling, Berlin Symphony Orch with Peter Schreier and Birgit Finnilä. I enjoy Schreier's Liedsinger's precision of diction and word pointing. Also another Fassbaender, this time with Thomas Moser and Cyprien Katsaris playing Mahler's own piano accompaniment. Never going to be a standard recommendation but it's very well done and for me this piano and voice format offers interesting insights into how the music is working.

I'm not in general a fan of two-male versions but I do have one. As a whole the live Montreal recording from Kent Nagano with Klaus Florian Vogt and Christian Gerhaher is probably not a front-runner but Gerhaher's baritone rendition of the mezzo part is well worth hearing.

I pulled another 2 male version off the shelf. MTT with Stuart Skelton and Thomas Hampson. I bought it and forgot about it, but it worth it just for Hampson

[Barbirollians]

I had a memory of Peter Pears performing in a Das Lied. Indeed it was at the Edinburg Festival with Ferrier & Walter - Patzak went on to make the famous recording though (which I grew up with). I wonder if this was broadcast or recorded???

http://www.operascotland.org/tour/4687/Lied-von-der-Erde-1947

https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...-festival-1947

If it was it has never emerged.

If a Forrester/Lewis fan then try their live account with Walter too.

[Keraulophone]

if I had to choose one, which thank heaven I don't, it would be Tennstedt.

Tennstedt didn’t allow EMI to release his recording of Das Lied for nine years. The late Alan Blyth, in his Gramophone review, reckons that ‘if he was dissatisfied with the superlative playing and often inspired singing here, he must have been imagining some ideal rendering in heaven’. That is sometimes the way with perfectionists such as Klaus Tennstedt and Carlos Kleiber, who didn’t approve the release of his superlative Tristan. For Blyth, this is ‘one of those issues that makes reviewing worth all the time involved’, placing it second only to Ferrier/Patzak/Walter. During Tennstedt’s time as chief conductor of the LPO (1983-87) he often achieved inspired orchestral playing, whether live or in the studio; it can be heard on this recording. I don’t hear qualities in the soloists that others have recognised: König’s heaviness and Baltsa’s Grecian pronunciation.

[Petrushka]

If a Forrester/Lewis fan then try their live account with Walter too.

I was very enthusiastic on the Forum about this release when I first heard it and can, once again, thoroughly recommend it. Yes, it's live, in mono, from 1960 but you forget all of that the instant it starts. It's an extraordinary performance with the NYPO playing like angels for Walter.

[Bryn]

Tennstedt didn’t allow EMI to release his recording of Das Lied for nine years. The late Alan Blyth, in his Gramophone review, reckons that ‘if he was dissatisfied with the superlative playing and often inspired singing here, he must have been imagining some ideal rendering in heaven’. That is sometimes the way with perfectionists such as Klaus Tennstedt and Carlos Kleiber, who didn’t approve the release of his superlative Tristan. For Blyth, this is ‘one of those issues that makes reviewing worth all the time involved’, placing it second only to Ferrier/Patzak/Walter. During Tennstedt’s time as chief conductor of the LPO (1983-87) he often achieved inspired orchestral playing, whether live or in the studio; it can be heard on this recording. I don’t hear qualities in the soloists that others have recognised: König’s heaviness and Baltsa’s Grecian pronunciation.

Never mind Grecian pronunciation, the Ning Liang, Warren Mok, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Lan Shui (SACD) is of a back-translation into Chinese.

[Richard Barrett]

I don’t hear qualities in the soloists that others have recognised: König’s heaviness and Baltsa’s Grecian pronunciation.

Those are the sorts of things that usually bother me, but on this occasion they don't, mainly I think because both singers so perfectly embody their "roles" in the various musical/dramatic situations the work involves. And, as you imply, the orchestra plays a leading role here too.