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I thought that I knew and was in perfect harmony with Mahler’s most “relaxed” symphony until I bought the Honeck Pittsburgh SO recording on Exton, a performance that is genuinely revelatory in a quite disturbing way as Honeck reveals a tempestuously neurotic and dystopian character to the work.
Valery Gergiev’s second recording transports us back to safer less angst-ridden territory in a bucolic reading matched by the most ravishing playing from the Munich Philharmonic.
Recorded live at concerts in March 2017 in the Philharmonie Gasteig, a superb venue for recording at any rate (views differ on its concert acoustic!), the Munich Philharmonic now has its own recording team where the fist 2 releases were handled for them by br klassik.
The recorded sound is spacious, detailed and very, very beautiful. In fact beautiful is the best word to sum up every aspect of this release, and it provides the perfect antidote to the fiery Honeck.
Seven years on from his LSO release-arguably the high point of his very variable cycle, Gergiev has tightened up in some of the more lax aspects of that performance- where for example the opening was sluggish and, it could be said dull, in this reading just a slight in increase in tempo and crispness of rhythmic approach and that accusation is entirely refuted.
Gergiev’s approach takes a languid Viennese approach with plenty of portamento and generous rubato applied to the boundary just prior to its toppling over into schmaltz, and his Munich players respond with exquisite tone to rival the greatest exponents of this repertoire. The Munich appointment has worked wonders on Gergiev’s approach to the Austro-German Romantic repertoire, which I had not found always successful, and the first 4 releases of Bruckner 4, Strauss tone poems and Mahler 2 and 4 are all very fine indeed.
The lively sections of the first movement retain bonhomie-they are hi-jinks not evidence of neuroses!-and the fiddler at the wedding in the second movement is not Mephistopheles but simply a rustic musician whose instrument is out of tune (or he’s drunk-or both!)
The third movement is a glorious commune with nature and packs the necessary emotional punch-the climax is big with a release of joyous energy at the wonder of nature’s beauty.
I always have a problem with Mahler’s compositions about dead children-I understand the context entirely but it still sends a shudder down the spine. I have had to develop a filter where I can revel in the music and suspend disbelief-take it at face value in other words, and this song from the Wunderhorn is the most genial and the easiest to “absorb” (let’s not get into Kindertotenlieder!).
Gergiev takes as relaxed an approach in the finale as Maazel VPO-still my benchmark for the languid approach and if Genia Kühmeier does not have quite the silverine beauty of tone of Maazel’s Katherine Battle, she is nonetheless glorious in her exposition of the part-the final hushed bars with Gergiev’s extended rubato must surely bring a lump to the throat and possibly a tear to the eye!
If a beautiful, relaxed but not sluggish approach in a bucolic vein to this symphony is your ideal, then this recording will not disappoint in any regard.
The Munich Philharmonic is by default of being a great Wagner, Strauss and Bruckner orchestra an ideal band to perform the music of Mahler, and this recording underlines that position. The toothpick-wielding Gergiev surprises and delights with his insightful and uber-Viennese approach to the work, the soprano is superb and the recording state of the art for CD (no SACD I fear).
For a radically different and illuminating approach there is no better than the Honeck/Pittsburgh version in truly stunning sound, Maazel and the VPO are indispensible and Ivan Fischer/Budapest with the luminous Mia Persson in the soprano part gives another totally recommendable version.
The adventurous might like to explore the fascinating Erwin Stein reduction, with an ensemble led by Christian Tetzlaff being particularly fine, with Christine Schäfer giving us a deliberately accented rustic interpretation that surprises and delights!
I’m not as big a fan of the much-vaunted Szell, and revisiting the Levine recently did not inspire me as it once did-but they are much fancied and deserve to be explored.
What a great series this Munich Philharmonic Own Label is turning out to be!
This is as fine a Mahler 4 as there is in the catalogue, and indeed I struggle to name a better version, so it has to be 5 Stars. Stewart Crowe.
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2017
Top reviews from other countries
- STEWART CROWEReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 16, 2017
It's difficult to get beyond-"simply beautiful!" or " exquisite" when describing this recording!
