Mahler Symphony No 4
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Gustav Mahler
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: EMI
Magazine Review Date: 6/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 59
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: 556563-2
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Symphony No. 4 |
Gustav Mahler, Composer
Amanda Roocroft, Soprano City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Gustav Mahler, Composer Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Author: Edward Seckerson
Rattle springs two big surprises in the first four bars. Tempo 1 might initially strike you as overcautious, an air of watchfulness characterizing his amiable jog-trot. But check out Mahler’s score, and mark well the words: Bedachtig – Nicht eilen (“Cautious; prudent – don’t hurry”). In keeping with the accepted view among seasoned Mahlerians that the poco ritard in the third bar does not apply to the sleigh bells (it would seem to be the only line not marked thus), Rattle then effects a fleeting moment of disarray as the bells jangle roughshod over this elegant turn into the first theme. A gauche, childlike moment. Boys will be boys. But then comes the real surprise, unique in my experience. The tempo for this charming theme-with-airs (marked gemachlich – “leisurely”) is faster, not slower, than the opening tempo. Leisurely, yes, but eager too. The adventure playground of Mahler’s youth is up and running.
In a booklet-note dedicating the performance to Rattle’s friend and mentor, the late Berthold Goldschmidt, the conductor acknowledges Goldschmidt’s considerable influence over matters of tempo-relationship and character. The reversal of the opening tempo is a case in point. The benefits of that become plainer as the movement unfolds. And it unfolds as if drifting in and out of real time: a day in the life, a life in the day, childhood’s wonder, impatience, dreams. Textures are so fresh and forward and sprung. The second subject sounds new, completely new (how do the CBSO cellos manage to persuade us that they’ve only just discovered it?). The first horn is youth’s magic horn, the woodwinds beckon raucously (just listen to the clarinets’ strident summons – “bells raised” – at 7'16''). And all the while those startling swings of mood and manner (the sprints, the skids, the thoughtful milliseconds) just happen – no rhyme, no reason; just a child’s fancy. One moment we’re on the rampage to another of those mysterious dead-ends, the next we’re snuggling into reverie (as witness the long good-night, just prior to the coda, culminating in that magical reawakening of the first subject – and timed here to perfection).
But if you do down to the woods today, beware the bogeyman fiddler. His dance of death – all the sharper, all the more sour (remember he’s tuned up a tone) for being so flatly dispatched – comes as a timely reminder that childhood fears are no less real for being the stuff of fairy-tales. Rattle contrasts this beautifully with the rubicund Trio. The transfiguration at its heart (fig. 11, 6'59''), swathed in woozy portamento, is simply gorgeous.
So, too, the opening of the slow movement, cellos this time providing an out-of-body experience, their legato so fine, so even, so sustained as to suggest little or no contact with the strings. But with the arrival of the second-subject group it’s as if Mahler, the child, is suddenly Mahler, the man. The heartache, the anxiety, of his impassioned nature is most vividly communicated, those searing entreaties in the violins dragged down by trumpets and horns to string basses on the bottom of the world. The heavenly mirage, when it comes (and the preceding calm is truly breathless), is tremendous, the moment of revelation marked by the mother of all Luftpausen and a mighty declamation of double-sticked timpani.
So is there a ‘but’, and where is it? Well, Amanda Roocroft attends our pleasure on the other side, and she, I fear, is not the most persuasive advocate of das himmlische Leben. It’s not so much that the voice lacks purity, though it does (and rest assured, I do not favour the bland, choirboyish view of heaven that has mistakenly become the norm), but more that the attitude it conveys is all wrong. Not so much womanly as matronly. Way too proper; unsmiling. St Ursula may have laughed; Roocroft does not.
Even so, Rattle now joins Maazel, Salonen (Sony, 8/92 – nla), and the recent Sir Colin Davis as the versions of Mahler’s Fourth most likely to please, to stimulate and to endure. His reading is perhaps the most inquisitive (and thus the most intriguing) of them. Which should appeal to the child in us all.'
In a booklet-note dedicating the performance to Rattle’s friend and mentor, the late Berthold Goldschmidt, the conductor acknowledges Goldschmidt’s considerable influence over matters of tempo-relationship and character. The reversal of the opening tempo is a case in point. The benefits of that become plainer as the movement unfolds. And it unfolds as if drifting in and out of real time: a day in the life, a life in the day, childhood’s wonder, impatience, dreams. Textures are so fresh and forward and sprung. The second subject sounds new, completely new (how do the CBSO cellos manage to persuade us that they’ve only just discovered it?). The first horn is youth’s magic horn, the woodwinds beckon raucously (just listen to the clarinets’ strident summons – “bells raised” – at 7'16''). And all the while those startling swings of mood and manner (the sprints, the skids, the thoughtful milliseconds) just happen – no rhyme, no reason; just a child’s fancy. One moment we’re on the rampage to another of those mysterious dead-ends, the next we’re snuggling into reverie (as witness the long good-night, just prior to the coda, culminating in that magical reawakening of the first subject – and timed here to perfection).
But if you do down to the woods today, beware the bogeyman fiddler. His dance of death – all the sharper, all the more sour (remember he’s tuned up a tone) for being so flatly dispatched – comes as a timely reminder that childhood fears are no less real for being the stuff of fairy-tales. Rattle contrasts this beautifully with the rubicund Trio. The transfiguration at its heart (fig. 11, 6'59''), swathed in woozy portamento, is simply gorgeous.
So, too, the opening of the slow movement, cellos this time providing an out-of-body experience, their legato so fine, so even, so sustained as to suggest little or no contact with the strings. But with the arrival of the second-subject group it’s as if Mahler, the child, is suddenly Mahler, the man. The heartache, the anxiety, of his impassioned nature is most vividly communicated, those searing entreaties in the violins dragged down by trumpets and horns to string basses on the bottom of the world. The heavenly mirage, when it comes (and the preceding calm is truly breathless), is tremendous, the moment of revelation marked by the mother of all Luftpausen and a mighty declamation of double-sticked timpani.
So is there a ‘but’, and where is it? Well, Amanda Roocroft attends our pleasure on the other side, and she, I fear, is not the most persuasive advocate of das himmlische Leben. It’s not so much that the voice lacks purity, though it does (and rest assured, I do not favour the bland, choirboyish view of heaven that has mistakenly become the norm), but more that the attitude it conveys is all wrong. Not so much womanly as matronly. Way too proper; unsmiling. St Ursula may have laughed; Roocroft does not.
Even so, Rattle now joins Maazel, Salonen (Sony, 8/92 – nla), and the recent Sir Colin Davis as the versions of Mahler’s Fourth most likely to please, to stimulate and to endure. His reading is perhaps the most inquisitive (and thus the most intriguing) of them. Which should appeal to the child in us all.'
Mahler Symphony No 4
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