Customer Reviews

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is rare for everything to come together as it has on this performance. The interpretation from Klemperer shows him at his finest. The great Mahler pupil shows penetrating insight into the deepest depths of this score which seems to emerge in his hands as possibly Mahler's greatest work. The two inspired vocalists never once fail Klemperer in the realisation of his vision of the work. Wunderlich gives a performance of a lifetime but Ludwig rises to the occassion in the last 'movement'(this is after all a symphony is it not). This is a performance which is almost impossible to stop listening to so convincing and powerful is the musical argument being presented - even for the most jaded Mahlerians it comes across as a revelation. Not only that but as an original recording it is a tour de force for Walter Legge and his recording team, who put most contemporary recordings to utter shame - they just don't make them like that anymore. The huge soundstage, the wonderful front to back depth make many high-tech digital production seem artificial and shallow. And at last these new 24-bit EMI transfers have been able to do full justice to the sound quality dormant in the orginal tapes.

Everyone has their own opinion of which Mahler "Erde" is best. The Walter/Ferrier/Patzak/VPO is brilliant and I wouldn't want to be without it. It was my first exposure to "Erde" and recorded beautifuly in magnificent mono. Bernstein/Fischer-Dieskau/King/VPO is fabulous. If you prefer baritone to alto, this is definitely the best. Bernstein knows Mahler and this recording proves it. Both have been remastered in recent years and sound better than ever.

I've heard many recordings of this moving work over the years but I find I keep coming back to Klemperer. The Klemperer recording is rich, broad and expansive. The remastered sound is fresh and clear. The VPO is marvelous. Klemperer balances the orchestral forces and the vocalists admirably. Wunderlich and Ludwig pour their soul into the libretto. The music envelopes the listener. This is a transcendant experience.

A great recording of the century indeed. Mahler at his finest. Most highly recommended.

I'm 55 now so I calculate I've listened to this performance for 3/4 of my life. When I was 16 or 17, I first bought the Bruno Walter performance with Mildred Miller and Earnst Haefliger and understood that to be the way Mahler should be. It is, in its way. But Mahler's other protege was Klemperer who, in vulger terms, said Walter put too much schmaltz in his Mahler.

I was young and romantic and liked the Walter, put the Klemeprer away and lived through the 70s with Donna Summer as the ultimate soprano in my life. In the 80s I pulled out my old lps, almost unlistenable, and got on the CD bandwagon, buying the Walter and Klemperer versions when they were reissued.

I was tested one late night listening to this versions on CD: the interments and voices come from an anguished void; the orchestra alternately crushes the singers and lifts them with chanmber-music balance. Klemperer, always a master of tempi, captures the orientalism Mahler probably did not know he was achieving, and Christa Ludwig is ravishing.

There is the expected sadness here and the sense of loss, as in Walter's and others' performances, but there is also the strenghth that Klemperer himself indentified as the grand majesty of death.

I've heard several recordings of this and I must say none touch this one. I had this on records for such a long time and I finally upgraded to CD. The sound on this CD is clearer than the LP, though preserving the old sound of tthe LP.
On to the performance. First of all, I think the greatest benefit of this recording is two singers extremely adept at lieder singing, christa ludwig and fritz wunderlich, both of whom are exemplary, he lyrical and she simply stunning, top to bottom, start to finish...Klemperer was always a great conductor, but esp. so in mahler, his greatest influence on his musical career. It was Mahler who wrote "Gustav Mahler recommends Herr Klemperer as an outstanding musician, who despite his youth is already very experienced and is predestined for a conductor's career." Klemperer evidently kept a copy of this quote in his wallet until the day he died. Mahler surely would have been quite impressed.
As is usual with Klemperer, the performance veers away from the expressionistic qualities that sometimes gets mixed in with this music, but he is extremely focused and the music moves along slowly but surely.
I would consider myself a Klemperer fan, and seeing that I own many of his recordings, this is by far one of his best.

This Great Recording is a stunner. The incomparable Fritz Wunderlich with the incomparable Christa Ludwig. The great Otto Klemperer with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the world beating ensemble in the 1950s and 1960s bar none.

From the moment the first orchestral notes are struck, I felt like I was struck by lightning, so great was the impact. But I wasn't prepared for what was to come. Fritz Wunderlich gives a stunning performance. I was literally stunned into submission by his legendary voice. I've never been a big fan of Mahler but this recording promises to be different.

As if Fritz Wunderlich wasn't enough, Christa Ludwig was the next earthquake that shattered me to smitherins..... yes, Christa Ludwig and her legendary voice.... just so incredibly beautiful..... I was literally spellbound and dumbfounded the moment she entered.... how could a human sing so beautifully... it is the voice of an angel.... the voice of Christa Ludwig.... Christa Ludwig never ceases to amaze me. In all the roles she undertook, she is always either the best or top 2 or 3 on record. Her diction. The beauty of her voice. Her incredible range, homogeneous throughout from the lowest notes to the highest notes, including, yes a high C which she sang in a performance of the Lieberstod. I am convinced that she is the greatest Mezzo in the second half of the 20th century.

You have to hear this recording to believe it. It is just so incredibly beautiful. The legendary voices of Fritz Wunderlich and Christa Ludwig. The legendary Otto Klemperer with the legendary Philhamonia. Nobody could have done it better.

This performance sounds & feels like 'Mahler willed down by the genius of Klemperer', who had his own way with Mahler unlike any other, but here it works out to be great. Klemperer is not going about to seek mellifluousness of tone or flowing lyricism, at least not perse; his mahler is 'chiseled out of the marble' and the end result stands like a well-built, powerfully proportioned colossus.
There is evidence of true genius here, helped of course by two of the best singers in history. All together, one can speak of a 'grand occasion' ... and that counts for each and every listen of this recording. Christa Ludwig's voice flows from rapt to hushed to extatic and back again effortlesly, digging deeply into all of the emotions seemingly without effort. The same for the inimitable Fritz Wunderlich, with clear, powerful and ringing voice, as ever; his singing is one of delicate articulation and intelligent phrasing, combined with seemingly endless reserves of power and with beguiling sweetness of timbre.
This recording stands like a mountain - like only a few others -, and it will indeed take a long way into eternity (the final words "Ewig ... ewig ..." never sounded with more appeal) for this mountain to be eroded away - if ever.

Edith Eisler's headnote strikes me as a very fair and well-reasoned assessment. I feel this is one of the great accounts of "Das Lied." Ludwig is at her most musicianly, and Wunderlich's beautiful voice is yet another sad reminder of what was lost by his early death. I heard him live just once, in a 1966 Edinburgh " Magic Flute," where he was even better than in his studio recording with Bohm. Klemperer opts for some stately tempos, but in general I find him far more sympathetic here than was his Mahler norm.

Is there a "definitive" recording? I don't feel that any one recording says it all in this extraordinary music. I grew up with the old Walter/Vienna recording with Kathleen Ferrier & Julius Patzak - the original London LPs still sound far sweeter and more natural than any of the later CD transfers. The problem there, for me, was the playing of the Vienna Philharmonic - the ensemble was at times distressingly poor. Walter's first one with Thorborg & Kullman was in some ways even better: both are preferable to the stereo version with Haefliger (very fine) and Mildred Miller (not so fine).

If I had to pick just three recordings for Ye Olde Desert Island, I would probably opt for the following:

1. Ferrier & Set Svanholm with Walter and the NY Phil. (1948), which is available in that orchestra's 10-disc CD set "The Mahler Broadcasts." This was, along with Mitropoulos's searing Mahler 6th, the best item in that set. Ferrier is even better than in her Vienna account - and Svanholm did the best singing I have ever heard from him.

2. The live 1939 recording with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (Mengelberg's orchestra), conducted by Carl Schuricht. Kerstin Thorborg was the alto, even better here than she was in 1936 with Walter. Carl Martin Ohman was a true Heldentenor - I think his is the most masterly tenor account of all. The sound is rather antiquarian but adequate - mine is on a Minerva CD.

3. The Horenstein was recorded in concert (1972) with the BBC Northern Symphony. It features Alfreda Hodgson and John Mitchinson. Both singers do a wonderful job, but the real star is Horenstein - his is the most eloquent exposition of the orchestral part I have ever heard. Late in life, Horenstein remarked that his greatest regret about dying was that he would never be able to hear "Das Lied von der Erde" again. This is a very special, tremendously moving account. It is the one stereo version that I would recommend without qualification.

Gustav Mahler was a great Viennese symphonist and conductor of the late Romantic period. He said that this work was especially personal for him. It was written during one of the most trying years of his life in 1907. He resigned under pressure from the directorship of the Vienna Opera, which he had held for ten years. His youngest daughter also became ill and died. This was a severe blow for him (he was later buried next to her). And his life long heart condition took a turn for the worse. He would die in 1911 just short of his fifty-first birthday.

One of his friends gave him a popular book "The Chinese Flute". It was a German translation of ancient Chinese poetry (not completely accurate it turns out) and some of them struck Mahler as especially appropriate for his life. He set seven of them in this symphonic song cycle (some call this a symphony even though Mahler later wrote a ninth symphony - there is good evidence that Mahler was quite superstitious about the ninth symphony jinx and in fact it was his last completed work. This is a large work for a tenor and mezzo-soprano (or alto). He also approved a version for tenor and baritone that is sometimes performed when a particularly wonderful baritone is available. I quite enjoy the version as performed here with the mezzo. The piece is in six movements with two poems and some words of Mahler being used to form the sixth movement. The work is a little more than an hour with the last movement taking almost half of that time.

It is interesting how Mahler uses the resources of such a large orchestra in small ensembles to support the singer and the poem. The colors are quite varied between the movements and though it is a European symphonic orchestra, it definitely has elements that Westerners would call Chinese. The mood of the movements varies quite broadly. The last movement "The farewell" is wonderfully complex with resignation, longing, and ending with an eternal optimism.

This recording is very fine and when you realize it was recorded over a period of twenty-nine months with two different formulations of the Philharmonia and New Philharmonia orchestra (internal pique) and that the two soloists were never together during the recording (although they had performed the work with Klemperer in 1961), it is a near miraculous achievement and a testimony to Klemperer above all. The tenor, Fritz Wunderlich, has a gorgeous voice that is big enough to sing with such a large ensemble, but lyric enough to make the songs sound like the lieder they are rather than a Wangerian epic. Unfortunately, he died the year the recording was complete. Christa Ludwig has most of the work, because the last movement is for the soprano. She has a wonderfully rich voice with lots of substance and beauty. She sings her songs here with wonderfully appropriate emotion and keeps the line going throughout. One never feels the splices that are all to present in too many recordings.

Mahler has his devoted following and he deserves to have them. His stature never diminishes and you owe it to yourself to treat yourself to this work and this recording. I am not as much a fan of Mahler as many of my friends, but I do love his work and amazed at his ability to pull off so many wonderfully colorful musical effects that add to the poetry being sung rather than overwhelming it.

Highly recommended.

This is probably the best recording of Mahler's "Das Lied" anywhere, ever. The singers are not too operatic and they sing with a lot of emotion. Klemperor has complete control over the orchestra and doesn't allow the piece to become tedious as some other orchestras have done. I was listening to the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy when I first became familiar with this work. It was definately good, but being the Mahler freak that I am, I must confess, I was a bit dissapointed with Mahler himself. It wasn't until I heard Klemperor's creation when I realized how innovative, captivating, and beautiful this piece really is. A suggestion I would like to make to you musicians out there is to get the score. I think this also really helps to understand the piece. One mistake I made when first becoming familiar with this work was that I was expecting a Mahler symphony. This is not a Mahler symphony in character or form. It sure is symphonic, but it wasn't until Klemperor came along when I realized how moving a set of songs can be.

If a recording truly does honour to EMI's "Great Recordings of the Century" collection it is certainly this one. Although not made without problems --Walter Legge's original Philharmonia Orchestra started to fall appart in mid-recording and so a portion of the work was actually played by what came to be known for over a decade as the "New Philharmonia" orchestra, a fact that was noticeable in the original LP album labels but apparently forgotten in subsequent re-issues-- their effect --if any-- are unpercievable, such is the degree of concentration in spite of the interruptions in the recording process represented by the orchestra's disputes with their founder. Who knows, perhaps because of that the recording came out so perfectly done, as if the musicians were thinking to teach Legge a lesson in that this would embody the perfect legacy of one of the best orchestral ensembles ever assembled in London, of whose permanence in time no one was sure at he time (the orchestra survived, as we now know, and always among the top London orchestras, first as the "New Philharmonia" and from the end of the 70's on again with their original name, but not with that golden qualities of the late 50's and early 60's). The Klemperer way with the work is, as is to be expected, severe, objective and very much to the point, his concern for clarity of articulation (derived from coaxing clarity from the players themselves and not the result of engineering trickery) yielding miracles in our understanding of the inner construction of the piece, a "modernistic" Mahler 180° removed from more expressive conductors (more on this later), his habitual orchestral seating arrangement an additional bonus (violins split left and right of the conductor, horns and related family back left, trumpets and trombones back right). The much-lamented Fritz Wunderlich proves an ideal and wise choice, and Ludwig rose magnificently to the ocasion in spite of her reputed dislike of, or indifference with, the results (she is said to prefer her remake of some years later with Bernstein and the Israel Philharmonic). A work like this deserves to be considered from more than a single point of view, though. This Klemperer recording is magnificent, mind you, and in no way will you go wrong if you purchase it, but I'd recommend to any person interested in this odd mixture of a symphony and a song cycle to also try another view, one that exploits its many emotional facets. Walter's readings provide an interesting alternative to Klemperer's severity (either the 1952 mono Decca made in Vienna or the stereo CBS made in New York City with a top-form NY Philharmonic, both with a fabulous singer -Ferrier in Vienna, Haefliger in NY- and a so-so one), but if you want to go the full monty buy the Decca Bernstein, made in Vienna in 1966 with James King and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau essaying the male voice alternative to the alto voice. The depths achieved by Bernstein and Fischer-Dieskau in "Der Abschied" get as close to the bare bones of the true soul of this work as no other recording I know of, legal or pirate. Bernstein can go into excesses alright, but in the end and in its very own way, isn't this about excess? So my final recommendation: buy both, as in their peculiar ways they belong inextricably with each other.