Remmert

It was in 1920 that Schoenberg undertook a transcription for small orchestra of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (a work he particularly venerated), intended for the Viennese Society for Private Musical Performances. But he was unable to complete it, and it was only in 1983 that the musicologist Rainer Riehn took up where Schoenberg had left off and produced a finished version. The result is quite extraordinary: Schoenberg not only managed to reproduce all the original sonorities, he also brought out the extreme density of the score.

This recording received the 1998 Cannes Classical Music Award for "Best Choral Performance - 19th/20th Centuries"..

It was a real treat to revisit this recording—to be reminded how exuberant the celebratory sections, how crisply articulated both the choral and orchestral performances, how perfectly calibrated and lively the tempos, how buoyant the spirit of the playing and singing. And the solo singing is pretty fine too. Made in Berlin’s Jesus-Christus-Kirche in 1993, the production offers superb sound that conveys a natural presence of singers and instruments while capturing proper balances among the various performance components—there’s a surprising vibrancy to the sound that I don’t recall from the original recording.

Un Diapason d'or en 2001 puis une discographie comparée ont déjà chanté l'aisance, l'humour et les voluptés des solistes et du chœur de Marcus Creed dans l'ultime chef-d'œuvre de Rossini. Retrouvez ce nouveau CD de la collection Les Indispensables de Diapason avec le numéro de juin de votre magazine.

David Zinman’s Mahler cycle really hits its stride with this remarkable performance of the Third Symphony. It only has two small drawbacks worth mentioning. First, alto Birgit Remmert sounds pretty good in her big fourth-movement solo, but she’s far less impressive during her brief contributions to the choral fifth movement. Perhaps this take came from another evening (the symphony was recorded during a series of live performances). Second, at the very end of the symphony, despite the very beautiful playing, the trumpets fail to ring out as Mahler’s score directs. Better this glowing sonority than stridency, but there’s no reason why we can’t have the best of both worlds (Haitink’s first recording with the Concertgebouw on Philips never has been surpassed in this respect).

Mendelssohn's highly potent brand of magic here in rhythmically robust live recordings of eight numbers from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a formidable team of soloists for the spooky Walpurgisnacht.

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