Mahler - Symphony no.4
£17.05
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Label: Harmonia Mundi
Cat No: HMM905357
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Release Date: 26th August 2022
Contents
Artists
Sabine Devieilhe (soprano)Les Siecles
Conductor
Francois-Xavier RothWorks
Symphony no.4 in G majorArtists
Sabine Devieilhe (soprano)Les Siecles
Conductor
Francois-Xavier RothAbout
After a period-instrument reading of the Symphony no.1 that received unanimous acclaim from the critics, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles return to Mahler. Joined by the luminous voice of Sabine Devieilhe for the famous finale, they offer us their version of the Fourth Symphony, which in its own way marks the composer’s transition to modernity, and reveals unsuspected colours and instrumental balances. We still have much to learn about the polyphonic transparency possible within Mahler’s big orchestra!
Sound/Video
Paused
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11. Bedächtig, nicht eilen
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22. In gemächlicher Bewegung, ohne Hast
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33. Ruhevoll, poco adagio
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44. Sehr behaglich (Sabine Devieilhe, soprano)
Europadisc Review
It’s only a few months since we gave an enthusiastic review to a new recording of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony from Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic, a performance steeped in the Czech Mahler tradition. Now comes an account that is, if anything, even more striking, from François-Xavier Roth and his period-instrument orchestra Les Siècles on the eve of their 20th anniversary. Since their founding in 2003, Roth and his colleagues have opened up fresh perspectives on music of the 19th and early 20th centuries, from Beethoven and Berlioz to Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky. Their Mahler (as we noted with their 2019 recording of Titan, the five-movement first version of the First Symphony) is just as revelatory.
In his booklet interview for this disc, Roth suggests that Mahler’s astonishingly rich palette of textures, harmonies, counterpoint and phrasing can, if mishandled, ‘become a “goulash”, thick-textured music glutted with sound and emotionalism.’ Period instruments provide part of the solution, but knowing how to handle them and where the music comes from (the Classical and Romantic traditions) are just as important. And these musicians are full of exactly that sense of understanding, which seeps into every bar of this performance.
There’s a dry ‘woodiness’ to the sound from the outset, partly acoustic, but also down to the very individual timbre of Les Siècles’ flutes. Thanks in large part to antiphonally divided violins, the textures are marvellously open. There’s none of that unthinking plushness to the sound that characterises so many Mahler performances; instead, the various strands emerge with refreshingly incisive clarity. Vibrato is not banished, but nor is it the default setting – meaning that the teasing, beatific return of the main theme in the first movement’s coda, and still more the slow movement’s epilogue, come across with a pleasing lack of affectation. The portamento slides between notes that are such a feature of Mahler’s scores sound like a natural part of the sound world, rather than a forced ‘effect’ imposed on the music.
Time and again, the distinctive timbres of the orchestra shed new light on one of Mahler’s most popular scores. For example, the first movement’s second theme (fig. 3) emerges more gently than usual in the cellos (marked espressivo with tenuto lines), then in sharper perspective on the deliciously tart oboe (as suggested by Mahler with accents on the repeated F sharps); the clarinet counter-theme to the cellos’ consequent phrase is again less ‘pushy’ than is customary. But there’s greater ‘edginess’ to the development section, where the increased anxiety (following the joyous repeated-note flute) theme is spookily vivid, very much in the prevailing mood of the Knaben Wunderhorn poems that inspired the Mahler’s Second, Third and Fourth symphonies. Woodwind and brass details are exceptionally vivid, and there are some wonderfully ominous bass rumblings. Following the moment of crisis and collapse, the shrug-of-the-shoulders return to the violins’ opening idea in medias res at fig. 18 has rarely sounded so disarmingly naïve. The textures of the second subject’s exultant fortissimo return (fig. 20) have a bucolic edginess that sounds worlds away from the sumptuousness of more ‘conventional’ performances.
In the second movement, it’s not just the tuned-up solo violin that lends the music its macabre mood but also the general lack of vibrato in the strings, which makes their ghostly strands more than usually spectral. And there are marvellously nightmarish contributions from the woodwind, horns and trumpets, with outstanding playing from first horn Rémi Gormand and leader François-Marie Drieux in particular. This is one of the most characterful, unsettling and at the same time gently tongue-in-cheek accounts of this movement we’ve heard, astonishing in its detail but with an overall lilt that Mahler would surely have loved. The relaxed Gemütlichkeit of the trio section, particularly its swooning second half, provides marvellous contrast.
The gentle beauty of the cradle-song music that opens the Ruhevoll third movement has (thanks to the exquisite purity of the string tone) an unassuming nobility and poise that is hugely affecting. If you think period instruments equate with lack of emotional engagement, think again! Every entry from the woodwind registers with telling focus, and Hélène Mourot’s oboe playing pierces straight to the heart. The double-crisis moment halfway through the movement (figs. 7 and 8) is one of the most powerful you’ll hear on disc, not in terms of mere decibels (though it’s certainly not lacking in volume), but because of the way it is prepared, paced and allowed to build by Roth, with every strand clear but no feeling of artificial spotlighting. The Allegretto subito variation after fig. 9 and Allegro subito at fig. 10 here have a remarkable folk-like freshness and vivacity to them, an oasis of activity before returning to the poise of the opening. Trumping all this is the heaven-storming final climax in the unexpected but significant key of E major, while the final bars are invested with a uniquely transparent, seraphic glow.
From this emotional rollercoaster emerges one of the most engaging versions of the ‘child’s view of heaven’ on record. Sabine Devieilhe is the radiantly natural, unaffected soprano soloist, every line of the Wunderhorn text projected with remarkable clarity and sense of wonder. Listen to the way she inflects the semiquavers of her very first phrase and you’ll be struck by how perfect a match she is for the vividly natural timbres of Les Siècles’ players. The hymn-like final lines of stanzas 1, 2 and 4 have a particularly organ-like resonance to them, the result of careful balancing by Roth and his musicians. Though some commentators have suggested an unattainable quality to this strikingly gastronomic vision of the next world, here it comes across with unalloyed joy and, in the final stanza, unforced rapture: these are very much the qualities of the performance as a whole. This is an account of Mahler’s Fourth which, from its chipper opening to the lingering notes of the final bars, is both refreshingly honest and life-enhancing. Comparisons are for once pointless, but it certainly stands tall alongside the greatest recordings of the past while carving out a unique niche of its own. Splendidly captured in live performance (with patching sessions) by producer Jiri Heger and engineer Aurélien Bourgois, this is an account that deserves to be heard by all lovers of Mahler’s music.
Reviews
I absolutely adored this performance. No equivocation. Hearing the music as Mahler might have heard it – and indeed imagined it – both in the very particular sound of period instruments and the extraordinary impact that has on phrasing and expression makes it sound more radical in ways that the supersonic amplitude of today’s orchestras tends to obscure. ... Sabine Devieilhe sings [‘Das himmlische Leben’] quite gorgeously with a bell-like clarity and directness, and the final stanza is truly balm, pure and unaffected, like so much that makes this performance special. Edward Seckerson (Recording of the Month)Gramophone September 2022
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