L'âme Soeur Natalie Bauer Lechner et Gustav Mahler

Gustav est un compositeur qui ne parvient pas à surmonter le décès de sa fille Putzi. Quand il reçoit une lettre qui lui est adressée par erreur et signée de l'amant de sa femme Alma, l'architecte Walter Gropius, sa vie se brise un peu plus. Alma, qui a déjà fait beaucoup de sacrifices pour son mari et affronte également la mort de sa fille, est confrontée à un choix. …

This unbelievably exciting record is actually a Mahler world premiere! Das klagende Lied was Mahler's first great work–he was only 18 when he wrote it–but he later removed its first part and extensively revised the remaining two. The original versions of the second two parts, then, have never been performed until their release in 1997 as part of the new critical edition. The music is, as might be expected, less polished than the revision, but it's also wilder and even more powerful in many respects. Hopefully it will gain new attention for this neglected but totally characteristic work. This performance is nothing short of spectacular, and makes the best possible case for Mahler's original thoughts.

Transcriptions of chamber works to orchestral works have been interesting asides for composers for a long time - whether the transcription are alterations of a composer's own songs or chamber works to full orchestral size or those of other composers for which the transcriber had a particular affinity. Stokowski's transcriptions of Bach's works are probably the most familiar to audiences. The two transcriptions on this recording are the creations Gustav Mahler and his election to transcribe the quartets of Beethoven and Schubert is not surprising: Mahler 'transcribed' many of his own songs into movements or portions of movements for his own symphonies. Listening to Mahler's transcriptions of these two well known quartets - Franz Schubert's String Quartet in D Minor 'Death and the Maiden' and Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet in F Minor 'Serioso' - provides insight into both the orginal compositions and the orchestration concepts of Gustav Mahler. The themes of these two works would naturally appeal to Mahler's somber nature. Mahler naturally extends the tonal sound of each of these transcriptions by using the full string orchestra and in both works it is readily apparent that his compositional techniques within string sections are ever present.

In an effort to arrange the first performance of his Seventh Symphony, Gustav Mahler declared it to be his best work, preponderantly cheerful in character. His younger colleague Schoenberg expressed his admiration for the work, and Webern considered it his favorite Mahler symphony. Nevertheless, it remains the least performed and least written-about symphony of the entire cycle, and has come to be regarded as enigmatic and less successful than its siblings.

Il existe de nombreux enregistrements de la Première Symphonie de Mahler, mais très peu d'entre eux proposent de découvrir un mouvement que le compositeur retira in fine : “Blumine”. “Après tant d’auditions comparées, il est donc assez rare d’être à ce point captivé dès les premières mesures ! […] Le dosage est tout simplement magistral entre parodie et poésie, entre lyrisme et dérision, entre la “laideur” délibérée des timbres de l’orphéon villageois et l’envoûtante magie sonore des cordes… un chef évidemment possédé par Mahler.