Mahler · Symphony No.4 in G · Sylvia McNair soprano · Berliner Philharmoniker · Bernard Haitink
Mahler · Symphony No.4 in G · Sylvia McNair soprano · Berliner Philharmoniker · Bernard Haitink
APE+CUE 249 MB | EASY CD-DA 12 | No Log | Booklet | 1993
Mahler · Symphony No.4 in G · Sylvia McNair soprano · Berliner Philharmoniker · Bernard Haitink
His symphony represents a culmination and distillation of the previous three. It is the shortest of Mahler's symphonies, with a reduced orchestra, and a style consciously archaic in its evocation of classical models. Yet it is redolent of the Wunderhorn aesthetic that imbues this entire period of Mahler's career. The entire symphony, in fact, grew out of the final movement, which Mahler originally composed for his orchestral song collection on poems from Das Knaben Wunderhorn (The Young Boys' Magic Horn). Mahler originally planned to use this song, "Das himmlische Leben" (Heavenly Life), as the Finale for his Third Symphony, but withdrew it, probably because its theme was so similar to that of the fifth movement. At any rate, the other three movements were extrapolated from this long and joyful folk song and were calculated to culminate in its childlike vision of heaven. This in part explains the relatively lighter mood of the symphony as a whole as well as its tendency toward a more classical balance in its style, proportions, and scoring. In spite of the greater popularity of the Second Symphony, which in some ways is more typically Mahlerian, the Fourth Symphony, although lacking the barn-storming climaxes and extremes of emotion, was his best composition to date and entirely more refined and subtle in expression and technique. allmusic.com
Bernard Haitink was one of the first conductors to record a complete Mahler cycle, a project he embarked on while chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, an orchestra that has a long tradition of performing Mahler. He started this Mahler cycle in September 1962 and completed it in September 1971 and it remains a reference set for all devotees of MahlerÆs music. Haitink continues to conduct Mahler with some of the worldÆs finest orchestras and during the late 1980s and 1990s he re-recorded most of the symphonies with the Berliner Philharmoniker.
CD
Symphony No.4 in G
G-dur · en sol majeur
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