Mahler: Das Klagende Lied; Berg: Lulu Suite – review
Prohaska/Röschmann/Larsson/Botha/Vienna Staatsoper Chorus/Vienna PO/Boulez(Deutsche Grammophon)Pierre Boulez recorded both these works during his years with CBS. His earlier version of Das Klagende...
View ArticleRLPO/Petrenko – review
Philharmonic Hall, LiverpoolMahler's 10th Symphony was mysteriously absent from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic's anniversary retrospective in 2010-2011, an omission now effectively – if belatedly –...
View ArticleGustav Mahler by Jens Malte Fischer, trans Stewart Spencer – review
This is a masterly and indeed monumental biography, some 800 pages long, a memorable portrait of the age as well as the composer"My life has all been paper," said Gustav Mahler before his death in...
View ArticleGustav Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde – review
Coote/Fritz/Netherlands PO/Albrecht(PentaTone)Alice Coote's many admirers will be grateful to have her performance in Mahler's great song-symphony documented in a carefully made studio recording, for...
View ArticleProm 35: BRSO/Jansons – review
Royal Albert Hall, LondonThe Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra's second Prom under Mariss Jansons consisted of just one major work: Mahler's Second Symphony. One of the largest pieces in the repertoire...
View ArticleBournemouth SO/Dausgaard – review
Lighthouse, PooleWith Dausgaard in robust form, Radu Lupu brought wonder to the familiar with his masterful renditions of Bartók and SchubertBartók's Third Piano Concerto has always seemed the least...
View ArticleMahler: Symphony No 5 – review
Budapest Festival Orchestra/Fischer(Channel Classics)Mahler's Fifth Symphony (1902), sometimes compared with Beethoven's own of that number, begins with a sombre roar of fate and ends in triumph. After...
View ArticleHallé/Elder review – Mahler's elegiac Ninth stuns the hall into silence
Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterIn a programme that took in Brahms's funeral anthem Nänie, Mark Elder marshalled the Hallé with perfect sincerity and tactThe lack of opportunities to hear Brahms's funeral...
View ArticleAlma & Gustav Mahler: Lieder review – warm, instinctive, golden-voiced
Karen Cargill (mezzo soprano), Simon Lepper (piano)(Linn)Gustav Mahler was none too liberated when it came to encouraging, or rather discouraging, his wife Alma with her own compositions: "Such a...
View ArticleSymphony guide: Mahler's Ninth
It's usual to interpret Mahler's last completed symphony as a prefiguring of his death. But different conductors make the work mean very different thingsMore from 50 greatest symphoniesLet’s begin at...
View ArticleProm 18: BBCPhil/Tharaud/Mena review – Birtwistle, Ravel and Mahler
Royal Albert Hall, LondonMena's Mahler was unindulgent but still gorgeousNight's Black Bird is the first of seven works by Harrison Birtwistle coming up at the Proms in the composer's 80th birthday...
View ArticleDaniel Harding: 'Telling a young musician to be patient is like telling Wayne...
He conducted the CBSO at 19 and the Berlin Philharmonic at 21, but it has not always been easy for the prodigy Claudio Abbado called 'my little genius'There are few institutions that enjoy an...
View ArticleReaders recommend: songs that express excess – results
Climbing over the top of a lavish superfluity of song nominations from last week’s topic, RR regular bluepeter picks his favourite examples of overkillIn the 1984 film Amadeus, Mozart is accused of...
View ArticleSimón Bolívar SO/Dudamel: Mahler Symphony No 7 CD review – never unravels the...
(Deutsche Grammophon)Gustavo Dudamel made his first Mahler disc seven years ago, a recording of the Fifth Symphony with what was then the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. He’s since recorded the Ninth...
View ArticleBBCSO/Minkowski review – Minkowski makes a strong case for Rott’s lost symphony
Barbican, LondonRott’s debts to his close friend Mahler were all too apparent but there were moments of great beauty and tremendous energy“His innermost nature is so akin to mine that he and I are like...
View ArticleBetween Worlds; Des Knaben Wunderhorn – review
Barbican, LondonTansy Davies and Nick Drake’s 9/11 opera is daunting, difficult and simply toldOpera is often called the most contrived art form. A chorus singing “Can’t open an important PDF” or “Your...
View ArticleMahler: Ninth Symphony review
Budapest Festival Orchestra/Fischer(Channel Classics)I can’t stop playing the last movement of this recording. Mahler’s long farewell– Adorno once called it “staring into oblivion” – is given...
View ArticleConductor Mark Elder: 'I owe Australia my career'
A young Elder conducted the second-ever performance at Sydney Opera House. Now he’s back to put Australian Youth Orchestra ‘athletes’ through their pacesThe young tend to get a bad rap these days....
View ArticleMahler: Kindertotenlieder, Rückert-Lieder CD review – heartbreaking purity
Anne Schwanewilms (soprano), Malcolm Martineau (piano)(Onyx)“For a long time I had a conflicted relationship with Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder”, the German soprano Anne Schwanewilms comments in the CD...
View ArticleProm 10: Mahler Chamber Orchestra/Andsnes review – Beethoven with drama and...
Royal Albert Hall, LondonBringing his four-year ‘Beethoven journey’ to London for a Proms mini-cycle, Leif Ove Andsnes delivered a detailed vision of the Third Concerto and Choral FantasyThe second...
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