Daniel Wolf Das Salz Der Erde

A host of accomplished conductors including Daniel Harding, Daniele Gatti, Bernard Haitink and Eliahu Inbal lead the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in these performances of Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 1-10. Recorded in Amsterdam over two seasons in 2010/11, the collection also includes 'Das Lied von der Erde'.

You will probably be as incredulous as I was to learn that the greatest cycle of Mahler symphonies comes not from any of the usual suspects - Abbado, Bernstein, Chially, Haitink, Kubelik, Rattle, Sinopoli, Solti, Tennstedt - but from the unsung Gary Bertini, who spent the better part of his career as music director of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. Unlike any of those more publicized sets, each of which includes a misfire or two, Bertini is consistently successful from first to last; his performance of each of these works can stand comparison with the very best available.

Conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, this performance of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) was recorded at concerts in Munich's Herkulessaal on January 25 and 26, 2018, and features Magdalena Kožená and Stuart Skelton. The work is subtitled 'A symphony for tenor, alto (or baritone) voice and orchestra'. It examines the border between two different genres: the Lied, in its extended form as a song cycle, and the symphony. The entire work is spanned by a taut arc, culminating – in accordance with the principle of intensification – in a huge final movement lasting as long as all the others together, and entitled Der Abschied (The Farewell). Here, Mahler is continuing the genre of the 'Finale Symphony', and the brightening of C minor to C major is even reminiscent of his usual apotheoses. In this symphony, as in his others, Mahler wanted to 'create a world using all existing technical means'.

This legendary Bayreuth Festival production of Wagner’s 'Der Ring des Nibelungen', directed by Harry Kupfer, with designs by Hans Schavernoch, and conducted by Daniel Barenboim, is considered perhaps the finest video recording of these four operas ever made. For their innovative modernist staging, Kupfer and his team turned away from the work’s time of origin and located The Ring at a “road of history”, a meeting-place of past, present and future, which sets the scene for the story’s struggles of power and love. Barenboim’s authoritative yet highly responsive reading of the immense score and the extraordinary performances of the cast help to make this a truly memorable Ring.

Gary Bertini’s Mahler is one of amazing transparency: so many details register for the first time that it makes you reconsider music you may have thought you knew. In the case of Das Lied von der Erde, arguably Mahler’s greatest work, Bertini continually draws us into the happenings behind the voices, beguiling us with the exquisite beauties of this miraculous score. You can almost see the blue mists floating over the lotus blossoms in Der Einsame im Herbst, so perfectly does he balance the gossamer strings and wind shadings, while the arrogant bass trombone and squealing clarinets tellingly evoke the acrid irony of Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde, which Ben Heppner sings with boastful abandon.