Recommend a Das Klagende Lied

[Don]

As is my custom, I am a sucker for the underdog. In music that translates to the rarely heard or early or abandoned works. Thus my adoration for the completed M10 for example. So I have another that I am adding.

I have a downloaded recording of Mahler's quite astonishing early work Das Klagende Lied. It is a Chandos recording with Richard Hickok and the Bournemouth SO. I think my mail man with whom I trade discs lent it to me to copy. (Don't tell anyone). I do not see it in the catalog any longer.

Are there others that anyone would recommend? I admit to not really knowing the work all that well, but as I listen to it, I find it a evocative sound painting and a fascinating preview of the masterpieces to come.

[Dave H]

Revised two-movement version (surprisingly few recordings): Haitink/RCO
Revised version plus Waldmarchen (the best choice, on the whole): MTT/San Francisco (best conducting) or Chailly/Decca (best choral singing)
Original Version: Nagano/Erato (the only show in town, well worth hearing for some really unusual original scoring, and happily a good performance too)
Dave H

[Don]

Thanks Dave! I figured since the one I have is not in the catalogs now, it was never the preferred version. I will look up the MTT version. The Hickok was the 3 mvt version.

[Eric Nagamine]

Revised two-movement version (surprisingly few recordings): Haitink/RCO
Revised version plus Waldmarchen (the best choice, on the whole): MTT/San Francisco (best conducting) or Chailly/Decca (best choral singing)
Original Version: Nagano/Erato (the only show in town, well worth hearing for some really unusual original scoring, and happily a good performance too)
Dave H

There is a Jurowski/LPO performance on DVD and I think CD on the LPO's label that's better played and recorded than the Nagano of the original 3 part version. IIRC, there also a van Zweden performance on a dutch label with the Netherlands Phil(?). I heard it on line and it was good.

Eric N

[mike bosworth]

There is a Jurowski/LPO performance on DVD and I think CD on the LPO's label that's better played and recorded than the Nagano of the original 3 part version.

In a year or so there should be a recording of the original 1880 version available from the Colorado Mahlerfest.  I attended the performances in January in Boulder and they were both very well played.

I watched the Jurowski performance on line, my major quibble being that I found most his tempi choices to be too fast for my taste in this work.

Mike Bosworth
Hanoi

[Polarius T]

If one were to pick up just one version:



which is the same as:



I don't know of others who can relate this piece to Mahler's later work anywhere near as well as Boulez, which connection I think you said was of interest to you. What's surprising about that is that this was the first complete recording of it, too, IIRC (from 1969/70).

And the orchestral execution, if not of course quite as refined as in Boulez' later symphony cycle, is so precise you won't miss a note even without the score. That, and the amazing sure and sharp hand he has with tempi and transitions in late Romantic works more generally, really brings vivid results with the early Mahler, I think, just as with early Schoenberg (I'm thinking first and foremost of Boulez' gripping recording of the "Gurrelieder"). And the sound is surprisingly good: where things like the string sound are not equal to today's best, spatial imaging may still be better than in most. Not an inconsequential detail in Mahler at all, in fact.

Details & reviews at http://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Das-Klagende-Lied/dp/B000002704/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1219265622&sr=8-1 although you might find it cheaper in one of the Euro Amazons (.co.uk, .de, .fr) or on Ebay right now. (I agree with the Amazon.com reviewer: this is among Boulez' best Mahler, along with the M2, M3, M9, and, especially, "Das Lied").

-PT

[mike bosworth]

I don't know of others who can relate this piece to Mahler's later work anywhere near as well as Boulez, which connection I think you said was of interest to you.

Surprisingly, despite Boulez's own acknowledgement of DkL as the critical first chapter in the Mahler oeuvre, it is for some reason being left out of the otherwise 'complete' Mahler cycle to be conducted by Boulez/Barenboim at Carnegie next May.

Mike Bosworth
Hanoi

P.S. IIRC Jurowski is to conduct the 1880 version of DkL in the U.S. (don't have dates/place handy)

[Polarius T]

...the otherwise 'complete' Mahler cycle to be conducted by Boulez/Barenboim at Carnegie next May.

Mike Bosworth
Hanoi

Oh do I miss New York from time to time! 

But are you saying you are reporting from...Hanoi?? Most interesting.

It may have been tough back when but today Mahlerites have infiltrated everywhere. Yet I thought it was Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) that was the hotspot to be in (at least a couple of years ago this was still the case).

-PT

[Dave H]

I haven't seen a CD of the Jurowski, but the DVD certainly is enjoyable if you don't mind video--quick and exciting (though I'd personally rather just listen than watch).

Dave H

[stillivor]

I recently played an original issue of the Boulez, which was supposed to be just parts 2 and 3, just before (?) he recorded part 1. Actually it has parts 1 and 2 only.

Does anyone have more info?    Ta.

    Ivor

[Polarius T]

Sounds weird. The story, as I'm sure you know, is that after Boulez had already recorded parts 2 & 3 (revised version), the score of Waldmaerchen or part 1 became unexpectedly available after it had been sold to Princeton by one of Mahler's relatives who had had it in his possession till then (nephew IIRC). Another session date was then arranged so that parts 2 & 3 were then taped in May '69 but part 1 in April '70. The whole work was issued variously over the years but I think initially as a double LP containing the M10 Adagio as well (which was taped during the first session dates). So maybe you have a musical equivalent of a stamp with a misprint! Do you have the catalogue no.? It should be easy to check this.

Alternatively maybe you dropped the record number two on your way home from the store.

-PT

[stillivor]

The catalogue number is the one in the Penguin Stereo Record Guide, and it's the  single disc it's supposed to be.

[mike bosworth]

But are you saying you are reporting from...Hanoi?? Most interesting.

Yes, I'm reporting from Hanoi, where a Mahler cycle is underway (by the Vietnam National Symphony over a 5 year period).  Most of the performances, with the exception of M1 and M4, are Vietnam premières.  M3 is scheduled for September 22 and 23.

Mike Bosworth
Hanoi

P.S. A correction to a previous post in this thread:  The original 1880 score of DkL (including Waldmaerchen) resides at the Yale University Library, Osborn Collection (Osborn purchased it from Alfred Rosé in 1969 and presented it to Yale the same year)

[Polarius T]

Really fascinating; that could sort of throw us back to Alpsman's question as to why everyone "must" perform or is performing Mahler today. Who is (are) conducting, I'm curious -- local forces?

And you are of course right, Yale not Princeton. Alfred Rose was that nephew (son of Arnold).

-PT

[Polarius T]

The catalogue number is the one in the Penguin Stereo Record Guide, and it's the  single disc it's supposed to be.

I no longer have the Penguin guide on the shelf. But to what I can see from elsewhere parts 2 & 3 came out on LP as: 72773 (12/69); 72773 & 72865 in 77233 (3/76); and DC 40156/7 in DC 40155 (6/85). And part 1 (again on LP) as : 72865 (10/70); 72773 in 77233 (3/76); DC 40156 in DC 40155 (6/85). So nothing in these sources combining 1 and 2 alone; this may end up a cold case.

-PT