Gustav Mahler

Mahler Symphony No. 4 (Yoel Levi recording)

Mahler Symphony No. 4 is a 73-minute studio album on which Mahler's Fourth and his song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen are performed by Frederica von Stade and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Background#

The album was recorded shortly after von Stade and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra had performed its programme with Levi in concert.

Recording#

The album was recorded digitally on 11–12 July 1998 in Symphony Hall at the Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta, Georgia.

Packaging#

The cover of the album was designed by Jim Burt of Burt & Burt Studio under the art direction of Anilda Carrasquillo. It features photography by Tom and Pat Leeson.

Critical reception#

There are many recordings of Mahler’s 4th. David S. Gutman reviewed the album in Gramophone in July 1999, comparing it with recordings of the symphony conducted by Lorin Maazel, Colin Davis and Claudio Abbado - the latter also featuring von Stade as soloist - and with a recording of Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen that von Stade had made with Andrew Davis. Von Stade’s contribution to the symphony’s fourth movement - separated from the third by a puzzling, extended pause - was, he thought, “slightly disappointing”. The passing years had robbed her of a little of the “boyish freshness” that she had brought to the movement’s Wunderhorn song when taping the symphony with Abbado in 1977. Abbado’s album also bettered Levi’s in its orchestral playing, as did Gutman’s other reference recordings of the symphony. Levi’s Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was “fine”, but it lacked the sumptuous string tone that the Vienna Philharmonic had produced for Abbado and Maazel or the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for Colin Davis. Conducting, Levi displayed both strengths and weaknesses. As he had already shown on his recordings of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 6, his approach to the composer was “fresh-toned and understated”, and he was well suited temperamentally to a work with a “relatively sunny disposition and low neurosis quotient”. His interpretation rejoiced in “incidental beauties” and “a mass of detail and colour”. But he had allowed himself many (admittedly small) deviations from Mahler’s stipulated tempos and accent markings, and his reading as a whole was “just a shade undercooked”.

CD track listing#

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) Symphony No. 4 (1901), text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (traditional) * 1 (16:58) Bedächtig, Nicht eilen * 2 (9:32) In gemächlicher Bewegung, Ohne Hast * 3 (20:33) Ruhevoll * 4 (9:19) Sehr behaglich Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1896), text by Gustav Mahler * 5 (3:53) “Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht” * 6 (4:25) “Ging heut’ Morgen über’s Feld” * 7 (3:26) “Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer” * 8 (4:50) “Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz”

Musical#

Frederica von Stade, mezzo-soprano
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Yoel Levi, conductor

Other#

Robert Woods, executive producer
Elaine Martone, recording producer
Michael Bishop, recording engineer
Thomas C. Moore, editor and recording assistant
James Yates, technical assistant

Release history#

Telarc released the album on CD (catalogue number CD-80499) in 1999 with a 16-page insert booklet including texts in German and English, detailed notes by Nick Jones, a biography and photograph of von Stade and a list of the members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra who took part in the recording.