Pierre Boulez may be the only conductor alive at present to have recorded Mahler’s Das klagende Lied twice, first for Sony in the premiere recording of the original first part, Waldmärchen, plus the revised version of the rest, and now just Mahler’s final two-part score. That first performance was not particularly exciting, but it was at least unique. This one is neither. Boulez accompanies with expected fluency, but he appears to have little conception of the piece. Tempos are swift, the playing uninflected. There’s no mystery in the first half, no sense of celebration at the opening of the second, or terror when the bone flute sings its accusatory song. The soloists all sing well, but so what? If you’re looking for Mahler’s two-part version, Haitink remains the version of choice, and for all three parts, Thomas or Chailly are tough to beat.
Boulez can be expected to conduct Berg well; after all, he led the stunning first complete recording of Lulu. But if you compare that recording to this one, once again you will hear that Boulez’s temperature seems to have cooled noticeably in the intervening years. The opening Rondo is one of the quickest on disc, a good couple of minutes faster than Abbado or Levine, and yet the music seems to drift aimlessly. Berg’s carefully marked primary voices (Hauptstimmen) fail to tell as they should; balances seem somehow “off”. The Ostinato and Variation movements go well, and Anna Prohaska, save for a couple of pinched high notes, sings the Lied accurately enough, but the closing Adagio lacks passion and the murder scene has no impact whatsoever.
Part of the problem undoubtedly stems from the engineering. The live recording lacks dynamic range and places the horns and other brass well back in the mix. You hear lots of vibraphone in the Berg, but fortissimos carry little weight or amplitude. The audience is very silent. Indeed, you’d never know that this is a live performance at all, both on that account and because of the near total lack of tension. The local critics at this 2011 Salzburg Festival performance (predictably) raved. You have to wonder what they were listening to. I guess you had to be there.
