Comparison Recordings
Bruno Walter, Desi Halban, [ADD] Sony
515301-2
Lorin Maazel, Kathleen Battle, VPO Sony
MDK 44908
Leonard Bernstein, Reri Grist, NYPO
[ADD] Sony SMK 60733
Fritz Reiner, Lisa Della Casa, CSO [ADD]
RCA/BMG 5722-2-RC
Maurice Abravanel, Netania Davrath,
USO [ADD] Vanguard OVC 4007
Michael Tilson-Thomas, Laura Claycomb,
SFSO SACD SFS
821936-0004-2
Who ever would have
thought that Pierre Boulez, the enfant
terrible of dodecaphonic composers,
would grow up to be a great conductor
of the romantic repertoire? I became
a believer the night I heard him conduct
the Schumann Rhenish Symphony
with the LAPO and in fact have yet to
hear a performance by anyone of that
work as good as I heard that night.
He spun out the middle chorale movement
into long, high corridors of sensual
sound. But his Mahler has been controversial
from the first note; people generally
either love it or hate it with little
said in between.
A performance of the
Fourth Symphony can stand or
fall on the voice of the soprano. Mahler
had in mind a young, innocent sounding
voice, and he supposedly was disappointed
that a child could not sing it. The
first recording with Bruno Walter and
Desi Halban was the only one available
for nearly 15 years and the first one
I got to know. She seemed to me, as
I recall, to have a fine voice for the
part, but one reviewer referred to her
as "deficient", and that opinion
must have prevailed; for, those recordings
by Walter still in print are with such
lights as Schwarzkopf, Seefried, and
Stader. A good Pamina, as were these
sopranos, should be able to sing this
part very well, but I have not been
able to obtain copies for comparison.
Bernstein’s soprano,
Reri Grist, has a reedy, agile voice,
verging on stridency, which is heard
clearly through the orchestral textures.
Coupled with Bernstein’s tiresomely
exaggerated phrasing and consistent
overstatement of every orchestral effect
this recording is guaranteed to give
you a headache and me a cramp in my
abdominal muscles within minutes — unless
you particularly prefer Bernstein’s
approach, in which case you will like
this version over all others and you
can skip to the next review. I can’t
really explain why I so immediately
and favourably respond to the distortions
used by Leopold Stokowski and react
so negatively to those used by Bernstein;
it must be simply a matter of personality
type. I truly admire many of Bernstein’s
recordings of classical and modern music.
Maazel’s soprano Kathleen
Battle has a beautiful, angelically
pure voice. It is difficult to forget
all the bad press she has received over
the years, and easy to interpret that
publicity so as to hear conceit and
arrogance in her voice, but I don’t
think any of that is really there. I
think she sings beautifully, if perhaps
just a little too perfectly, maybe verging
on a preciousness which does not convey
innocence. Maazel is on his good behaviour
and gives a good, straightforward, well
recorded reading of the score. Until
recently this version could be recommended
over all others with little controversy.
Fritz Reiner’s timing
is only about a minute longer than Boulez,
and that was considered a fast performance
in its day. This was my preferred version
for many years and is a very dramatic,
intense, recording and the dynamic range
is exceptional, stretching the bounds
of the recording medium with some slight
distortion on loud passages. His soprano
Lisa Della Casa sings with intelligence
and animation but has a little difficulty
with pitch in the unaccompanied phrases.
Tilson-Thomas’s recording,
praised for good SACD recording, but
criticised for erratic and slow tempi,
has not made many short-lists. No one
has overly praised the soloist. I have
not had the chance to hear it through
myself on my SACD set-up.
Missing from our list
is a recording by Mahler’s friend and
champion Hermann Scherchen. He didn’t
care for this work, performed it rarely
and never recorded it. We are left with
the Bruno Walter versions to give us
our only entrée to the
intimate world of Mahler’s own preferences.
Silverline have promised
us to release the widely praised Abravanel
recording on a DVD-Audio soon. Netania
Davrath has a pretty, elegant voice,
perhaps, like Kathleen Battle, almost
too pretty. My recollection of the Abravanel
recording is that the voice is too far
forward, but I do not have a copy at
hand for direct comparison. I believe
that recording was originally a two
channel master.
This Boulez recording
has a certain French elegance to it,
and this is the only one of Mahler’s
symphonies where that would be any kind
of advantage. This is now my preferred
version of this work. I first heard
it as a CD, and then on this SACD pressing;
the clarity and orchestral detail are
superb, the dynamic range perhaps slightly
reduced. This is the only SACD I have
seen where they actually give the resolution:
44.1/24bit, and it shows. A DVD-audio
would give us better than that, at least
48/24 or 96/24. If I were to find a
flaw in this performance, I would say
that frequently the conductor is just
a little too quick on the pick-up. I
think this is one of the fastest Mahler
Fourths on disk today, however
there is no sense of being rushed, it
is just that when the phrase reaches
a point of repose calling for a momentary
pause, a relaxation of tension, the
resumption of forward motion feels slightly
abrupt. It is the sort of thing that
could have been done by the producer
and editor after the recording was in
the can, although I don’t think they
would dare tamper in this manner with
the work of a conductor of Boulez’s
stature.
The soprano, Juliane
Banse, is fine, singing with care, intelligence,
and grace, but she is not spectacular.
The ideal voice for this part — bright,
naive, childlike — remains an unfulfilled
quest.
Paul Shoemaker
Juliane Banse (soprano) 
DG
474 991-2 [53.32]