MAHLER: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen; Ruckert Lieder; Des Knaben Wunderhorn (selections) – Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano/ Thomas Hampson, baritone/ San Francisco Symphony/ Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor – San Francisco Symphony multichannel SACD 821936-0036, 64:57 ***** (available on iTunes [2-chan. AAC] 8/31/2010 and in stores 9/7/2010):
The San Francisco Symphony has recorded all of the Mahler symphonies, the Adagio from the unfinished Tenth Symphony, Kindertotenlieder and Das Lied von der Erde and released a re-mastered recording of Das klagende Lied. Now we get the Rückert Lieder, Songs of a Wayfarer (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen) and Des Knaben Wunderhorn. With this release I believe that the SFS Mahler project comes to a close, having been operational since 2001, and all recorded in (for the most part) splendid hybrid SACD, a foresight that surely ranks Tilson Thomas and his cohorts among the more enlightened musicians of the time!
For these performances we have an all-American cast, and the results are sterling. The album does not list who sings what, so here it is: Hampson takes the Songs of a Wayfarer and Youth’s Magic Horn while Graham delights in the Ruckert Lieder. It is strange hearing a man sing Wayfarer as so often it seems the provenance of a female so the choice does surprise me somewhat, but Hampson adds a unique quality to these songs that only he can in that unmistakable voice of his, surely the most distinctive baritone since Fischer-Dieskau. I do wish we had been allocated more songs from Magic Horn; the standard is of course F-D and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf with Szell on EMI, and that one still thrills today. They gave us 12 selections I believe while Bernstein’s DGG recording left us thirteen. At 65 minutes this release had room for more, especially as the services of both artists could have been put to use instead of just Hampson—who is superb by the way.
Anyway, no use crying over spilled Mahler and the Ruckert songs are just wonderful, Graham having evolved to a magnificent Mahler mezzo at this point in her career. And the competition is tough; Janet Baker left one for the ages as did von Otter with Gardiner. But Graham holds her own and the two previously mentioned artists never had sound like this—just listen to the low brass wallop that smacks you in the face on “Ich hab’ ein gluhend messer” in Wayfarer.
Tilson Thomas is as good a Mahler conductor as is currently alive, not as demonstrative as Lenny—and MTT seems to have calmed a bit over the years—but still able to pull the essence out of this composer as no one else. I know there are various SACD series underway, Ivan Fischer and David Zinman among them, but neither is as consistently excellent as MTT, and neither has the SFS, rapidly becoming the premiere Mahler orchestra in this country if not the world. A solid recommendation for a series worth owning, each and every disc.
— Steven Ritter
