he Lied

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.

This immeasurable masterpiece has a disconcerting habit of resisting attempts to capture its haunting and evocative atmosphere on disc. There is no really bad recording, but only two or three to which I at any rate return again and again secure in the knowledge that I will be as moved as I often am in the concert-hall. I'm afraid this new recording can't be added to that select band. It is, I hasten to say, a very fine recording indeed, as most of this Frankfurt Mahler cycle have been.

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.