Mahler: Symphony No.4*
Songs of a Wayfarer#
Two songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn+
Joan Carlyle*
Anna Reynolds#
Elly Ameling+
London Symphony Orchestra*
English Chamber Orchestra#+
Conducted by Benjamin Britten
BBC Music Legends "Britten As Performer 4" - BBCB 8004-2
Benjamin Britten's admiration for Mahler went back a long way, long before
the Mahler "boom" of the early sixties, to before World War Two. In his
fascinating liner notes, Donald Mitchell identifies his friend Britten as
one of the leading figures in the early renaissance of Mahler's music, a
renaissance Mitchell maintains would have started much earlier had it not
been for the war.
In 1930 the sixteen-year-old Britten had been present at the Queen's Hall
in London to hear Henry Wood conduct the Fourth Symphony. Four years later
he had been in Vienna to hear the same work under Mengelberg and in that
city buy the miniature score now preserved at the Britten-Pears Library
in Aldeburgh. In 1936 he had listened enthralled to a radio broadcast of
Kindertotenlieder and a year later written to a friend of his admiration
for Das Lied Von Der Erde. He owned the two sets of 78s preserving
Walter's live Vienna performances of that work and the Ninth from 1936 and
1938. A remarkable series of facts when you consider how hard it was to
hear Mahler's music in England in the 1930s when his music was regarded
largely with either contempt or indifference by all but the most fervent
admirers. All this and more makes Britten's interpretations of Mahler
something to be savoured. I also believe there is something special about
one composer expressing admiration for another through his interpretative
skills: surely the ultimate compliment of one colleague to another over
and above what ever other insights they may bring. Because, make no
mistake, Britten was a fine conductor in his own right and these recordings
can be considered alongside any others currently before us.
In hospital in 1943 Britten had written to Erwin Stein of "my precious
Mahler 4th, which I think I have more genuine affection for than any
piece in the world", and in 1961 (whilst at work on the War Requiem) he
programmed the work at that Summer's Aldeburgh Festival. The BBC recording
with the LSO in Orford Church makes up the lion's share of this fourth CD
in the "Britten As Performer" series from the BBC. Splendidly restored
for CD, it has a rich and deep sound with some church reverberation but
no distortion to playing which, while not secure at all times, breathes
humanity and involvement from a very alert LSO in one of their golden
periods. In fact no apologies need to be made for the sound at all which
can more than hold its own against all-comers.
In 1963 Britten talked about this Aldeburgh performance of two years
before to an interviewer when he said: "My experience of conducting the
Fourth Symphony at Aldeburgh showed me what a master of form he (Mahler)
is, particularly in the first movement of that great work." These thoughts
seem to partly explain the decision for his brisk tempo in the first
movement which at 15:21 is the fastest I have ever heard. But it may also
have something to do with the fact that in recent years tempi in Mahler
have become slower as more and more conductors, in my opinion, choose to
impose themselves and hang their own (real or trendily imagined) neuroses
on music which is more than capable of expressing its own character without
the conductor interfering.
The effect from the start and throughout is of lightness and optimism,
classical tautness rather than romantic weight, and I think this general
approach suits the character of the music very well. Fritz Reiner,
next fastest at 15:41 and recorded - significantly in the light of my
observation regarding slower tempi - three years before Britten, tried for
the same effect but with far less warmth. So Britten must be applauded for
taking the idea to its logical extreme while, like Rafael Kubelik at 15:48
and recorded in 1969, not compromising the poetry in the music. His lower
strings may get caught a little unaware at 21 but they soon become used to
what is being asked. In fact one of the sounds one takes away from this
recording is the attention Britten pays to articulating the lower strings,
helped by the acoustic. With a brisk edge to the tempo any relaxations of
pace Mahler asks for, like at 38-46, do tell even though they don't
distract from the general sharpness as they sometimes do under other
interpreters.
At the close of the Exposition there are some lovely string slides,
as idiomatic a Mahler sound as you could hope for, and this also applies
to the spicy woodwinds at the start of the Development in the passage
102-124 where Britten is careful to inject a more dramatic cloak to the
proceedings. The "climax on the dissonance" during 221-228, leading to the
premonition of the Fifth Symphony's opening (the "Kleiner Appel"), is well
observed but not to the extent that it protrudes and holds up the sense of
momentum the stronger structural/formal approach has brought with it.
Likewise the passage a little later which Mahler asks to be played "mit
grosser ton".
It's a delicate balance this "form versus detail" dichotomy and though
Britten clearly veers to the former he seems aware enough of the latter
pulling him back since, in the closing section, his ability to bring out
delectable points of detail without diminishing the sharp focus shows that
a conductor doesn't really need to slow up and "ham up" in order to seduce
the ears of the listener. This closing section more than any other in the
movement, maybe even in the whole symphony, is a vindication of Britten's
approach. I imagine it takes preparation and hard work to bring off but
Britten clearly wasn't afraid of that nor, on the basis of what we hear,
were Pierre Monteux's LSO. A refreshing end to a refreshing performance
of the first movement with much to tell us about this work and the way it
might be performed. Mahler once said that the upper limit of a tempo is
the point at which individual notes stop being heard. As a composer,
Britten must have agreed with this.
By not lingering too much over the Trios in the second movement Britten
keeps the momentum up here also. I must also draw attention to the
deliciously played violin solos which make their out-of-tune effect without
appearing to be too ill-mannered (Hugh Maguire, perhaps) and some superb
solo horn playing (Barry Tuckwell, surely). The performance of this
movement comes out on the side of the angels to come rather than the Devil
whose violinist Death ("Friend Hein") dances around us but never really
threatens.
If freshness and classical rigour seemed the keynote in the first and
second movements it's clear Britten reserves the true emotional heartbeat
for the third in an interpretation which is one of the finest (maybe even
_the_ finest) I have ever heard. Following the first two movements you
could be forgiven for expecting something in the same vein but Britten
confounds expectations by delivering breadth and lyricism which stand out
in even greater relief following what he has done earlier. It's one of
those performances that if you know you are going to have to review it you
find the notebook you have been keeping for remarks remains blank because
you are lost in sheer enjoyment. Listen to the meticulous care for
dynamics both in the string parts and the woodwind solos. This is string
playing of the highest calibre. Not slick and well-drilled, but unified in
its humanity and its adherence to a sung, phrased line. The flinging open
of the gates episode (at No.12) is big and powerful, but it's _warm_ also
and it sounds perfectly integrated with the rest of the movement. Barry
Tuckwell's horn section are resplendent over timps that are admirably
reined back for a change too: not for Britten the cannonade we are too
often used to here which helps to keep the moment in proportion to the
rest.
The insistence on how every phrase must be "sung" doesn't mean everything
is done against the service of the form in which it's set, though. Once
again Britten manages a unique balance between detail and structure, erring
this time on detail while just keeping track of the variation form Mahler
employs. It's this latter aspect of the performance which means that,
though the overall timing is 20:21, the movement seems to take less time.
Britten leaves us wanting more, I suppose you could say, and this latter
aspect seems to be the explanation behind why I felt the last movement
seemed such a more natural than usual conclusion to the symphony.
Sometimes the final song can sound as though it's been tacked on to the
work and so emerge as an afterthought. Under Britten, with his care for
through-thinking, there is no question that he accepts Mahler's decision
to end things like this and is able to make it sound a natural progression
- as if all symphonies end thus. Again he is quite quick and pungent,
with some sharp interruptions and is aided here by his lively soprano,
Joan Carlyle, who I rather liked. To me there's a "Tomboy" quality to her.
Though I expect others might think she sounds too operatic. If she is then
she's more of a Cherubino than a Susanna. I also enjoyed the down-swoops
from the horns and the way Britten relates the bells in this last movement
to those of the first giving a real sense of a full circle being completed.
Don't expect the kind of ending you get with Barbirolli, for example. A
gentle drift into slumber is not in Britten's mind. He maintains his
sharpness to the end but at least the restorers at the BBC have carefully
edited out the applause of the audience to leave us in repose.
This recording of Mahler's Fourth surely has historic status alongside
those by Hidemaro Konoye, Willem Mengelberg and Bruno Walter. Britten's
presence as conductor alone demands it. But more than that I think it
deserves to be compared with recordings by Szell, Maazel, Reiner, Kletzki,
Horenstein, and one or two others, for general recommendation - a classic
as well as a historic recording. Irrespective of the fact that this is one
great composer's view of another, I've no doubt this is a recording which
deserves to be on every Mahlerian's shelf. Its care for neo-classical
structure and, at times, bracing energy that can also accommodate a large
amount of observed, sometimes newly-minted, detail and, in the remarkable
slow movement, ample nobility, make it special. In future I might reach
for it first.
And there's more. I can think of just two other single disc recordings
of the Fourth with couplings? The Wayfarer Songs are from the Aldeburgh
Festival of 1972 and match Anna Reynolds with Britten and The English
Chamber Orchestra in the Snape Maltings. This is another great
interpretation in beautifully balanced sound (the best sound of the three
items) good enough to stand alongside those by Fischer-Dieskau with
Furtwangler and Janet Baker with Barbirolli. Britten's use of a smaller
orchestra means we are treated to some lovely detailing and allowed to
enjoy his remarkable insight into songs he had admired all his life. Note,
for example, the conclusion to the third song where Britten seems to find
pre-echo of the disintegration at the end of the Fifth Symphony's second
movement, and then the wonderful sense of funeral tread he brings to the
fourth song: more Fifth than First Symphony, and deeply moving for that.
Anna Reynolds seems intimate with the text and you can ask no more than
that.
The final couplings are two Wunderhorn songs with Elly Ameling from the
1969 festival and recorded in Blythburgh Church owing to the fact that the
Maltings had been gutted by fire a few weeks before. We can hear again
Britten's high regard for Mahler in the care he lavishes on these two
jewels from the master's workshop, one of which, "Wer hat dies Liedlein
erdacht", he had heard Elisabeth Schumann sing in London in 1932, two years
before he had heard her in the last movement of the Fourth Symphony in
Vienna under Mengelberg. Elly Ameling has just the right kind of perky
voice for these songs which makes her account of the grim "Das irdische
Leben" that much more chilling.
Buried treasure from the archives and a great Mahler conductor restored
to us, then.
Tony Duggan
Staffordshire,
United Kingdom.
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