BaL 20.04.24 - Mahler: Kindertotenlieder

[pastoralguy]

I once horrified a non-musical friend by telling her that these pieces existed. She was equally horrified when I presented her with a cd of said work. ‘You don’t actually expect me to listen to it?!’, was her comment.

Here’s a story I often tell. I have a Dr friend whose five year old daughter begged her for a Dr’s outfit. The set was given on Christmas Day and the little girl was delighted. After dinner, the little girl asked her mum to listen to her heart with her little toy stethoscope. Mummy smilingly obliged. ‘Hang on, that’s not right’, thought mum. She got her own stethoscope out and listened. The following day, her daughter was being operated on for a leaking aorta!

She survived and became a Dr herself. The little toy stethoscope sits in a glass case in her consulting room.

[oliver sudden]

Here’s a story I often tell. I have a Dr friend whose five year old daughter begged her for a Dr’s outfit. The set was given on Christmas Day and the little girl was delighted. After dinner, the little girl asked her mum to listen to her heart with her little toy stethoscope. Mummy smilingly obliged. ‘Hang on, that’s not right’, thought mum. She got her own stethoscope out and listened. The following day, her daughter was being operated on for a leaking aorta!

She survived and became a Dr herself. The little toy stethoscope sits in a glass case in her consulting room.

If I remember right, the first diagnosis of Mahler’s heart condition was similarly accidental: a doctor was giving the rest of the family a checkup and Mahler joked ‘I guess you’d better listen to me too’. The doctor supposedly plonked his stethoscope on Mahler’s heart and said ‘I wouldn’t be joking about this if I were you’…

[HighlandDougie]

Not sure quite how one manages a segue from PG's cheery little anecdote - see above - back to BaL but, as ever with Iain Burnside, well worth hearing. I didn't take to Waltraud Meier/Lorin Maazel. She has a rather nasal sound - at least in the excerpts played - which would pall with repetition. Egregious or not, I'll stick with Celi and Brigitte Fassbaender for the occasional listen (BF's vocal control is a thing of wonder, especially given the tempi) and Kathleen Ferrier/Janet Baker. And Alice Coote, not least for the wonderful recording quality. I have the Lipovsek in the Sony Abbado box and the Terfel in the Sinopoli/Mahler box but have to confess to not having listened to either of them for quite a long time.

[Pulcinella]

Although already mentioned, here's the information from the updated (sooner than last week) R3 website.

Recommended Version:
Marjana Lipovsek (mezzo-soprano)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Claudio Abbado (conductor)
Sony G010001399711H

[Sir Velo]

Maybe this is one of the works which should sit firmly in the putative "difficult listening" category in record shops. Like Vinteuil, I was dismayed that Fassbaender/Chailly wasn't referenced and, again, I think for a reference version of the work, one should respect the composer's intentions and, in this case, select a baritone, probably Hampson.

[Pulcinella]

Maybe this is one of the works which should sit firmly in the putative "difficult listening" category in record shops. Like Vinteuil, I was dismayed that Fassbaender/Chailly wasn't referenced and, again, I think for a reference version of the work, one should respect the composer's intentions and, in this case, select a baritone, probably Hampson.

The Hampson was fairly roundly dismissed, wasn't it, but maybe more because of Bernstein's approach than the singing?

[LMcD]

I once horrified a non-musical friend by telling her that these pieces existed. She was equally horrified when I presented her with a cd of said work. ‘You don’t actually expect me to listen to it?!’, was her comment.

Here’s a story I often tell. I have a Dr friend whose five year old daughter begged her for a Dr’s outfit. The set was given on Christmas Day and the little girl was delighted. After dinner, the little girl asked her mum to listen to her heart with her little toy stethoscope. Mummy smilingly obliged. ‘Hang on, that’s not right’, thought mum. She got her own stethoscope out and listened. The following day, her daughter was being operated on for a leaking aorta!

She survived and became a Dr herself. The little toy stethoscope sits in a glass case in her consulting room.

I'd rather listen to Kindertotenlieder than the final scene from the Dialogue des Carmelites.

[CallMePaul]

Although already mentioned, here's the information from the updated (sooner than last week) R3 website.

Recommended Version:
Marjana Lipovsek (mezzo-soprano)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Claudio Abbado (conductor)
Sony G010001399711H

Yet again appears to be download only - not listed under Lipovsek on Presto!

[gurnemanz]

Although already mentioned, here's the information from the updated (sooner than last week) R3 website.

Recommended Version:
Marjana Lipovsek (mezzo-soprano)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Claudio Abbado (conductor)
Sony G010001399711H

Missed BaL but I have several Lieder recordings by Marjana Lipovsek which I Iike - CDs of Brahms and Schubert + Alto Rhapsody also with Abbado/BPO - so I went eagerly to Spoty for her Kindertotenlieder which I didn't know. I am grateful for being directed towards this excellent version to add to my list of favourites.

[Serial_Apologist]

I just realised - if you spoonerise Kindertotenlieder you can get Tinder token lieder!

[ostuni]

I'm another who definitely prefers a baritone in these songs - and I'm surprised no one has mentioned Gerhaher, with Ozawa and OS Montréal (or maybe I've missed the post?). Excellent recorded sound, and Gerhaher's singing is definitely to my tastes.

[Serial_Apologist]

It’s just too prominent. On Chailly’s recording the glockenspiel is a ghostly presence in the background, chiming like a clock in the night in a downstairs room: very effective and disconcerting.

The question is, are the glockenspiel notes actually played incorrectly, or are they as Mahler composed? In listening to the Tenth Symphony yesterday (especially in that extraordinary, almost shocking first movement) I was strongly struck by how much Mahler was an innovator in matters concerning what constituted "wrong" or "right" notes in given musical circumstances.

[Serial_Apologist]

Interesting comments there, thanks. I have wondered why the deaths of children get so much emphasis in19th-century literature. I wonder if it was a subconcious frustration at the still-high infant and child mortality rate despite the vast technological advances of the age. Medicine took a while to catch up.

A very pertinent supposition. Prior to the coming of the mass industrial revolution urban proletariat people living in rural communities would tend to take childhood death as inevitability, having little experience with which to measure or compare it, but crowded communities would have been constantly alerted to the sheer frequency of the phenomenon, and more therefore inclined to form a social understanding of its causes.

[vinteuil]

I'm another who definitely prefers a baritone in these songs - and I'm surprised no one has mentioned Gerhaher, with Ozawa and OS Montréal (or maybe I've missed the post?). Excellent recorded sound, and Gerhaher's singing is definitely to my tastes.

... or Kent Nagano?

.

[Pulcinella]

... or Kent Nagano?

.

Indeed! I did a double take at mention of Ozawa too.

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8032741--mahler-orchestral-songs