"Put this CD on the player and prepare to see Mahler's 4th in a whole new light. Listen to the tempos of the opening themes - once you adjust, it all seems to make perfect sense. Beautifully recorded, with each movement memorable - the coda of the slow movement is breathtaking. Finally, a 4th that stands above the other fine versions by Maazel, Karajan, Tennstedt, and Szell."
Lovely
George Grella | Brooklyn | 09/05/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Mahler 4 recordings are a highly competitive field. The two classic CDs, one led by Szell, the other by Maazel, are both available at great prices. If price is a consideration, there is no shame in going for either of those [I'm particularly found of the Maazel, with the fantastic playing of the Vienna Phil and Kathleen Battle, perhaps the ideal voice for the final movement]. While this Rattle recording is at full-price, in musical terms it is the equal of the others, a new classic.While Szell and Maazel are pretty straight with the music, Rattle in many ways lets Mahler be Mahler, to his great credit. He focuses on the modulations of tempo that are so important in Mahler performances. This is immediate in the very opening, with the unusual woodwind fanfare taken slower than one is used to hearing, with the phrase left a tempo as the strings take up the theme with a palpable quickening. Very effective!Throught, the conducting is lively. The scherzo is spry and witty, the beautiful slow movement really unfolds at a gentle, flowing tempo each moment seeming still but the line always moving forward, the type of thing Bernstein really mastered. Amanda Roocroft is not the ideal voice for the final movement, but her singing is fine.Rattle emphasizes lines and details, especially those in the low brass and winds, that do not come out in other recordings of this symphony, which again makes it worthwhile to hear and great music making. The CBSO doesn't have the lushness of the Vienna Phil, but their playing and musicality is peerless, reminiscent of the extraordinary instrumental quality on the Giulini led "Das Lied" with Berlin. The recording quality is excellent, resonant and full of detail. This is a great Mahler 4, competitive in musical terms with any, and one a Mahler collector should own."
Not bad, but
s_molman | CT United States | 06/21/2001
(3 out of 5 stars)
"there are so many great fourths that a "good" one is not really competitive. Rattle doesn't have the energy of Szell, the poetry of Walter, or the sheer vision of Horenstein and Barbirolli. It is, in a word, "nice". But this work is so much more than that. Even though it is Mahler's "lightest" work, it is by no means without its depths."
Always thinking, always interesting
Klingsor Tristan | Suffolk | 08/30/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"The performances in Rattle's Mahler series are never less than thought provoking and this disc of the Fourth is no exception. The very first bars come as something of a shock. The sleigh jingles are much slower than we're used to, there is a big ritardando in the lead-in and then the main first subject sets off at quite a lick. Rattle cites Berthold Goldschmidt, composer and great Mahlerian, as the inspiration behind this reversal of usual practice. But, of course, as is usual with Rattle's more challenging departures from traditional practice, the real justification is there in the score. And it unquestionably works. It means that this first movement, one of Mahler's most classically and traditionally structured sonata-form movements, needs far less gear-changing and pulling about of tempi than it gets from many conductors. It also allows Rattle to give much of the main material a real rhythmic bounce and lift without ever sounding hurried. Even the final bars, after a most wonderful hush in terms of orchestral sound, are given an exciting but never hysterical crescendo/accelerando to the finishing-line.
Rattle seems to view this symphony, with its growing interest in unconventional harmony and counterpoint, as the first of the middle-period symphonies as much as the last of the Wunderhorn symphonies. The trumpet call that launches the 5th stands out in the first movement's development section, for example. And the second movement seems to look forward to the grotesqueries of the scherzi in the 6th and 7th symphonies. The solo violin here, tuned up a tone from normal and representing Death playing his fiddle, is given just enough rough edge by the player and prominence by the engineers/conductor. The slow movement, too, is well judged by Rattle, always kept moving, never being allowed to stagnate or grind to a halt. The divisi violins, split left and right, really help the clarity of the counterpoint and the burst through to the vision of heaven is given the full weight of the trombone- and tuba-less orchestra to make it the cathartic moment it should be. Am I alone, though, in finding this slow movement, sublime and 'heavenly' though it may be in its own right, slightly too large and profound for this faux-naïve piece? I wouldn't want to be without it, but it does seem to unbalance the symphony in context.
The final movement was the first to be written - about 8 years before the rest of the symphony, around the time of the 2nd Symphony. For a time it was to be the last movement of the Third. Finally it became the focus of this work. Which meant that all the other movements were designed to lead up to it - hence the pre-echoes in the first and third movements. That's a lot of weight for a deliberately simplistic, strophic song to carry. Certainly it's a long way from the large-scale triumphant conclusions to Mahler's previous three symphonies. Rattle makes it work by never pretending it is anything other than it is. Amanda Roocroft has the young-sounding voice that obviates any need to pretend to more youthful tones than she has. And Sir Simon takes each verse of the song on its own terms, finally rocking the symphony to its close on the pianissimo of lower strings and harp.
This is a fine performance of the Fourth Symphony, beautifully recorded by the EMI engineers in the sympathetic acoustics of Birmingham's Symphony Hall. As with so many of his Mahler series, Rattle challenges conventions to telling effect merely by observing the composer's own multifarious markings in the score.
"
Pretty Good, But Better Is Available
Karl W. Nehring | Ostrander, OH USA | 07/25/2009
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Taken on its own merits, this is a pretty good recording of this popular Mahler Symphony. The playing is crisp and clean, and everything sounds nicely balanced. In the final movement, the soprano soloist, Amanda Roocroft, seems a bit dry in tone, but her voice is pleasant enough. All things considered, this is a pretty good recording.
But if then you put on the Telarc CD of the Atlanta Symphony under Yoel Levi, you will be shocked to hear how much better the latter disk sounds, both in terms of sound quality and performance. The sound gains depth, breadth, and fullness, the music seems to just flow along in uninterrupted inspiration, and the voice of the soloist, Frederica von Stade, is more attractive in itself and more attractively recorded. If you switch back to the EMI recording, you will find that Roocroft's voice sounds way too dry in the way it has been recorded, while von Stade's voice is allowed to fill space, and thus blends much more convincingly with the sound of the orchestra.
When I first reviewed the Telarc disk, I complained a little about Ms. von Stade's voice; but I take it back. The more I listen to the Telarc disk, the more I think that maybe it really is my favorite Mahler 4th of all, although sometimes I prefer the Salonen version on Sony, and at other times, the Boulez acount on DG. What it all boils down to in terms of this disk is that although the Rattle disk is a really good one, the competition is just to tough for it to merit a solid recommendation."
Track Listings (9) - Disc #1