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CHAN 9836 Front.qxd 30/8/07 1:02 pm Page 1 CHAN 9836 CHANDOS MAHLER Symphony No. 4 Eva Johansson soprano Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Leif Segerstam CHAN 9836 BOOK.qxd 30/8/07 1:03 pm Page 2 Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) AKG Symphony No. 4 in G major . G-Dur . sol majeur 1 I Bedächtig 18:11 2 II In gemächlicher Bewegung. Ohne Hast 10:34 3 III Ruhevoll 22:39 4 IV Sehr behaglich 10:10 TT 61:42 Eva Johansson soprano Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Leif Segerstam Gustav Mahler 2 3 CHAN 9836 BOOK.qxd 30/8/07 1:03 pm Page 4 begun until mid-July of 1899, shortly after St John’s lamb is chased by Herod and Mahler: Symphony No. 4 the composition of the song Revelge slaughtered for the celestial banquet, while (Reveille). Much changed in appearance, it St Luke kills the oxen. The pathos of was completed in draft the following summer Mahler’s music at this point is hardly In his Fourth Symphony Mahler returned to 5 Die Welt ohne Schwere (The world without (on 5 August) but in neither year was its oppressive, although the cries of the animals the scale of the First and to the conventional weight) composition easy. Mahler continued to revise are distinctly heard in the orchestra. But he scheme of four movements. From the epic 6 Das himmlische Leben (Heavenly life) it in the winter of 1900–01 and worked on introduced a darker note in his ghostly world of the Second and Third Mahler That Mahler may have first imagined the aspects of its orchestration long after the first scherzo, which at the Amsterdam retained a single soprano soloist for the finale. Fourth Symphony as a six-movement work is performance (at Munich in 1901) and performances of 1904 was labelled The orchestra shrank from the vast size of the not surprising given the precedents of the publication of the first edition (1902); as late Todtentanz; Bruno Walter also explained that previous works, dispensing even with Second and Third. Nor is the presence of as 1911 he carried out further orchestral it was meant to be ‘Freund Hein spielt zum trombones and tuba (which Mahler thought three song-movements a surprise; Das irdische revisions. Tanz auf’ – Death strikes up the dance. In of including only for the climax of the slow Leben (a Wunderhorn setting from 1893) is The Fourth Symphony stands at a point keeping with the general mood this image of movement), though the woodwind and clearly meant to complement Das himmlische where Mahler lost faith in the value of death is friendly enough, but nonetheless percussion sections remain larger than the Leben from 1892. Morgenglocken is the song programmatic explanations. Nonetheless, he ‘eerie’ and ‘gruesome’ in context. The slow norms of the late-nineteenth-century which eventually became the fifth movement produced a steady stream of images for the movement in several accounts was linked symphony. Much of the work’s material is of the Third Symphony. Das himmlische symphony in letters to his friends and in with the smile of St Ursula, who appears in of a deceptive simplicity that has encouraged Leben was also linked for a time with the conversations with his confidante Natalie Das himmlische Leben. The German critic talk of ‘neo-classicism’, but Mahler also Third as a potential finale, and left its mark Bauer-Lechner. The work referred to a Adorno likened the Fourth Symphony to writes in places with a contrapuntal freedom on that work with an assortment of motivic ‘higher world’ which was at once cheerful ‘the shadowy millennium of Kafka’s Nature- that anticipates the instrumental references in various movements. Die Welt and eerie. He spoke of it as a ‘humoresque’, Theatre of Oklahoma’, and the suggestion of symphonies. ohne Schwere may be the starting-point for a genre also linked with the songs of Des an apocalypse seen through a perpetual haze The critic Paul Bekker published in 1921 a the third movement of the Fifth Symphony. Knaben Wunderhorn at one stage. Episodes in of innocence is not inappropriate. list of movement titles which refer to an early Whether Caritas, planned in B major, has the ‘uniform blue’ of the work were to evoke A number of motives serve to link the stage of the Fourth Symphony: anything to do with the slow movement of the ‘ghostly’ and the ‘gruesome’, while a movements of the work (an aspect that 1 Die Welt als ewige Jetztzeit (The world as the Fourth in its final form is doubtful (the ‘panic terror’ was to invade ‘brilliant day’ of Mahler took pains to point out to one eternal present) title also occurs in connection with the the ‘light-suffused forest’. Part of this derives commentator). Most of these derive from 2 Das irdische Leben (Earthly life) Eighth). The list probably dates from some from the nature of Das himmlische Leben in Das himmlische Leben and include the 3 Caritas (Charity) point in the mid-1890s while Mahler worked which a child’s paradise is recounted in a sleighbells with which the work begins. They 4 Morgenglocken (Morning bells) on the Third Symphony. The Fourth was not mixture of the naive and the bloodthirsty: serve in the first movement as an upbeat to a 4 5 CHAN 9836 BOOK.qxd 30/8/07 1:03 pm Page 6 seemingly straightforward sonata movement theme. Into this protracted idyll the full Deutsche Oper Berlin. Here, and in Schirmer succeeding him until July 1998. in which the theme groups have a orchestra strikes with the biggest climax of Copenhagen, she has sung roles such as From August 2000 the German conductor Haydnesque simplicity. The form is far from the work. The flutes’ pastoral call from the Mimì (La bohème), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Gerd Albrecht will take over this position; obvious, however, and the sleighbells recur to first movement is transformed into a flourish Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Fiordiligi (Così from the 1998/99 season he is Consultant underline structural divisions that go rather of trumpets and horns in the key of E major, fan tutte), Liù (Turandot) and Tatjana (Eugene and Conductor Designate. Principal Guest deeper than a superficial application of a which shadows the main G major tonality Onegin) as well as roles from the German Conductors are Michael Schønwandt and traditional form. In the development further throughout the symphony in a variety of dramatic repertoire. She is a frequent guest at Yuri Temirkanov. Thomas Dausgaard will material derived from the song occurs on the ways. Although the slow movement drifts many of the major European opera houses as assume this position from January 2001. The flutes as a moment of pastoral calm, pointing slowly back to the dominant of G in well as in New York and Japan and has Orchestra undertakes regular tours in Europe clearly to the mood of the finale. Mahler then preparation for the finale, the goal is clearly worked with conductors such as Claudio and abroad. creates his most astonishing development to prefigured. For the child’s vision of paradise, Abbado, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, date, in which shadowy fragmentation erupts amiable in its opening theme, scurrying in Daniel Barenboim, Marek Janowski, Leif Segerstam is currently Music Director into a blaze of C major, only for the vision to its episodes of slaughter, strident in the Christian Thielemann and Peter Schneider. and Chief Conductor of the Royal Swedish collapse in ‘panic terror’ with a shadowy return of the sleighbell figure, finally sinks Opera and Chief Conductor of the Helsinki anticipation of the trumpet fanfare from the into an E major oblivion in which the Founded in 1925, the Danish National Philharmonic Orchestra. He began his start of the Fifth Symphony. The flute call from the first movement dissolves Radio Symphony Orchestra is regarded as conducting career with positions in the recapitulation incorporates the vision; the into random fragments in cor anglais and Denmark’s leading symphony orchestra. opera houses of Helsinki, Stockholm and shadows are not extended until the scherzo. harp tone. The soprano proclaims the From its home in Copenhagen it undertakes Berlin, and he has made guest appearances at Death’s fiddle there is evoked by a scordatura awakening of everything into joy as the extensive concert, recording and touring The Metropolitan Opera, New York; Teatro violin tuned a semitone higher than normal symphony vanishes into the most profound activities. The Orchestra has performed alla Scala, Milan; The Royal Opera, Covent to impart an unnatural colour to the Ländler of silences. under many of this century’s greatest Garden; Teatro Colon, Buenos rhythms. The form is a scherzo with two conductors including Bruno Walter, Eugene Aires; the Salzburg Festival; and the opera statements of a trio, which foreshadows © John Williamson Ormandy, Leopold Stokowski, Rafael houses of Cologne, Geneva, Hamburg and Das himmlische Leben in motivic details. Kubelik, Daniel Barenboim and Herbert Munich. In 1997 he made his debuts in The slow movement is as close as Mahler Eva Johansson was born in Copenhagen Blomstedt, who was Chief Conductor from North America with the Los Angeles came to writing a traditional variation set but where, at the Royal Theatre, she 1967 to 1977. Other regular conductors Philharmonic, the Toronto Symphony characteristically there is a subsidiary theme subsequently gained a residence contract include Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony which seems to speak in the most personal for six years following her performance of Giuseppe Sinopoli. Leif Segerstam was Chief Orchestra where he has been re-invited for voice of the whole symphony, injecting a Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro).

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