COMPOSERS: Mahler
LABELS: Virgin
ALBUM TITLE: Mahler Symphony No. 4
WORKS: Symphony No. 4, Des Knaben Wunderhorn
PERFORMER: Dorothea Roschmann, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Harding
CATALOGUE NO: 545 6652
After the luminous beauties of
big-band spectaculars like Tilson
Thomas’s recent San Francisco version
of Mahler Four (reviewed June 2004),
the leaner string section of Harding’s
young European ensemble takes some
adjusting to. The end result, though,
is well worth the effort. Harding’s
natural but never prosaic sense of
movement, in marked contrast to the
largesses of Rattle (EMI) and Tilson
Thomas, joins with his nimble forces
and clever sound-team in stripping
away the gloss from a deceptively
simple-seeming masterpiece.
A number of larger-scale accounts
highlight the chamber-orchestral
details in the first two movements
equally well, and boast orchestral
soloists which match – though never
surpass – the woodwind and brass
principals here. This perforamnce,
however, strikes deepest, and most
unexpectedly, when it matters most
– at the end of a slow movement paced
to unaffected perfection, the aftermath
of heaven’s gates glowing with an
intimate light unique among recorded
Fourths. Harding’s painstakingly
scaled-back pianissimos, very much
in the Rattle mould, pay off here,
and the magic continues to resonate
in an exquisite song-finale, its lively
individuality reinforced by Dorothea
Röschmann’s text-aware partnership.
Although you’ll definitely
want silence for a while after this
performance’s exquisite cor anglais has
rocked the symphony to rest, singer
and orchestra continue their perfect
accord in a cannily proportioned
sequence of three numbers from
the folk-anthology Des Knaben
Wunderhorn, gilding the symphonic
lily. A subtle delight in its own right,
then, complementing rather than
displacing the more extravagant
glories of Tilson Thomas. David Nice