The one recording you believe everyone should own

[PerfectWagnerite]

OK, it's a DVD but it's still a recording. However, if you want a CD then this




and this is all because someone already recommended ABM/Ravel G major/Rach PC 4!

Schwarzkopf singing the last movment of Mahler's 4th? Now that is a must heard. It must have exactly the opposite effect Mahler is after.

[not edward]

Schwarzkopf singing the last movment of Mahler's 4th? Now that is a must heard. It must have exactly the opposite effect Mahler is after.

It does.

The first three movements are excellent, though.

[Holden]

It does.

The first three movements are excellent, though.

The concept of the beautiful childlike voice in this movement is somewhat specious to say the least. All you have to do is look at the sopranos that Bruno Walter used to confirm that and he was Mahler's understudy. Imagine a child breathlessly trying to tell you what she/he imagines everyday life in heaven is like and you'll see why the Schwarzkopf performance is so inspired.

[sidoze]

[AnthonyAthletic]

It doesn't get much better than this cd, dreamcast, dream cd!!

The other couple I have heard along with the 5th from this series too are winners, as far as to say downright better performances than that old famous DG box set 

[techniquest]

Hmm - I haven't got any of the recordings pictured in this thread...
I suppose anyone faintly interested in post-romantic symphonies ought to have the Barshai Shostakovich set for the overall quality of performance, playing and sound and the incredible lack of money you have to splash out on it!

[E d o]

My copy arrived last week and it is everything I had hoped for. That said, I wouldn't want to be without Ferrier/Walter. Luckily I don't have to be.

[knight66]

Here is my review of the above recording from the old site....


Das Lied von der Erde (1907)

I have been listing 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 hold 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   

[stingo]

A recording I immediately fell for, still enjoy much the same as at first hearing. A classic.

[Bogey]

As far as classical:

Rachmaninov Les Vêpres Op. 37 Alexandre Svechnikov/Chœur National de l'URSS (1965)

Since Mark has the above covered, and then some, I will go with:

Beethoven Cello Sonatas+ Casals/Horszowski et. al. (Pearl)

[Philoctetes]

Dvorak's Stabat Mater conducted by Sinopoli.

[Anne]

Dvorak's Stabat Mater conducted by Sinopoli.

Thanks for posting this.  I had not known about it.

Schubert's "Unfinished" Sym. by Sinopoli is not to be missed either!

[Bonehelm]

Beethoven's violin concerto, Slovak Philharmonic/Kenneth Jean with Takako Nishizaki on the violin. Naxos.

Brilliant violin playing...

[Mark]

Beethoven's violin concerto, Slovak Philharmonic/Kenneth Jean with Takako Nishizaki on the violin. Naxos.

Brilliant violin playing...

Y'know, I really like this, too. Beats the pants off that awful Vengerov/Rostropovich recording ...

[shive1]

This is an all-time great.  The atmosphere Reiner conjures up in "Pines" and "Fountains" is palpable.

[Bonehelm]

Y'know, I really like this, too. Beats the pants off that awful Vengerov/Rostropovich recording ...

Mark, I especially liked the cadenza in the rondo movement. It's gorgeous. Not as off-showy as Perlman. Very lyrical and romantic.

[Mark]

Mark, I especially liked the cadenza in the rondo movement. It's gorgeous. Not as off-showy as Perlman. Very lyrical and romantic.

Not heard the Perlman, so I can't comment. I just like the fact that it all holds together so well. People tell me that the Harnoncourt/Kremer recording on Erato (and now on Elatus) is worth hearing.

[Tancata]

Had Mike not already chosen it, I would have gone for the Paul McCreesh Matthew Passion.

Happily he did choose it, allowing me to recommend another astonishing, pared-down HIP recording: The Dunedin Consort's Messiah.



Uses small vocal forces (12 voices total) - a well-honed, cohesive band of committed singers who act as both soloists and choir. Crisp, crunchy instrumental textures. Beautiful and refreshing. An aural indigestion tablet for those who have overindulged on heavy, traditional Christmas Messiahs.

[sadness]

Probably this:

Or:

[George]

Probably this:
Or:

Sweet! I got both.