Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

Approfondimenti

This performance of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde was recorded in 2017 by the Budapest Festival Orchestra under conductor Iván Fischer, but not released until 2020. It closely followed on the fine version by the Rundfunksinfonieorchester-Berlin, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, and may have been intended by Channel Classics to compete with that release. Listeners can take their choice between two somewhat similar recordings that have distinct differences (or simply turn to one of the classic recordings of this set of deeply philosophical orchestral songs). Both versions are by top-notch central European ensembles that know the music well and deliver for their conductors an impressive level of detail. Both are moderate in tone and tempo, not moving toward the emotional extremes of Leonard Bernstein, nor either taking the music strictly according to the notes. They even share a fine tenor in Robert Dean Smith. The differences come in a couple of areas. There is nothing wrong with the engineering on Jurowski's recording, but the production here, by Jared Sacks, is epochal, with awesome transparency and depth that comes close to dissolving all the boundaries between listener and musicians that come with digital recording. Where Jurowski may have the edge is in his contralto soloist; Sarah Connolly's rich, soaring rendering of the finale, "Der Abschied," is a career-making performance. Here, Fischer and Gerhild Romberger offer an interpretation that's just slightly enervated, replacing the deep melancholy of many performances with a reading that's genuinely death-haunted. Fischer is more than a minute shorter in the finale than Jurowski is, and the details seem to unroll implacably. Some may prefer this, so sample broadly in the finale and elsewhere. The bottom line is that both are excellent new versions of Das Lied von der Erde, but buyers with really good stereo equipment owe it to themselves to pick this one, indeed over any other the other versions available.
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