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Recorded at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London, 12 April 2011 Producer – Misha Donat Engineer – Jonathan Stokes, Classic Sound Ltd Design – With Relish (for the ) and Darren Rumney Cover image CLebrecht Music & Arts MAHLER LORIN MAAZEL P2013 Philharmonia Orchestra C2013 Signum Records SYMPHONY NO. 1

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“On Mahler” Mahler’s earlier symphonies frequently draw on the world of his Wunderhorn songs – A century after his death, Mahler’s music settings of simple folk poems about birds and SYMPHONY NO. 1 resonates more powerfully than ever. Its animals, saints and sinners, soldiers and their unique mix of passionate intensity and lovers. But this apparently naive, even childlike 1 I. Langsam, schleppend - Wie ein Naturlaut 16.26 terrifying self-doubt seems to speak directly to tone is found alongside vast musical our age. One moment visionary, the next 2 II. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell 8.27 canvasses that depict the end of the world. In despairing, this is music that sweeps us up in quieter, more intimate movements, Mahler 3 III. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen 11.19 its powerful current and draws us along in its seems to speak intimately and directly to the 4 IV. Stürmisch bewegt 20.44 drama. We feel its moments of ecstatic rapture listener, but the big outer movements are Total timings: 56.57 and catastrophic loss as if they were our own. addressed to the entire world. At its most This is not music for detached contemplation: sentimental, Mahler’s music echoes the fairy- it matters to us, urgently and directly. Its tales of children’s picture books, yet in the musical language may be romantic, but what next moment it marches with gritted teeth and makes Mahler’s music so distinctively modern unleashes terrifying violence. is its unflinching honesty – its embrace of the contradictions of life and of art. Few All this makes for great symphonic dramas, wrote music of such searing lyrical often lasting more than an hour, which imply a intensity, nor music that is often ironic to the vivid sense of storytelling without ever being point of parody. But it took a long time for this confined to a specific programme (as a young unique tone to be understood; in his own man, Mahler adopted the idea of programmes time, critics heard Mahler’s ability to see the from the tone poems of , but PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA world from several perspectives as a sign of soon abandoned them). This is a LORIN MAAZEL CONDUCTOR insincerity. Today, we tend to read it as quite who insisted that the symphony should www.signumrecords.com the opposite. ‘include the whole world’ – hence its

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bewildering mix of different characters, and and annotations on his scores, he encouraged Symphony No. 1 (1888) he had removed the movement, clearly the the sense that, for him, it worked rather like listening to his music as a kind of music to a love scene, Mahler referred to it as the great novels of the 19th century, such as autobiography, as Berlioz had before him. Mahler suggested that his First Symphony and his hero’s ‘blunder of youth’. those by Dostoyevsky or Balzac. the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen arose But like all great art, Mahler’s music far from similar situations and the degree of The première, in November 1889, was We should remember that Mahler was a man exceeds the life that made it, just as it far overlap between them is certainly striking. For conducted by the composer in Budapest of the theatre who, for the 30 years of his exceeds his own age. His symphonies look a start, the symphony takes some of its where Mahler had recently become Artistic professional life, spent most of his time and back to those of Beethoven and Schubert, but material from the song cycle – the main theme Director to the Royal Hungarian Opera. Clearly energy in the . He at the same time forwards to the music of of the first movement is derived from the undecided as to what kind of work he had knew how to create an effect, to stage a scene Shostakovich and Britten. In his later works he carefree walking song Ging heut’ Morgen written, Mahler presented the work as a and to pace a drama. But, like anyone who has was increasingly drawn to the music of Bach, über’s Feld, and the dream vision at the end of ‘Symphonic Poem in Two Parts’, thus aligning worked in the theatre, he had an acute sense at the same time that his own music was the cycle reappears in the third movement of himself with the modernity of Richard Strauss that all art is ultimately artifice and make- revered by the young Schoenberg and his the symphony. But just as the songs were rather than the more conservative tradition of believe. His favourite writers were those whose pupils. This is music that crosses historical composed in the wake of Mahler’s failed Brahms. But critics and public alike were works underline their own fictionality which is boundaries – as contemporary and vital now relationship with Johanna Richter, so the perplexed by the abrupt changes of mood, why, after the dust of the drama has settled, as it was a hundred years ago. symphony was completed, at fever pitch in the especially between the spring-like atmosphere there is a quality of Mahler’s music that recalls spring of 1888, following the ending of his of the first three movements (Part I) and then the enchanted forest of Shakespeare’s A affair with Marion von Weber (wife of the the sudden reversal of character in Part II, with Midsummer Night’s Dream. composer’s grandson). In fact, it seems likely its funeral march and highly dramatic Finale. that the beginnings of the symphony go back Not for the last time, there was a demand for Perhaps it is this many-sided character to the to Mahler’s time in Kassel, and thus overlap the composer to provide a more helpful music that feeds our fascination with Mahler with the composition of the songs. In its commentary to his music. himself. Of course, this was fuelled by the original form it had five movements, including composer. Mahler subscribed fully to the an Andante (Blumine) composed in 1884 as The work languished for four years without a Romantic idea that art is made from the life of part of Mahler’s incidental music for the verse further performance, until 1893 when a the artist and, in comments to friends, letters, Maestro Lorin Maazel play, Der Trompeter von Säkkingen. Later, after revised version was performed in Hamburg,

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but Mahler’s ambivalence about the nature of so, critics reacted badly to the sense that this exuberant Allegro, based on the bright energy Mahler’s movement is not hard to hear in his work was still unresolved. He referred to it was indeed programmatic music, but with the of the second Gesellen song. But the divided terms of a scene from an opera – or operetta. both as a ‘Tone Poem in Symphonic Form’ and programme withdrawn. One called it ‘a satire world of the song cycle is not left behind; the The village dance of the outer sections gives as a ‘Symphony’. Stung by the critics’ of the symphony’ while others dubbed it, in sunny Allegro is cut short by a return to the way, in the central Trio, to more intimate comments at the première, he now provided comparison with Beethoven’s Eroica, a slow introduction, and the central exchanges – as if the chorus disperses to programmatic titles for each movement and sinfonia ironica. One listener recorded in her development section sees yet another return frame a rather flirtatious and slightly tipsy the whole work was titled ‘Titan’, apparently in diary: ‘An astonishing jumble of styles – and to this mysterious landscape. The lonely scene between the soloists. This is based on a reference to a novel by Jean-Paul Richter. Part 1 an ear-splitting, nerve-shattering din. I had wanderer can still be heard in the mournful slow waltz, characterised as sentimental and (From the Days of Youth: Flower, Fruit and never heard anything like it. It was exhilarating, dialogue between the and a forest bird wistful by the sighing glissandi in the strings Thorn pieces) consisted of three movements: but no less irritating.’ That was the impression (solo flute). In Mahler’s music the beauty of and the constant elasticity of the tempo. 1. Spring without end; 2. Blumine; 3. Under of the young Alma Schindler; she became nature is often the site of human loneliness full sail. Part II (Commedia humana) was Mahler’s wife less than four months later. but also the threshold to new life. The return to The start of the third movement remains made up of 4. The Huntsman’s Funeral the Allegro is marked by a quiet horn call; by shocking even to modern listeners. A timpanist Procession, a Death March in Callot’s Manner; If a symphony should contain the whole world, the end of the movement it is given fortissimo beats out a mechanical rhythm, over which a and 5. ‘Dall’ Inferno al Paradiso’. as Mahler was famously to suggest, it is fitting in great youthful whoops. solo double-bass plays the children’s song, that his First Symphony begins as if it were the Bruder Martin (Frères Jacques) in a minor key. By the time of the work’s fourth performance, beginning of the world. The slow introduction is The second movement opens with an The macabre effect of playing a nursery song in Berlin in 1896, Mahler had removed the marked Wie ein Naturlaut (like a sound of energetic country dance, derived from one of as a funeral march is enhanced by the thin Blumine movement altogether, and presented nature) and is one of Mahler’s most sustained Mahler’s earliest songs (‘Maitanz in Grünen’, tone of the double-bass – an early example of the work simply as a ‘Symphony in D major for landscape evocations – a musical depiction of or ‘Hans und Grete’). Mahler’s real fondness Mahler’s use of the grotesque. It must have full orchestra’, but his anxiety about dawn in which the distant sound of horns and for the heavy-footed pleasure of this Ländler is been utterly bewildering to Mahler’s first explanatory programmes persisted. For the military fanfares overlap with bird calls against clear; to the traditional folk material he adds audience – as if an old tramp had walked out Viennese première in 1900, Mahler ensured a background haze of string harmonics. a new contrasting section, more chromatic to sing on the stage of the Court Opera. But that his own comments on the movements Mahler described it as the awakening of and stormy, which acts as a foil to the return worse is to come, because the march is later were fed to a leading newspaper by his friend nature out of the long sleep of winter, ushering of the rustic simplicity of the opening. This is a interrupted by what seems like a band of and confidante, Natalie Bauer-Lechner. Even in ‘spring without end’. What follows is an staged village scene, not the real thing, and street-corner buskers, the two different

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musical types grating awkwardly against one when he wanted instruments to imitate the another. Into this nightmare, however, is tone of a singer. It appears like a distant vision inserted the vision from the end of the of a longed-for goal – but firmly in parenthesis. Gesellen songs – just another kind of unreality Taken as a whole, the Finale presents a in Mahler’s dreamscape. The title supplied for complex narrative of anticipated breakthroughs, this movement offers some background to the interruptions and re-beginnings. A chorale strange nature of this imaginative world. The theme in D major suggests that victory may be Huntsman’s Funeral was a picture by Moritz in reach, before the music collapses back to von Schwind in a popular children’s fairytale nothingness and a return to the mysterious book, in which the hunstman’s cortège is state of nature with which the whole symphony formed by the animals of the forest. With the began. The mood is more melancholic now – phrase ‘in Callot’s manner’, Mahler signalled the wandering lad is older and wiser – but the his sense of kinship with the weird and encounter with nature becomes a threshold to distorted tales of another of his favourite eventual victory. As the falling fourths rain authors, ETA Hoffmann. down in the repeated horn phrases of the chorale, like the tolling of bells, it is hard not This weird fantasy world is interrupted by the to be swept along by the sense that, in this Finale erupting, in Mahler’s words, as a music, Mahler has made real his vision. If the

‘sudden outburst of despair from a deeply Gesellen songs were about loss, then the First © Benjamin Ealovega wounded heart’. A storm of orchestral violence Symphony is about returning to that earlier is unleashed here, completely at odds with the loss and making it good. PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA leads the field for its quality of playing, and for symphony so far. When this eventually its innovative approach to audience subsides into a brooding silence, it is followed © Julian Johnson The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the development, residencies, music education by one of Mahler’s most beautifully shaped world’s great orchestras. Acknowledged as the and the use of new technologies in reaching a melodies. The marking for the strings is sehr UK’s foremost musical pioneer, with an global audience. Together with its relationships gesangvoll (very songful), a direction he used extraordinary recording legacy, the Philharmonia with the world’s most sought-after artists, most

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importantly its Principal Conductor and Artistic Southbank Centre. During 2013/14 the have included Lorin Maazel (Associate innovative programming policy, at the heart of Advisor Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Philharmonia Orchestra not only performs more than 35 Principal Conductor), Sir Charles Mackerras which is a commitment to performing and Orchestra is at the heart of British musical life. concerts at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival (Principal Guest Conductor), commissioning new works by leading Hall, but also celebrates its 17th year as (Principal Conductor and Music Director), Kurt composers, among them the Artistic Director Today, the Philharmonia has the greatest claim Resident Orchestra of De Montfort Hall in Sanderling (Conductor Emeritus) and of its Music of Today series, Unsuk Chin. of any orchestra to be the UK’s National Leicester and its 13th year as Orchestra in Giuseppe Sinopoli (Music Director). As well as orchestra. It is committed to presenting the Partnership at The Anvil in Basingstoke; and Esa-Pekka Salonen, current titled conductors Since 1945 the Philharmonia Orchestra has same quality, live music making in venues enters the third year of its residencies at the new are Christoph von Dohnányi (Honorary commissioned more than 100 new works from throughout the country as it brings to London Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury and the Three Conductor for Life) and Vladimir Ashkenazy composers including Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Sir and the great concert halls of the world. In Choirs Festival. The Orchestra’s extensive touring (Conductor Laureate). Peter Maxwell Davies, Mark-Anthony Turnage 2013/14 the Orchestra is performing more schedule this season also includes concerts in and James MacMillan. than 160 concerts, as well as recording scores Russia, , Switzerland, Italy, , The Philharmonia Orchestra continues to pride for films, CDs and computer games. Under France and Spain with Esa-Pekka Salonen, a itself on its long-term collaborations with the Throughout its history, the Philharmonia Esa-Pekka Salonen a series of flagship, two week residency at the Théâtre des Champs- finest musicians of our day, supporting new as Orchestra has been committed to finding new visionary projects – City of Dreams: Vienna Elysées in Paris performing Poulenc’s Les well as established artists. This policy extends ways to bring its top quality live performance to 1900 -1935 (2009), Bill Viola’s Tristan und Dialogues des Carmelites under Jérémie Rhorer, into the Orchestra itself, where many of the audiences worldwide, and to using new Isolde (2010), Infernal Dance: Inside the and tour of China in June with Salonen. players have solo or chamber music careers technologies to achieve this. Many millions of World of Béla Bartók (2011) and Woven alongside their work with the Orchestra. The people since 1945 have enjoyed their first Words, a celebration of Witold Lutosławski’s During its first six decades, the Philharmonia Philharmonia’s Martin Musical Scholarship experience of classical music through a centenary year – have been critically acclaimed. Orchestra has collaborated with most of the Fund has for many years supported talented Philharmonia recording, and in 2013/14 great classical artists of the 20th century. musicians at the start of their careers, audiences can engage with the Orchestra For 17 years now the Orchestra’s work has been Conductors associated with the Orchestra including an Orchestral Award, which allows through computer games, film scores and underpinned by its much admired UK and include Furtwängler, Richard Strauss, two young players every year to gain through its YouTube and Vimeo channels International Residency Programme, which Toscanini, Cantelli, Karajan and Giulini. Otto performing experience within the Orchestra. featuring the Orchestra’s award-winning began in 1995 with the launch of its residencies Klemperer was the first of many outstanding documentary films, which have been watched at the Bedford Corn Exchange and London’s Principal Conductors, and other great names The Orchestra is also recognised for its by more than a million people worldwide. In

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May 2010 the Orchestra’s digital ‘virtual Signum Records, releasing new live recordings LORIN MAAZEL Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Boston Philharmonia Orchestra’ project, RE-RITE, won of Philharmonia performances with its key Symphony Orchestra. He completed a Mahler both the RPS Audience Development and conductors. Since 2003 the Philharmonia has For over five decades, Lorin Maazel has been cycle in London with the Philharmonia (for the Creative Communication Awards, and after enjoyed a major partnership with Classic FM, one of the world’s most esteemed and sought- Mahler centennial year of 2011) in addition to appearances in London, Leicester and Lisbon, as The Classic FM Orchestra on Tour, as well as after conductors. In spring 2011, he completed touring extensively with the Orchestra in toured to Dortmund in November 2011, Tianjin continuing to broadcast on BBC Radio 3. his fifth and final season as the inaugural Europe. In September 2010, he marked the in China in April/May 2012, Izmir (Turkey) in Music Director of the Palau de les Arts Reina 100th anniversary of the première of Mahler’s June 2012, and in 2013 to Hamburg and the www.philharmonia.co.uk Sofia in Valencia, Spain. Music Director of the Eighth Symphony at the Ruhr Festival Salzburg Festival. RE-RITE, devised with Esa- from 2002 to 2009, he conducting the work with forces numbering in Pekka Salonen, secured the Philharmonia’s assumed the same post with the excess of 1,000 performers. In March 2011, position as a digital innovator and its follow-up Philharmonic at the start of the 2012/13 he took two Castleton Festival Opera audio-visual installation to RE-RITE, Universe of season. He is also the founder, Executive and productions to Berkeley, California (Cal Sound: The Planets, premièred at the Science Artistic Director of a new festival based on his Performances) for the West Coast debut of Museum from May to August 2012, receiving farm property in Virginia, the Castleton the company, with Britten’s Rape of Lucretia more than 67,000 visitors. It won the 2012 Festival, launched to exceptional acclaim in and Albert Herring. In August 2011 he RPS Award for Audiences and Engagement. 2009 and expanding its activities nationally conducted an all-Beethoven Festival in Rio de Following touring appearances in Birmingham and internationally in 2012/13 and beyond. Janeiro, Brazil. On 31 December 2011 he and Canterbury in 2013 Universe of Sound will conducted the first New Year’s Concert – form part of a major new audience development Maestro Maazel’s 2010/11 season was televised live for a world-wide audience – in and education initiative on the South West highlighted by productions of Aïda and his Beijing, China. In February 2012 Mr Maazel Peninsula in 2014 and 2015, alongside RE- own opera 1984 at the Palau de les Arts; two embarked on a Scandinavian-American Tour RITE and a new mobile “pop-up” installation. concerts with the newly formed resident with the celebrating their orchestra of China’s National Center for the 50-year long collaboration. Recording and broadcasting both continue to Performing Arts in Beijing; a marathon concert play a significant part in the Orchestra’s of all nine Beethoven symphonies in Tokyo; Maestro Maazel is also a highly regarded activities, notably through its partnership with and return appearances with the Royal composer, with a wide-ranging catalogue of

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works written primarily over the last dozen or established himself as a major artist, American to hold that position; Music Director so years. His first opera, 1984, based on appearing at Bayreuth in 1960 (the first of The (1972– 82); and ’s literary masterpiece, received American to do so), with the Boston Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the its world première at House, Symphony in 1961, and at the Salzburg (1965–71). His close Covent Garden, in May 2005. A revival of 1984 Festival in 1963. association with the Vienna Philharmonic took place at La Scala, Milan in May 2008 includes 11 internationally televised New Year’s and in Valencia, Spain in February & March In 72 years on the podium, Maestro Maazel Concerts from Vienna. 2011. A Decca DVD of the original London has conducted nearly 200 orchestras in no production was released in May 2008. fewer than 7,000 opera and concert Alongside his prodigious performing activity, performances. He has made over 300 Maestro Maazel has found time to work with A second-generation American born in Paris, recordings, including symphonic cycles/ and nurture young artists, based on his strong Lorin Maazel began violin lessons at the age of complete orchestral works of Beethoven, belief in the value of sharing his experience five, and conducting lessons at seven. He Brahms, Debussy, Mahler, Schubert, with the next generation(s) of musicians. He studied with Vladimir Bakaleinikoff and Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Richard founded a major competition for young appeared publicly for the first time aged eight. Strauss, winning ten Grands Prix du Disques. conductors in 2000, culminating in a final Between the ages of nine and 15, he round at two years later, and has conducted most of the major American During his music directorship of the New York since been an active mentor to many of the orchestras, including the NBC Symphony at Philharmonic Maestro Maazel conducted the finalists. In 2012 he was President of the the invitation of Toscanini. At 17, he entered orchestra on their landmark visit to Pyongyang, Malko Conductor’s Competition Jury in the University of to study languages, on 26 February 2008. Maestro Copenhagen. Through his Cháteauville mathematics and philosophy. In 1951 he went Maazel has been Music Director of the Foundation, in Castleton, Virginia, he has to Italy on a Fulbright Fellowship to further his Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio created a new Festival and training program studies, and two years later made his (1993–2002), Music Director of the Pittsburgh for young artists, bringing together aspiring European conducting debut, stepping in for an Symphony (1988–96); General Manager, singers, instrumentalists and conductors to www.maestromaazel.com ailing conductor at the Massimo Bellini Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the work in an intensive, collaborative environment, www.chateauville.org Theatre in Catania, Italy. He quickly (1982–84) – the first with guidance from senior artists and mentors. www.castletonfestival.org

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291.0mm x 169.5mm CTP Template: CD_INL1 COLOURS Compact Disc Back Inlay CYAN MAGENTA Customer YELLOW Catalogue No. BLACK Job Title SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD351 GUSTAV MAHLER SYMPHONY NO. 1

1 I. Langsam, schleppend - Wie ein Naturlaut 16.26 MAHLER: 2 II. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell 8.27 3 III. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen 11.19 SYMPHONY NO.SYMPHONY 1 4 IV. Stürmisch bewegt 20.44 Total timings: 56.57 PHILHARMONIA/MAAZEL PHILHARMONIA/MAAZEL SYMPHONY NO. 1 SYMPHONY NO. PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA

MAHLER: LORIN MAAZEL CONDUCTOR www.signumrecords.com

Signum Records Ltd, Suite 14, 21 Wadsworth Road, SIGCD351

CLASSICS Perivale, Middx UB6 7JD, United Kingdom LC15723 P DDD www.signumrecords.com SIGCD351 2013 Philharmonia Orchestra C 2013 Signum Records 24 bit digital recording SIGNUM www.philharmonia.co.uk

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