Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde

[Steve]

I've long enjoyed this piece under the direction of Pierre Boulez, who I consider one of the finer Mahler interpreters, and the VPO and Micheal Schade.



I am however, interested to hear Dietrich Fischer-Deskau with Leonard Bernstein. I've only recently become fond of Lenny with Mahler (Titan), and look forward to learning/listening more.

I read a couple of positive reviews, and the rating on amazon seems rather assuring.

Any comments?

[val]

I never heard Boulez version, but the Bernstein is the best among those who use two male voices.

Nevertheless, I prefer versions using an alto voice. Ludwig and Wunderlich with Klemperer is my favorite, not forgetting Patzak, Ferrier, Walter, and Forrester with Reiner.

[PerfectWagnerite]

I never heard Boulez version, but the Bernstein is the best among those who use two male voices.

Nevertheless, I prefer versions using an alto voice. Ludwig and Wunderlich with Klemperer is my favorite, not forgetting Patzak, Ferrier, Walter, and Forrester with Reiner.

Don't forget Haitink, an absolute classics of the repertoire !

[Steve]

Don't forget Haitink, an absolute classics of the repertoire !

What is it that you enjoy about the Haitink, PerfectWagnerite?


Do you have a preference between Bernstein/Boulez?

[Hector]

I'm with Val on this one but Bernstein's conducting is so alluring it is, as far as I'm concerned, a must-have.

A female voice in Der Abschied is more moving. Both versions, therefore, are required.

[PerfectWagnerite]

What is it that you enjoy about the Haitink, PerfectWagnerite?


Do you have a preference between Bernstein/Boulez?

I like Janet Baker and James King as soloists. Their voices complement each other nicely. Baker a warm expressive mezzo-voice with good diction and great word-painting. Her entire range is so easy on the ears, her top really rings but is never shrill. James King's baritone-sounding voice is kind of the yang to Janet Baker's yin. I can't imagine a better combination of soloists. The Concertgebouw's Mahler tradition is miraculously displayed here. Just listen to those suspended octaves in the final song. I guess Haitink is okay here. He knows he is never going to get two soloists as fine as the two here so he knows enough to stay out of their way and do what he does best, accompany.

The Bernstein is on my wish-list. I have absolutely no interest in Boulez - I think he is a horrible Mahler conductor in general, people on this board loves him though.

I also really like Reiner. I heard it on the radio one mid-night and it is gorgeous. The recording is rather thin (maybe it is just FM) but I think Maureen Forrester is a must hear. Unfortunately I am having trouble finding a cheap copy out there.

[E d o]

The live Baker/Kubelik disc on Audite is well regarded and one I've been lusting after. It's a little hard to get though. I recently ordered it and it turned out to be unavailable.

[karlhenning]

A female voice in Der Abschied is more moving.

I wonder if women listeners think so, too . . . .

[Sergeant Rock]

The live Baker/Kubelik disc on Audite is well regarded and one I've been lusting after. It's a little hard to get though. I recently ordered it and it turned out to be unavailable.

In stock (Artikel am Lager) at JPC:

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/hnum/4955805/rk/classic/rsk/hitlist

Sarge

[SimonGodders]

The live Baker/Kubelik disc on Audite is well regarded and one I've been lusting after. It's a little hard to get though. I recently ordered it and it turned out to be unavailable.

I've ordered it (used) this afternoon, funnily enough!:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000669K1/202-4351466-9240634

I've just acquired his live 1 on the same label and it's very good, so thought I'ld take a plunge with DLvdE

[Sergeant Rock]

What is it that you enjoy about the Haitink, PerfectWagnerite Sarge?

Janet Baker...and the heavenly length of Der Abschied

Do you have a preference between Bernstein/Boulez?

Bernstein. Boulez doesn't connect emotionally with this music. I don't hear in the music, as interpreted by Boulez, what the poetry is expressing. I like several discs in Boulez's Mahler cycle but this isn't one of them.

My favorites: Klemperer/Wunderlich/Ludwig
                   Haitink/King/Baker
                   Barenboim/Jerusalem/Meier
                   Sanderling/Schreier/Finnila


Sarge

[mahlertitan]

it's amazing, i think i saw the original poems in Chinese once on some website once.

[PerfectWagnerite]

it's amazing, i think i saw the original poems in Chinese once on some website once.

You can find it here:

http://www.mahlerarchives.net/DLvDE/DLvDE.htm

just click on the song you want.

I think the German text captures the spirit of the original Chinese nicely, don't you?

[mahlertitan]

You can find it here:

http://www.mahlerarchives.net/DLvDE/DLvDE.htm

just click on the song you want.

I think the German text captures the spirit of the original Chinese nicely, don't you?

yeah, that's the website that i was talking about, thank you.

yes, Tang poems with music, very nice combination.

[knight66]

Copied from the old site.....BTW, the Bernstein is good, the tenor perhaps a bit light, FD is excellent.


I have been listening to my newly acquired Kubelik recording of Mahler's The Song of the Earth, bought on recommendation from several posters; for which MANY thanks. I have been sampling some of my other versions along side and am sharing the following thoughts.

Although stated to be live, unlike the Leppard version, there are no chronic coughers. In that performance several of the audience are well recorded for posterity along with Janet Baker and a strenuous John Mitchinson. But, despite the audience being silent for Kubelik, it cannot have been through boredom. This is a version that grips and penetrates deep into this mysterious world.

The ancient Chinese poems were filtered first through French and then German adaptations and Mahler made some additional alterations. The final song, lasting around half an hour, is as long as all the other five songs put together. The work includes despair, resignation, observations on youth, friendship and on parting. There is a song by a drunk, bitter in his isolation. Mahler again highlights his preoccupation with death. By 1907 his own fatal heart disease had been diagnosed. He described the work as a 'symphony with voices'; it was unnumbered, but came after the Eighth Symphony. Mahler was in part avoiding the omen of completing a ninth symphony; the total produced by Beethoven and Bruckner, two giants whose output Mahler was afraid he would not exceed before death claimed him. Despite this attempt to cheat fate, he did die before completing his tenth symphony.

I have been running the new version up against the other two with Janet Baker, Haitink and Leppard and Tennstedt, Klemperer and Levine. 

Several times I heard Janet Baker sing in this work, she never had a tenor partner who came up to her standard and neither the Leppard nor the Haitink seemed to me to measure up to my memories of how she communicated when I heard her. The Kubelik certainly makes up for that. But we are nowhere without the conductors, so what of them.

Tennstedt is about the slowest, that does not mean much on its own. He and Levine each take 67 minutes, Klemperer and Kubelik 62,  Haitink 64. ( Walter's famous Decca version is shortest at 60 minutes) However I feel there are two basic approaches. There is a detached stoic approach best epitomised by Klemperer and there is a more overt grief laden path taken by Tennstedt, Levine and Kubelik.

In the past I have found Kubelik a bit cool, sane and under emotional for how I like my Mahler. Though his version of the First Symphony is my favourite. However here, live, he fuels the music with energy and emotion. The extended orchestral passage in the middle of the final song is like a full symphony compressed and ultra expressive. The orchestra sound great with expressive playing from the soloists at various points. The first song is unleashed upon us and the lonely one in Autumn, the Alto's first song, is tender. He races Janet Baker through the imagery of the galloping horses in the fourth song and she only just holds on. I think that is the only tempo I would change, and it is over in a few seconds.

Tennstedt to my mind relaxes the pace when he wants to draw our attention to detail and I feel the piece slows too often. Levine's is a version I am constantly surprised that I like. I have said the orchestral sound it too fat, but I was wrong, it is glossy. Beautiful playing, the sound is glamorous. I am not suggesting that is wrong, just that it is a different sound world from Klemperer. His version sounds hewn in stone, unyielding, stoic but not at all disinterested. It has long been one of my favourites despite the lack of obvious emotion. He has the best equipped tenor in Fritz Wunderlich who launches himself against the mountains of sound in the first song. It is terrifically exciting. He has sweetness of tone in his third song. But, his word pointing is not detailed and those singers with lesser equipment  work harder with the words. Waldemar Kmentt for  Kubelik is clearly strained by the high lying passages of his second song, but he uses the words to create three dimensional characters, especially in the bitterness of 'The Drunk Man in Spring'. An intelligent singer. King for Haitink is in better voice, but he is faceless. That epitomises Haitink's approach, famous for not getting in the way of the composer, I don't respond in my guts to his detachment.  Baker sings well for him, but there is a lot more variation in tone colour to her performance with Kubelik, despite it having been recorded earlier. I like the placing of the voices in the Kubelik, they have presence and they are forward rather than integrated. Personal taste, but that's how I like it so I can hear all the expression. Baker is wonderful, she dares threads of tone and has heft to deal thrillingly with appropriate passages.

Ludwig for Klemperer is a different kind of singer and in any case she is according with the restrained approach of Klemperer. She never deployed the variety of tone that was Baker's hallmark, but the voice is grave and beautiful. Jessye Norman for Levine is as good as any and the music sounds as though it was written for her voice. Supposedly a soprano, she plumbs the ledger lines with the tone of a contralto. She has a tendency to slide expressively up to notes, but although it may disturb some, it does not disturb me. Her Abschied is  terrific. She is partnered by Siegfried Jerusalem, he is nearest to Wunderlich, but with more word painting. He manages all kinds of full, half and soft tone in that strenuous second song. Levine, despite being slower than some is not sluggish. He pushes Norman exactly where Kubelik pushed Baker, a bit less hectic and the song gains from it. Baltsa is the alto for Tennstedt. Going straight from Norman to Baltsa is a shock. Her sound seems to come from the mask, forward, not much resonance a focused but acidic sound. Not much to my taste. It was recorded in 1984 and the voice is loosening by then, the glamour gone.

So, so many riches, I have not been looking for an outright winner as this masterwork yields to different approaches. I have not used all the versions I have, I would never part with the Walter. There has only been one looser, Haitink. What I now have however is a version that excites me and replicates my memories of the beauty and expressiveness of Janet Baker's singing, introduces me to an intelligent tenor I did not know and makes me think I need to listen to more live Kubelik Mahler.

Mike   

[karlhenning]

Great post, Mike, thanks!

[Steve]

Many thanks for the information, I think I'm going to purchase at the two ends of the dichotomy that you outlined in the post. I will probably purchase the Levine and the Bernstein.

[knight66]

Steve, so many good choices...some I did not even mention. I would be interested in your thoughts once you get a chance to assimilate the performances.

Mike

[BorisG]

The Klemperer, as for many, was my go-to for a long period, but eventually it grew weary.

I see Mike has mentioned the Tennstedt. After considerable search, including some relistening, Tennstedt satisfied my new "DLVDE" need. I read no reviews. I just listened.

The spacious reading (3 minutes longer than Klemperer) works beautifully. It created a darker, more interesting atmosphere. And the additional breadth, I felt, was more accommodating to song.

The LPO's superlative play must be unmatched for this work. The atmosphere is quite astonishing at times, something I cannot say for many moments of Tennstedt Mahler Symphonies. On this occasion, he and I clicked throughout.

[Steve]

The Klemperer, as for many, was my go-to for a long period, but eventually it grew weary.

I see Mike has mentioned the Tennstedt. After considerable search, including some relistening, Tennstedt satisfied my new "DLVDE" need. I read no reviews. I just listened.

The spacious reading (3 minutes longer than Klemperer) works beautifully. It created a darker, more interesting atmosphere. And the additional breadth, I felt, was more accommodating to song.

The LPO's superlative play must be unmatched for this work. The atmosphere is quite astonishing at times, something I cannot say for many moments of Tennstedt Mahler Symphonies. On this occasion, he and I clicked throughout.

I've just actually sampled the Tennstedt, and was rather taken with it. Much adieu, as you indicated, to the fine playing of the LSO, and the solid orchestration as usual from Davis. I purchased nearly immeditately. You mentioned Tennstedt lackluser reputation in the symphonies, which is something that I can lend cadence to, but this realy is a wonderful divergence. Just excellent all around performance. Voices of Norman and Vickers are, as you, say superlative. I'm not one, generally, for impulse buying, but this was really was a surprise.