A Survey of Mahler Symphony Cycles: A Work in Progress

An Index of ionarts Discographies

Mahler, an Addiction

Bruckner is a love, Mahler an addiction

When I helped put together three complete Mahler cycles to be aired during Classical WETA’s Mahler Month in 2009, I accompanied it with a series of articles on Mahler's Symphonies (and favorite recordings). These are the core of the Mahler Survey that’s now on ionarts, 26 essays in all. What was conspicuously missing at the time was a discussion of complete Mahler cycles, the point being that no one cycle could do all symphonies equal justice and, perhaps more to the point, that such a survey would be an enormous amount of extra work. So it has proven to be… and after a decade, I’ve finally cobbled together enough information to attempt this Mahler Symphony Cycle Survey.

A Question of Completeness

There are symphonic cycles that are either complete or not complete in a straightforward manner. If you’ve recorded fewer than 15 Shostakovich- or six Martinů-symphonies, your cycle is not complete. If you have recorded more than that you know something more than we do. But take Bruckner: Nine symphonies or eleven, including the “F-minor” and “0”? Or Schubert: Which, if any, completions of the numerous fragments to include? Mahler tops it all. We have Symphonies One through Nine, of course. But wouldn’t a proper cycle also include Das Lied von der Erde, which Mahler counted among his symphonies? Then there is the Tenth Symphony to consider and include: at the very least just the completed Adagio (and/or Pergatorio), or better yet one of its many performing versions. Now what’s a complete cycle. One that features Nine Symphonies? Those, and the Lied? Nine Symphonies and the Adagio? Nine and both, Adagio and Lied? Ten symphonies but not the Lied? Everything? Maybe boni like Das Klagende Lied, the Blumine-movement or Todtenfeier [sic], the early version of what would become the Second Symphony’s first movement? The Britten-arrangement of “What the Wild Flowers tell me”?

Since this survey has the ambition to be completist, I have included anything and everything that might constitute a cycle, including a few incomplete ones. But to visualize the state of completeness, I have added a sort of traffic light to the various states:


I distinguish between:

	1-9 (Less than the basic Nine, incomplete)
	1-9 (Basic Nine)
	1-9+1 (Nine and either Lied or Adagio or compl. 10th)
	1-9+L+A (Nine, Lied and Adagio)
	1-10+L (All ten plus the Lied)
	>1-10+L (Everything and then some boni, übercomplete)

Arrangement

Because it’s more practical and because the Twitter-survey suggested as much, I will sort these sets by conductor, not by date-finished, as is my practice in the other recent, advanced surveys. The practical aspect comes in, where there are inclusions of semi-cycles, that were never really issued as complete cycles but constitute something alike enough… and with conductors with multiple (almost-)sets to their name but overlap among them. It’s simply neat to know how many times Haitink and Bernstein went around the full (or not) Monty.

Unfinished and Taking Forever

Why publish this work in progress when I've only made it to Bernstein, so far? Well, partly to motivate myself to work on this. Also because I tweeted out the following: "Should I publish the #Mahler Symphony Cycle Survey I've been working on (on and mostly off) forever unfinished* or hold off until it is complete?" and the response, however limited, was on the "go ahead" side. What pushed it over the edge was this smartalec remark: "Mahler review dragging on endlessly. Who says irony is dead, who says this?" Well, there you have it. Mahler, dragging on and with irony.

Help!

Finally a call for help: Such a survey would not be possible—and certainly not complete—without the kind help of many fellow Mahler-lovers who chip in with their knowledge, cover pictures… who spot lacunae, spelling mistakes, broken links and factual errors. Thank you all for all much-appreciated contributions past and future! Finally a few abbreviations: LvdE = Lied von der Erde. LefG = Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen. DKL = Das klagende Lied.

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Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.4 (Part 3)

This continues Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.4 (Part 1)
and: "GUSTAV MAHLER — SYMPHONY NO.4 (PART 2)"

While Mahler’s Forth Symphony is very different from the previous three, it also constitutes the group of Wunderhorn Symphonies with them, of which the last three had all included vocal elements. From here on, Mahler set out on a slightly different path and soon had a new source of delight and suffering entering his life in the form of Alma Mahler, née Schindler.

Symphony No.4, Boulez / Banse / Cleveland (DG) Symphony No.4, Sinopoli / Banse / Dresden StK. (PROFIL Hänssler)

I have just extolled the virtues of recent Mahler Fourth recordings by David Zinman, Iván Fischer, and Michael Tilson Thomas, but if they fail to elicit more enthusiastic praise from me, it is because they share with the earlier Haitink recordings and Pierre Boulez’ (DG) a missing, hard-to-define, distinctive quality that goes beyond exquisiteness. Unlike with the Third Symphony, I am less content with sheer excellence alone in the Fourth, since the recording catalog offers so many more choices. Swift Boulez almost gets there, though, because the Cleveland Orchestra provides him with pronounced and individualist chatter of instruments that comes, like Bernstein, a little closer to the aforementioned ideal of a “Concerto for Orchestra”. What does stand out with Boulez is his first movement, which he zips through at a pace that leaves you bopping along without your mind ever tempted to wander. Taking only a minute less than Bruno Walter (who more than makes up for lost time in the last two movements), he sounds twice as fast. His soprano Juliane Banse is equally wonderful in the totally different, very broad Sinopoli recording from Dresden (PROFIL Hänssler) where the Italian (one of the few conductors to master Bruckner and Mahler equally well at a relatively young age) adds three minutes to Boulez’ 8’44” in “Das himmlische Leben”… with wildly fluctuating tempi. Banse doesn’t sing her quick parts any slower in Dresden than she does in Cleveland, only her slow parts are retarded to a point where it must have become challenging for the singer to maintain the line. It is exaggeration occasionally—well, regularly—seen in Sinopoli’s Mahler, but one can’t blame him for wanting to explore the beautifully spacious acoustic and striking sound of the orchestra both of which come across nicely on the recording.

Symphony No.4, Kletzki / Loose / Philharmonia (EMI)

The gEMIni re-issue of Paul Kletzki’s Fourth—coupled with his acclaimed Lied—does the EMI remastering-engineers proud: the 1957 sound is far better than one might expect and the performance among the light ones that please. Paul Kletzky’s wife, Emmy Loose, sings faultlessly and wonderfully innocently, if without particular distinction beyond that. Washingtonians with a long memory and therefore skeptical of such musical Mahler-Fourth / Wife nepotism can be assured that Loose earns her inclusion in that performance on account of skill, not wedding band. [Ed.] It holds up in 2017 just as much as in 2009 and it is high time that Warner, which has taken over EMI's catalogue and tends to it very appreciably, gives this a nice re-issue as it seems currently out of print.

Symphony No.4, Haitink / Schäfer / RCO (RCO Live)

One Mahler recording issued in 2008 truly stood out among the lot: the Concertgebouw’s performance of the Fourth Symphony with Bernard Haitink conducting and Christine Schäfer taking the soprano part. If a Fourth Symphony can easily be undone by an inappropriate soprano (Gielen/Whittlesey, Abbado/Fleming), it can’t generally be ‘made’ by a great singer. Well, maybe Schäfer could actually, because her soprano is simply perfect for “Das himmlische Leben”. Clarity and beauty of tone are a given with her, but the innocence, the angelic ring that she believably exudes is exactly what the symphony (and Mahler) asks for. In theory a treble might be better, still, but put into practice it simply doesn’t work.

Fortunately Schäfer doesn’t have to rescue anything here, she’s simply the crowning glory of what is a superb performance. Haitink is generally short on cutting and acerbic tones in Mahler and long on beauty. So here. This Fourth Symphony (his fourth commercial recording of it!) benefits from beauty and suffers not from the absence of tortuous and biting sounds, as for example the Sixth would. Generous, rich, and yet transparent, there is plenty of that beauty to go around here. Among his three live recordings (two with the RCO and one with the Berlin Philharmonic), this is the one with the quickest pulse. The RCO plays with near-perfection (this is a true live recording, not patched from several performances), its usual gorgeousness, and grandeur of sound—all caught perfectly by the recording engineers. This sumptuous performance has now replaced Inbal, my previous top choice.

Symphony No.4, Gielen / Whittlesey / South West German RSO (Hänssler)

Michael Gielen’s Mahler is more and more becoming a favorite of mine. Here is a conductor with a modernist perspective of Mahler (like Abbado and Chailly) who (unlike Abbado and Chailly) can really rip through these symphonies instead of making them sound ‘lovely’. There is little of that ‘well behaved’ sound in his recordings with the South-Western Radio Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden. Perhaps because his players are not as seasoned a Mahler orchestra as are Chicago, Vienna, and even Berlin? His Fourth suffers from the same problem Abbado’s does, though: Three good movements and then big a let-down from the soprano. Christine Whittlesey’s problem is not self-conscious artificiality but that she sounds like the evil witch from one of Brother’s Grimm fairy tales. You’d think that once she finishes with “Die eng’lischen Stimmen / Ermuntern die Sinnen, / Daß alles für Freuden erwacht” she’ll rush back home to roast Hänsel. Others react more kindly to her voice, but it manages to rub me the wrong way, alright. (Gielen’s inclusion of the sublime Schreker “Prelude to a Drama” probably makes for the best filler on any disc with the Fourth Symphony, though.) [Ed.] Gielen's cycle has just been re-boxed by SWR Classic: This arguable dud apart (and they all have at least one dud), it is probably one of the two all-around best Mahler cycles out there. While this second re-issue also doesn't include the fillers that I find so attractive in the single discs, it does include absolutely all the Mahler that Gielen recorded with the South-Western Radio Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden & Freiburg and covers 17 CDs and a DVD of the Ninth Symphony.

Symphony No.4, Chailly / Bonney / RCO (Decca) Symphony No.4, Szell / Raskin / Cleveland (Decca)

Another wonderful and appropriate filler are the Seven Early Songs by Berg. The above mentioned Abbado offers them (and here, unlike with Mahler, Fleming really shines)—as does the Ricardo Chailly recording with the Concertgebouw and Barbara Bonney. Like Gielen, the recording can be difficult to get outside the complete box (Arkiv currently lists it, actually), which is a shame as neither collections—Gielen’s or Chailly’s—include any of the ‘fillers’. Chailly’s Fourth is unwavering in its forward-momentum… steady and secure like a sewing machine. Understated, but surreptitiously powerful. The playing (aided by excellent sound) is three-dimensional. There isn’t a more delicate, more loving third movement on record. This is a monument to well thought-out craftsmanship of the highest order. ([Ed.] Chailly has re-recorded the Fourth in Leipzig - issued on DVD/Blu-ray on Accentus, this time with the fine (scarcely divine but appropriately young) Christina Landshamer as the soprano.)

Many consider the George Szell recording (Sony) with Judith Raskin one of the finest recordings; inexplicably it has gone out of print... though thankfully it can now be had as an ArkivMusic licensed CDR re-print (if you can't find the original cheaper on Amazon). It should be heard; it remains one of the finest in the catalog even after so many years of strong competition. The same cannot be said of every recording that has old age on its side. When, after timid discovery, I started listening to Mahler in earnest, it was usually a Bruno Walter recording that I went with. My first impressions of the First, Second, and Fourth were with Walter. Such early impressions are usually indelible, but in this case they have all been dislodged and surpassed. His Fourth (Sony) with the New York Philharmonic from May of 1945, for example, is nice and brisk, and the less than perfect playing, occasionally sour, can be said to add lots of character. (More character, still, comes from the so-so 1945 recording quality!) But it is full of strange touches, too. Take the first movement, where Walter doesn’t hurry up the introductory sleigh-bell phrase and consequently has no room or time for a ritardando. (Boulez almost does the opposite: begins fast and refuses to slow down.) By not making much of a distinction between “Deliberate” and “Very leisurely”, it sounds like his sleigh grinds into the snow and never quite gets going again. For reasons of interpretation and authority, Walter is always worth coming back to. But if I had only two or three Mahler Fourths on my shelf, I’d not put up with the technical limitations this effort demands excusing.

The font used in the title is "Eckmann Regular"

Mahler 4 Choices

1. Bernard Haitink / Christine Schäfer, RCO, RCO Live

2. Eliahu Inbal / Helen Donath, Frankfurt RSO, Denon / Brilliant

3. Paul Kletzki / Emmy Loose, Philharmonia Orchestra, EMI

4. Esa Pekka Salonen / Barbara Hendricks, LA Phil, Sony via Arkiv

5. George Szell / Judith Raskin, Cleveland, Sony via Arkiv

6. Riccardo Chailly / Barbara Bonney, RCO, Decca

Mahler 4 SACD Choice

Bernard Haitink / Christine Schäfer, RCO, RCO Live

This continues Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.4 (Part 1)
and: "GUSTAV MAHLER — SYMPHONY NO.4 (PART 2)"
FIND A LIST OF THE Mahler Survey HERE: HTTP://IONARTS.BLOGSPOT.COM/2009/12/MAHLER-SURVEY.HTML

Gustav Mahler. Postcard by Hans Boehler.
Courtesy of the Carnegie Hall Archives

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Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.4 (Part 2)

This continues Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.4 (Part 1)
and is continued here: "GUSTAV MAHLER — SYMPHONY NO.4 (PART 3)"

Mahler’s Fourth Symphony was begun in a flurry of inspiration during the last ten, very intensive days of his otherwise miserable 1899 summer vacation at the Altaussee. The muse beset him so fast and furiously that he could no longer handle it physically and came down with a debilitating dizziness.

Apart from a rainy summer and initial difficulties finding the necessary quiet to compose, there was trouble brewing at the opera house in Vienna that Mahler was eager to get away from and reluctant to return to. And with his vacation over, he worried whether he could pick up with the symphony where he had to leave it. Henri-Louis de La Grange speaks of “torment” from which this symphony arose, which leads the author to the ‘astonished observation’ that the Fourth is so “delightfully carefree”, a “lyrical intermezzo among his other… tragic symphonies”.

This might suggest that Mahler, like Mozart, was able to compose the cheeriest music under the dourest of circumstances and vice versa. Certainly the darkest, the Sixth, Symphony, composed when everything seemed to go well in Mahler’s life, seems to suggest so much. But for that, the trouble surrounding and preceding the Fourth Symphony’s beginnings was probably too superficial to really bother Mahler, whose “talent for suffering” (Haitink) would otherwise have made sure to express it either here or in “Revelge”, the Wunderhorn-Lied that he drafted a few weeks earlier.

Nowhere in this symphony… will there be a single fortissimo.

Later that summer, Mahler prospected and eventually found the—almost—ideal spot for his summer getaway in Maiernigg at the Wörthersee. It would have to, and did, include a location for his isolated little composing-hut, the famous “Häuschen” that he from now on created his symphonies in. He ordered it built and it was ready in time (the villa itself wasn’t yet) to serve him the next summer when he returned to Maiernigg to finish the Fourth Symphony. The composition had been out of his mind during the work year, but now Mahler found that completion came surprisingly easy and quite naturally to him, as if he had sub-consciously (the term didn’t exist then) worked it out in the time since last jotting down the sketches.

This is also where he told Natalie Bauer-Lechner that the slow movement now called “Ruhevoll. Poco adagio” ‘almost had a religious and catholic atmosphere… Neither in this movement nor anywhere else in the symphony, in accordance with its subject, will there be a single fortissimo. Those who accuse me of always taking recourse to grandiose gestures will be astonished…’

There is something religious about this Adagio (Mahler had also called “the smile of St. Ursula” and likened to his mother’s face as she smiled through her tears). Its serene quality is that of a smile unsmiled, the calm and gentle resignation in good hope of better things to come. Just yesterday I listened to that movement, soft as spring dew on a daisy (with Daniele Gatti, RCA), when I heard a child crying inconsolably outside. It felt as though the symphony wanted to wrap its arms around the child in comfort while letting it continue to cry, knowing that tears are sometimes necessary.

Mahler's Komponierhäuschen in Maiernigg
Photo © jfl

Symphony No.4, Abbado / Fleming / BPh (DG) Symphony No.4, Bernstein / boy soprano / RCO (DG) Symphony No.4, Bernstein / Grist / NYP (Sony)

Symphony No.4, Inbal / Donath / Frankfurt RSO (Denon) (Brilliant) Symphony No.4, Maazel / Kathleen Battle / WPh (Sony) Symphony No.4, Salonen / Hendricks / LA Phil (Sony)

The last movement—the Wunderhorn lied “Das himmlische Leben” that was supposed to the the finale of the Third Symphony—and the choice of singer are very important for the success of this symphony. Most listeners would agree that a light, clear voice with earnest innocence—as Mahler demands—is best suited. Artificial theatricality or self-conscious beauty (courtesy of Renée Fleming) can undo three good movements as in Claudio Abbado’s recent Berlin recording (DG). Bernstein opted for the logical extension of the voice’s angelic profile in his last recording with the Concertgebouw and chose a boy soprano from the Tölzer Knabenchor. It’s perfect for the character of the song but the music is difficult and strenuous and the voice should ideally be bigger and more secure. A noble failure - but total failure nonetheless. In the very colorful New York recording, Reri Grist’s strangely boyish voice is an acquired taste but already hints at what Lenny would come up with later.

Since the Fourth is a light(er) work, esprit and joie de vie are important; heft and sumptuous glory can detract. Eliahu Inbal (Denon) gets lightness and irony right, nor is he afraid of some old fashioned portamento. His Frankfurt RSO adds a touch of flying-by-the-seats-of-their-pants which adds character (like some of the earlier Kubelik recordings did) and Helen Donath is a near-ideal soprano for the role. For the longest time—until Bernard Haitink’s new recording came out last year—this was my undisputed first choice in this symphony. Maazel (CBS/Sony) and Salonen (Sony), for better or worse, reign over more overtly splendid orchestras, the Vienna Philharmonic and the L.A. Philharmonic, respectively.

Sy. No.4, MTT / Claycomb / SFS (SFS Media) Sy. No.4, Zinman / Orgonášová / ZTO (RCA) Sy. No.4, Fischer / Persson / BFO (Channel) Sy. No.4, Stenz / Oelze / Guerzenich (Oehms)

Both have exquisite light sopranos: Maazel the young Kathleen Battle; Salonen, Barbara Hendricks—and both are superb accounts for it. Salonen relaxes the third movement (all four are ‘slow movements’, really) as much as this symphony can take without becoming unduly ponderous. At the time of originally writing this in 2009, Maazel and Salonen had been taken out of the catalog by Sony and I think they still haven't been re-issued domestically. No matter: there are international re-issues and used copies available on Amazon, though, as well as the usual mp3 and streaming options available.

Perhaps that’s an East coast thing: Michael Tilson Thomas (SFS Media,) does the same thing with the San Francisco Symphony: aided by some of the most refined, gentlest string sound—and only at such sound can this successfully pulled off—does he span the movement over an astonishing 26 minutes. (The average is a little over 21 minutes, Kondrashin and Walter have it over and done with in under 18.) With him the music seems to be taking a deep, natural breath after each phrase. No real complaints about his soprano, Laura Claycomb, but nothing to write home about, or lift this glorious performance far above the mass of other wonderful performances.

The opposite is true for Michaela Kaune, who sings on the recording of Zdeněk Mácal with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (Exton,). I assume her slurring of the opening notes are an interpretive choice, but even if they weren’t, Kaune isn’t special for precision or refinement but for the intriguing character of her voice that makes my ears perk. I can’t even tell whether I like it or not (perhaps not), but it adds an extraordinary—is it reedy?—quality to the Lied.

Recent additions are David Zinman (RCA,) with Luba Orgonášová and Iván Fischer (Channel,) with Miah Persson, both of which are lovely, played roughly along the interpretative mainstream with similar timings. Fischer’s Miah Persson is more child than angel; her innocence is a playful one with more ‘sandbox’ than apotheosis. Orgonášová is a little like Claycomb: not disturbing, not ideal. Amid the Tonhalle Orchestra’s muted colors in the slow movement, Zinman micromanages the dynamics with extreme care and precision, which he does without disturbing the all-important flow.

Fischer’s slow movement, with distant sounding strings, conjures a wistfulness one might feel at the sun disappearing behind the rolling hills. Both are distinguished by nuance and especially Fischer by the subtle Easter European lilt he so appropriately sneaks into the finer rhythmic details. It’s almost as if no unsatisfactory recordings of this symphony were produced anymore. [Ed. 2017] This holds true for Markus Stenz' recording that is part of his mild-mannered (or rather: finger-print-free), high-quality Mahler cycle with the Gürzenich Orchestra. (His Fifth is stupendous and an easy recommendation.) Calm is the order of this interpretation's day, and the entry into the third movement is particularly well crafted. Christiane Oelze lacks some angelic lightness and she hits the music's grooves a little hard and the highs a little strident, but it is also full of character and inherently beautiful and all well within anyone's reasonable limits of considerable enjoyment. Unlike a soprano's contribution in one of the following recordings... [how's that for a cliffhanger?!]

This continues Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.4 (Part 1)
and is continued here: "GUSTAV MAHLER — SYMPHONY NO.4 (PART 3)"
FIND A LIST OF THE Mahler Survey HERE: HTTP://IONARTS.BLOGSPOT.COM/2009/12/MAHLER-SURVEY.HTML

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[1] Based on a survey of Mahler performances by three of the four most important, traditional Mahler orchestras, the Vienna, New York, and the Concertgebouw. The First is in all three cases, and by a fair margin, the most often performed. For the European orchestras the Fourth follows in second place before the 5^th (Vienna) and Das Lied (Amsterdam), while in New York the Fifth precedes the Fourth which is in turn followed by the Ninth.

The font used in the title is "ITC Souvenier Light"