Search - Various :: Four Songs From Ruckert-Lieder / Songs of Wayfarer

Magnificent Mahler, But...

Michael B. Richman | Portland, Maine USA | 07/30/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"When I purchased Leonard Bernstein's Complete Mahler Symphonies on Sony I was very excited. I had listened to enough individual Mahler Symphony performances to know that I loved this composer, and now I was finally getting to hear the first, and arguably the best, Mahler Cycle. The set did not let me down, but I initially I felt like Sony did by not including this CD in that box set. This CD of Mahler's Lieder is the only Mahler CD in the Bernstein Century series not to be included in the box. And now I see why -- because it is just Leonard Bernstein playing piano with baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau! You see, the Ruckert Lieder and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen were written for the vocalist to be accompanied by full orchestra, or just piano, and what we have here is the latter. This is a first rate collaboration, but piano-playing Leonard Bernstein is a far cry from symphonic Leonard Bernstein, and I frankly was a bit disappointed."

This is one of the best

Timothy | Arkana, Montana | 06/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am quite dissapointed to read that another reviewer failed to realize that this Cd brings together the two Mahler authorities of the 20th Century!!! Bernstein almost single-handedly brought Mahler into the public knowledge, and noone does it like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau!!!



You will not be upset by this at all - it is an incredible performance captured on this wonderful meeting. I recommend this without any reservation whatsoever."

Hit-and-miss Mahler from two great musicians

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 01/24/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Much as I admire Leonard Bernstein, sometimes to the point of extravagance, the first Ruckert song on this CD made me wince -- he and Fischer-Dieskau caress "Ich atmet' einen Linden Duft" to the point of suffocation with their archly slow tempo and oozing sentiment. It's exactly what Bernstein's critics accuse him of. They've over-egged the pudding, as the British would say, so I was relieved when the second Ruckert song is a model of finesse and propotion. I'm afraid that Fischer-Dieskau and Bernstein formed a mutual admiraiton society that satisfied them but perhaps didn't wholly serve Mahler. Thus we get self-indulgent crooning from the singer -- not always but too often -- and undisciplined expression from Bernstein as pianist. The microphone is place close to both performers, and hearing F-D so intimately can be a bit suffocaating.



It's odd that in this period, roughly the late Seventies, that they made such a pair. I've always founded F-D the kind of singer who externalizes what he sings, meaning that he uses artifice to make up for natural feeling, while Bernsteinwas noting if not a well of self-expression and at times too much feeling. In Mahler's greatest song, "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" I didn't believe the singer's affected emoting for one minute, while Bernstein gives us a profound reading of the accompaniment. And so it goes, with the listener never knowing if the next song will be cringing or marvelous. I can't imagine listening to this whole CD, which combines two separate LPs, in one sitting. I suppose I will just have to take the bitter with the sweet."