Chamber music density

Four of Gustav Mahler's symphonies, orchestrated by conductor and pianist Klaus Simon, have already been published by Universal Edition in Vienna (1st/4th/5th/9th). The Sixth will be printed in March 2019. Now the formidable Mythen-Ensemble Orchestral has presented a fantastic recording of the Fourth, which condenses Mahler's music like an essence. The fourteen instruments (string quintet, single woodwind, horn, two percussionists, piano and accordion) not only reflect an entire symphony orchestra without any loss of quality, but also bring out the special colors and flavors of the music even more due to the lack of filling voices.

Simon's arrangement is closely based on the original. Accordion (Teodoro Anzellotti) and piano (Manuel Bärtsch) are used very discreetly, sometimes to sharpen the sound. This is why the perfectly mixed recording sounds transparent and intimate. In the first movement, the ensemble's sweet strings are reminiscent of a Heurigen band (Andreas Janke, violin 1, and Benjamin Nyffenegger, cello). The change to the grotesque tone of the development and its collapse is therefore all the more frightening before a completely binding expression is achieved again. The density of the chamber music creates a close network of relationships. Every phrase speaks, every motif has plasticity. Conductor Graziella Contratto pays attention to the many details of the score, but always keeps an eye on the whole, as in the broadly sung slow movement. And with soloists such as Antonio Lagares (horn) and Beat Anderwert (oboe/English horn), she has excellent wind players at her disposal who give this Mahler a personal touch. Rachel Harnisch enchants in the finale with her darkly shimmering, weightlessly soaring soprano and displays an intimacy that is deeply moving.

In the five songs by Artur Schnabel from Opus 11 and Opus 14 based on poems by Richard Dehmel, Novalis, Stefan George and Josef von Eichendorff, the Swiss singer once again delights as a clever interpreter of texts. She traces moods in a highly musical manner and leaves the poetic verses natural in her wide-ranging melodic arcs. Contratto's careful arrangement has a very authentic tone, but also mixes in a few tart ingredients: Schnabel's songs are a real discovery!