Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) - Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1999)
Cover Front Album
Composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Conductor Claudio Abbado
Orchestra / Ensemble I Berliner Philharmoniker
Length 57:04
Format CD
Genre Vocal; Art Song
Index 287
Out of Print No
Musicians
Soloist Von Otter; Quasthoff
Credits
Producer Christopher Alder
Label Deutsche Grammophon
Track List
01 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Revelge 07:13
02 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Rheinlegendchen 03:21
03 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Trost im Ungluck 02:22
04 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Verlorne Muh' 02:42
05 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Der Schildwache Nachtlied 06:10
06 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Das irdische Leben 02:52
07 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Lied des Verflogten im Turm 03:56
08 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht? 02:05
09 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Des Antonius von Padua Fiscpredigt 04:03
10 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Lob des hohen Verstandes 02:32
11 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen 07:08
12 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Der Tamboursg'sell 06:56
13 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Urlicht 05:44
Personal
Purchase Date 11/16/2002
Value $16.50
Store Columbia House
Condition 100%
Nationality Austrian
Language German
Period Romantic
Details
Studio Philharmonie, Berlin
Catalog Number 459 646-2
Live No
Recording Date 2/1/1998
Spars DDD
Reissue No
Sound Stereo
Notes
Anne Sofie von Otter: Mezzosopran
Thomas Quasthoff: Bariton

Notes, illustrations, text and translations

Essay: "Mahler: 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn'" by Dolald Mitchell

Gramophone review:
"A finely balanced recording places the voices in ideal relationship with the orchestra which itself is given a well-aired, clean sound (although the Amsterdam sound of 13 years ago for Bernstein is no less truthful). It supports a performance that is predictably - given the BPO/Abbado partnership - shipshape in execution, nothing in Mahler’s highly original scoring overlooked. As is customary with this conductor’s Mahler, the approach tends to be objective and disciplined. In that respect it is at the opposite pole to the concept of Bernstein who, in my favourite version among many available, is more yielding and, to my ears, more idiomatically Mahlerian in mood and in subtlety of rubato, those little lingerings that mean so much in interpreting the composer - yet Bernstein is no slower as a whole.
"Quasthoff comes very near the top of baritones who have essayed the military songs, his tone compact, well-ordered, responsive to verbal nuance, and he’s as successful with the lighter and ever-delightful ‘Lob des hohen Verstandes’, nightingale, cuckoo and donkey nicely characterized. Yet Andreas Schmidt, for Bernstein, benefiting from his slightly lighter, slimmer voice, is marginally preferable to Quasthoff in flexibility and varied tone. Von Otter, her intelligent self throughout, is a little too knowing in her approach to the comic songs assigned to her; by contrast she brings a Wagnerian intensity to that mini-tragedy ‘Das irdische Leben’. Her tone sometimes loses colour, but not in ‘Wo die schonen Trompeten’, where her acuity with the text and feeling for the evocation of the distanced trumpets is second only to Popp’s on the Bernstein. Popp is as moving, if not more so, in this song, with some pianissimo singing von Otter cannot match, and unequalled in her easier traversal of the lighter songs.
"Where two characters are involved, Abbado opts for a single voice, Bernstein for two. Although Abbado may be following what Mahler wanted, ‘Trost im Ungluck’ and the delicious ‘Verlor’ne Muh’, for instance, are so much more pointed with the combined voices of Popp and Schmidt. So DG hasn’t quite managed to trump its own ace."