Anthony Wit Mahler

Gustavo Dudamel's historic Mahler Project was a highlight of music-making in early 2012, for he led the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in Gustav Mahler's nine completed symphonies, in a series of critically acclaimed concerts. The first CD to be issued from the marathon event is Deutsche Grammophon's 2013 release of the Symphony No. 9 in D major, one of the most challenging of Mahler's works to interpret and one of the most satisfying to hear when it is played with insight and originality.

David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich have received extraordinary praise for their polished recordings of Gustav Mahler's symphonies, and kudos will surely greet the appearance of the Symphony No. 8 in E flat major, the most ambitious work of the cycle and the greatest challenge to a conductor's ability to marshal several ensembles into one immense entity. Hallmarks of Zinman's earlier Mahler recordings and RCA's superb engineering are the crispness and clarity of details, and the ensemble sound is exquisitely balanced between the chamber groupings within sections and the towering orchestral climaxes.

Though well known throughout Europe as a contralto/mezzo-soprano of distinction, Lilli Paasikivi is too little known in this country and this CD should be heard as an introduction to her high standards of artistry. Yes, she can be heard on other recordings (Mahler's Symphony No. 3 with Zander conducting, a new recording of Sibelius' 'Kullervo', and Stravinsky's 'Mavra' among others), but this recording of the songs of Mahler's wife, Alma Mahler, places her center stage with Jorma Panula conducting the Finnish Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra in his own orchestrations of Alma Mahler's song for voice and piano.

Born in Croydon in 1875, the son of a Sierra Leone-born doctor and English mother, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s childhood was a tough one. Yet, aged 15, he entered the Royal College of Music and studied composition with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. The interest generated by the music of ‘this new black Mahler’ soon put him on the musical map, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast being described as ‘one of the most remarkable events in modern English musical history’. In 1904, at a time when it was still extremely hard for black Americans to fulfil their cultural aspirations, he accepted an invitation to America and found himself hailed as an iconic figure. Throughout his short life he found his role as composer complemented by one as political activist fighting against racial prejudice.

Anthony Goldstone assembles a piano program centered on Benjamin Britten. Beyond putting Britten's music in the middle of the recital, he also intelligently relates the rest of the works to Britten in some way. Goldstone begins with works of two of Britten's teachers, Frank Bridge and John Ireland, then follows a few short Britten pieces with a set of preludes by his friend and contemporary Lennox Berkeley, and works from the 1970s by Ronald Stevenson and Colin Matthews, who were inspired by Britten. It's a program that ranges from the freely passionate, rhapsodic Dramatic Fantasia of Bridge to the atonality and minimalism of Matthews. Each work or set of pieces takes full advantage of all the capabilities of the piano, whether it be lyrical melodies or percussive animation, crashing bass chords or delicate sparks at the top of the keyboard.

This recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony is an event, because it was made with period instruments of the kind the composer used in Vienna. The Mahler Academy Orchestra set itself the task of reconstructing this instrumentarium and researching how musicians of the time played it: ‘We were struck during our rehearsals by the incredibly distinctive characterisation of the woodwinds, the shattering blare of the brass, the perfect balance between the instruments, and the pure and warm sound of the strings…