Description

In Summer 2010 Claudio Abbado and his outstanding Lucerne Festival Orchestra performed another symphonic work by Gustav Mahler: the Symphony No. 4. Abbado combines the orchestral work (which features a solo soprano in the finale) with Mahler’s “”Rckert-Lieder””. Soloist in both works is the Czech soprano Magdalena Kozena. Magdalena Koen does not only make the “”heavenly joys”” resound in the final movement of Mahler’s fourth symphony. Before that, she devotes herself to the seraphic beauty and intimate simplicity of Mahler’s Rckert Lieder. Practically all the songs that Mahler composed prior to 1900 were based on texts from “”Des Knaben Wunderhorn””, a collection of folk poems published by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim. From then on, Mahler turned exclusively to a single poet – the Franconian orientalist and translator Friedrich Rckert. Mahler confessed that the poems moved him so deeply that he sometimes felt he had written them himself. In the transcendent final Lied, “”Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen””, he also quoted a phrase from the Adagio of his 4th symphony. Asked what it meant, he said that it personified himself. Claudio Abbado is undeniably a supreme Mahler conductor and his best selling recordings with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra symphonies No. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 (on Blu-ray No. 1, 2, 3 and 6) have already been released on EuroArts have set new standards in interpretation of works by Gustav Mahler. Review Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra are on sensational form –Gramophone,Feb’11 This a DVD to cherish. –IRR,Feb’11 You’ll never see a first movement done with bigger smiles or more wide-eyed wonder,nor the poco adagio heaven inflected as artistically as here from the master’s goodlooking love-in orchestra,filmed by Michael Beyer’s camera team. Performance **** Picture & Sound **** –BBC Music Magazine,Apr’11