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Bernarda Fink’s Puzzling Mahler Songs

David Hurwitz

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

Bernarda Fink is a wonderful Lieder singer, and Harmonia Mundi is an excellent label. So what’s wrong with this recital? Why do I get the impression that singer and label don’t trust Mahler, and don’t trust themselves? The facts are telling, and here they are.

Fink sings the Kindertotenlieder with orchestra, as Mahler wrote them, and she does it very movingly. The only exception is a certain heaviness in the last song, partly the result of some soggy conducting from Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and even there the instrumental coda is divine. Fink offers the early songs (Im Lenz, Winterlied, Ablösung im Sommer, Nicht wiedersehen! and Frühlingsmorgen) with their original piano accompaniments, and the only criticism in these performances is her coyness in Ablösung im Sommer and the pianist’s unconvincing rubato. The rest are lovely. Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen, from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, is also very beautifully sung in Mahler’s orchestral version. Then things start to get weird.

The Songs of a Wayfarer uses Schoenberg’s wretched chamber version, an option that only exists because Mahler’s full orchestra was unavailable at the time. But here, an orchestra clearly was available, and under those circumstances to play anything other than Mahler’s original is just plain silly–even disrespectful. Adding insult to injury, two Rückert-Lieder (Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft and Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen) are played with orchestra, the latter really too swiftly. Two others, Liebst du um Schönheit and Um Mitternacht, feature voice and piano, despite the fact that the latter sounds lousy on a keyboard and boasts one of Mahler’s most glorious orchestrations. The last of the Rückert songs, Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder, which Mahler also orchestrated, is omitted entirely for no discernible reason. Maybe because the accordion transcription wasn’t available in time?

I know, I know. What we’ll be told is that this is simply an effort to make the music more interesting by offering a variety of different settings, but that is precisely the point. Isn’t the music interesting enough as Mahler wrote it? Isn’t Bernarda Fink a fine enough artist to sing these songs in their original or optimal form and make the experience compelling? As I suggested, it’s a question of trust. I understand that it’s a tough market today, and that labels are desperate to find new ways to present familiar repertoire. I get it.

But to be frank, if great music, magnificently performed, in a manner that is faithful to the composer’s evident conception, isn’t justification enough for a new recording, then a classical label might as well close up shop and go home. I am not suggesting that there are not creative ways to re-imagine or even play with presenting the classics, but this particular random hodge-podge certainly is not one of them. It is the last thing I might have expected from a classy outfit like Harmonia Mundi. It bespeaks an air of desperation.


Recording Details:

Album Title: A Life In Songs
Reference Recording: Song Cycles: Baker (EMI)

  • MAHLER, GUSTAV:
    Songs of a Wayfarer (arr. Schoenberg); Kindertotenlieder; Rückert-Lieder (4); Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen; Early Lieder

    Soloists: Bernarda Fink (mezzo-soprano); Anthony Spiri (piano)

    Gustav Mahler-Ensemble
    Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, Andrés Orozco-Estrada

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