HDTT HDCD158 (CD-R, also avail. as 96K DVD-R), 57:02 **** [www.highdeftapetransfers.com]:
Recorded in 1963 by Columbia Records on 4-track tape, this HDTT restoration via Symposium Acoustics and Weiss digital hardware has to rank as–to paraphrase the CBS hype–an “Essential Classic.” George Szell (1897-1970) had an infrequent relationship with Mahler’s music on disc, having committed the Fourth and the Sixth to commercial inscription, but no less renowned for visceral, ardent performances of the Ninth. Here, in collaboration with American-born soprano Judith Raskin (1928-1984), Szell achieves one of his most aerial, pellucid readings of Mahler’s music, a natural, even warm, expression of the Austrian mystical ethos in unmannered figures. Given the exemplary level of the Cleveland Orchestra’s personnel–as in Rafael Druian’s solo violin work in the scordatura, Death’s Head second movement–the clarity of line, its alternately gracious and grotesque elements, proceed with pungent grace. The Cleveland horns and tympani, too, move in lithe, crisply articulated figures, biting, soothing, yearning, cajoling, and twittering, as required. The HDTT sonics become particularly adept at projecting the sweetly scathing whistles and snorts at the end of the second movement.
The mystical third, Ruhevoll movement–has anyone seen film director Georges Clouzot’s use of this music in La Prisonniere?–benefits from Szell’s aristocratic, stately poise and breadth of line, the Cleveland string intonation letter-perfect. The progressive urgency of the music achieves an inflamed status, given Mahler’s penchant for contradictory, spiritual descents simultaneously. Both bucolic–as a result of its kinship with the pantheistic Third Symphony–and driven to morbid obsession, as results of his fascination with child mortality and his own heart condition–the Fourth moves to what might be construed as a carnal apotheosis. It will be the choral last movement, its vision of “the Heavenly Life,” that finally expressively fuses the dual impulses of morbid fascination and religious aspiration in Mahler’s tortured soul. An immediate segue (attacca) to the “comfortable” rendition of Mahler’s pagan heaven, St. Cecilia in a blissfully savage moment. Raskin’s light, resonant head-tone sails through the antic lyrics with secure aplomb, the jaunty Cleveland battery, wind, and string and harp section responsive to every melisma and vocal slide. An audiophile collector’s Mahler Fourth in every sense, this restoration comes highly recommended.
— Gary Lemco
