Jan DeGaetani Sings Berlioz, Mahler

Hector Berlioz (Composer), Gustav Mahler (Composer), David Effron (Conductor), Eastman Chamber Ensemble (Performer), Jan DeGaetani (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Eastman Chamber Ensemble, Jan DeGaetani
• Conductor: David Effron
• Composer: Hector Berlioz, Gustav Mahler
• Audio CD (May 10, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Bridge
• ASIN: B000003GIB
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,197 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #63 in Music > Indie Music > Classical

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In Memory of Bob Zeidler, April 3, 2005

By 

Christopher Forbes "weirdears" (Brooklyn,, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jan DeGaetani Sings Berlioz, Mahler (Audio CD)

This review is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend and fellow reviewer Bob Zeidler. We miss you already.

Jan De Gaetani was an extraordinary artist. Unbelievably versitile, her repertoire extended from Mozart and Rossini to moderns like Schonberg and George Crumb. This CD of orchestral songs, sung in chamber music arrangements was the final recording of hear life. When she recorded it she was already dying of cancer, though she had not let many people know about it. This fact makes the choice of repertoire doubly poigniant as the sadness of departing is felt in many of the Berlioz songs and most wrenchingly in the final Mahler song. "Ich bin der Welt aghanded gekommen" ranks up with the final song of Das Lied von der Erde and the 9th symphony as Mahler's most lovely and passionate songs of farewell to the world.

Berlioz' Les Nuits d'ete were originally written as songs for voice and piano. Not a cycle in the true sense they are a collection of songs to varied texts but show Berlioz at his most melodically lush and harmonically rich. Perhaps the initial absense of orchestra allowed Berlioz to focus to a greater degree on the basic elements of music, but in these songs Berlioz creates some of the most memorable music of his career. The songs are best known in the orchestrated versions he produced later. This recording uses the orchestrations as a springboard for a really lovely chamber version created by DeGaetani's husband Philip West. Particularly memorable are the sweeping vocal lines in Le Spectre de la rose and Absence, which is perhaps my favorite melodie in the French repertoire. DeGaetani sings both with an astonishing control and an almost palpable ache in the voice.

The Mahler cycles on the disc are equally beautiful. The Five Wunderhorn songs are early songs from the same period as Mahler's first symphony. The composer finds the perfect balance between folkish melody and art song to match the charming and sometimes macabre poems of Das Knaben Wunderhorn, a collection of German folk poetry that inspired much of Mahler's early work. The Ruckert lieder are slightly later works, contemporaneous with the Middle symphonies and the great Ruckert Cycle "Kindertotenlieder". These are high points of Mahler's vocal writing. Deeply felt songs of longing and loss, they are as moving as anything Mahler ever wrote.

The recording is not completely without fault. It is rather odd to have these works in chamber versions by another hand. Occasionally you miss the sound of orchestrations by both of these masters, especially since both composers were perhaps the most distinct and important orchestrators of the Romantic era. And at times you hear some evidence of wear in DeGaetani's voice, understandable given the fact that she was so much sicker than anybody knew at the time.

But these quibbles disappear in the glow of the most warm material on the disc. The aforementioned "Absence" is dripping with love and sadness. In Sur les lagunes DeGaetani's voice sweeps down the haunting minor scales that characterize the melody with power and mystery. And by the time you get to the final Ruckert Song if you are not a puddle of jello weeping on the floor you probably have no heart.

It is easy in retropect to give an artist's final document an aura of tragedy that it may not in fact deserve. Certainly there is nothing tragic about Horowitz' last CD other than the tragedy of a great talent who was not able to hit the notes with confidence anymore. However, like Kathleen Ferrier's recording of Das Lied von der Erde earlier, this CD does indeed live up to the aura surrounding it. You can almost hear DeGaetani's own sense of her impending death in every line and the choice of material takes on an added poigniance. While these are not the only versions of this material that I have, they are the performances I return to most, as they are more moving in this material than any other performance I know of. Highly recommended.

As an aside, this CD was highly recommended to my by Bob Zeidler, with an enthusiastic second by Scott Morrison. Bob was always encouraging me to review the disc so that all three of us could be on the same review page. Unfortunately he did not live to see this. I think it a fitting tribute though to write this review as a memorial to a truly great spirit in the Amazon community, a great enthusiastic admirer of both Berlioz and Mahler (as well as Ives) and a warm-hearted and loyal friend.

Chris Forbes

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An emotional favorite, March 1, 2003

By 

J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jan DeGaetani Sings Berlioz, Mahler (Audio CD)

I've loved these performances since they were first issued in 1989. They are chamber versions of Berlioz's Nuits d'Éte, five songs from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the five Rückert Songs, also by Mahler. The chamber arrangements are by deGaetani's husband, Phil West. They are the last recordings made by deGaetani, who knew she was dying of leukemia.

DeGaetani was one of the treasures among American musicians of her era. Universally admired for her musicianship, loved by her students, adored by her many friends, she sang many of the landmark performances of new American music from the 1960s onward. Her recording of George Crumb's 'Ancient Voices of Children' put her on the map internationally. I had the honor of hearing her sing many times in such things as 'Dido and Aeneas' and an Elliot Carter première, 'Syringa.' She never disappointed.

The performances here, leaving aside the emotional circumstances of their provenance, are priceless. Her illness had done nothing to dim the lustrous quality of her instantly recognizable mezzo voice nor her impeccable musicianship. West's chamber reductions of the orchestral scores are skillful and effective.

I cannot hear that phrase 'Ah! sans amour s'en aller sur la mer,' from 'Sur les lagunes' without a tear coming to my eye. And in my mind's ear it is always deGaetani's voice I hear, even though I have heard Janet Baker and Leontyne Price sing them in concert and have recordings of many other illustrious singers doing it.

This is one of my desert isle recordings.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As though the Norns pass the chord of life, May 19, 2003

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jan DeGaetani Sings Berlioz, Mahler (Audio CD)

First, my thanks to Bob Zeidler and his review of this extraordinary album for informing me its existence. After his and Scott Morrison's reviews little is left to be said without bordering on redundancy. This album by the inimitable Jan DeGaetani gives only a hint of the vast influence this musician and this being had on the world during her far too short stay here. Her performances always satisfied the harshest critics and the most ardent fans alike. DeGaetani was a musician's musician and in this farewell recording she proved that despite the ravages of leukemia she still had significant things to say, both intellectualy and, most assuredly, compassionately. Her choice to record the Berlioz and Mahler with a chamber ensemble is so very appropriate and intimately conversational. Yes, other times found her voice in richer state, and yes, other singers may 'own' certain of these cycles in the public's ear. But delve into the mystery of her subtle interpretations here and you will be stunned. This is a wonderful memorium to one of America's truly great artists.