Mahler Pioneers (Somm)
Strauss/Mahler: Symphony 4, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Adagietto from Symphony No 5, Tod und Verklarung (Mengelberg Society)
★★★★☆/★★★★☆
🎧 Spotify | Presto Music
The dying of composer Alexander Goehr final August reminded obituarists of the important contributions his refugee father Walter Goehr had made to insular British tradition. Walter labored as a home conductor for EMI and for one of many BBC’s weaker orchestras. He’s remembered mainly for giving the 1953 UK premiere of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalia Symphony, however he additionally launched a gamut of novelties from Monteverdi to Mahler, Schoenberg and Stravinsky to Britten and Tippett.
The primary shock on listening to Das Klagende Lied and the fourth symphony is how intuitively he grasped Mahler’s unpredictable pauses and rhythmic shifts. He makes the Klagende Lied sound like a piece of full maturity, its anticipations of the second and eight symphonies wholly evident.
Dame Joan Sutherland is heard right here in her solely identified recording of a piece by Mahler. The opposite soloists are Norma Proctor and Peter Pears, with the Goldsmiths Choral Union and the London Symphony Orchestra. I don’t suppose I’ve ever heard a extra idiomatic or indispensable account of this flawed rating.
Goehr’s studio efficiency of the fourth symphony with soloist Teresa Stich-Randall, within the BBC’s 1960 Mahler cycle, takes a much less laconic strategy than different Mahlerians, discovering the gloomier facet of the gradual motion and the folksier side of the finale. Overshadowed by extra vital personalities within the Mahler revival, it failed to lift Goehr from relative obscurity. He died that 12 months, aged 57, after a Sheffield live performance of Handel’s Messiah. Finishing this admirable Somm album is a 1948 chunk of Mahler’s tenth, performed by Hermann Scherchen.
No much less important to Mahler seekers, although acquainted from earlier reissues, are the Dutch recordings of Willem Mengelberg, issued by a society that bears his title. Mengelberg dashes off the fastest-ever fifth-symphony Adagietto in seven minutes and the craziest opening to the fourth symphony, beside which Goehr sounds half-asleep.
There’s additionally a November 1939 live performance of Fahrenden Gesellen songs, with Hitler banging on the gates. Irresistible.
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Norman Lebrecht is among the most widely-read commentators on music, tradition and cultural politics. He’s a daily presenter on BBC Radio 3 and a contributor to the Wall Avenue Journal, Bloomberg, Standpoint, Sinfini and different publications. His weblog, Slipped Disc, is among the many most generally learn cultural websites on-line, breaking unique tales and campaigning in opposition to human abuse and acts of injustice within the cultural industries.
