# Mahler Symphony No. 4 recordings, soloist



## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

There are many good recordings of Mahler Symphony No. 4 and many good soloists. The part is usually sung by an adult female soprano.

My question: are there any recordings utilizing child soloists, other than the two I will now mention?

The most well known is Bernstein and his offering featuring Helmut Wittek. Now, I've listened to this one and will refrain from comment. 








Then there is Anton Nanut and the un-pronouncable Orchestra with Max Cemcic. I greatly like this one. 








Are there others? Has anyone used a girl child as soloist? I like that a child sings the part. After all the words are a child singing about asparagus in Heaven. Don't get me wrong, I like the ladies in the role also, and that may have been GM's intent, but I'm curious.

I'm sure the Mahler fan base can fill me in.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

As far as I am aware, that's it, unaware of any others with a treble, and was only aware of the Ljubljana recording, never heard it.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

No fan of the Bernstein/Vienna, OP? I love his NYPO, don't know who is the soloist, but I know it's a woman. 

I really love Mahler's 4th, but... children's choirs are one thing; child soloists kind of freak me out. I will pass on these.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

The only other one that I know uses a transcription for chamber ensemble:


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

flamencosketches said:


> Bernstein....I love his NYPO, don't know who is the soloist, but I know it's a woman.


The soloist in the Bernstein/New York Philharmonic Mahler Fourth is Reri Grist. I have long felt her singing in the final movement comes closer to sounding child-like in comparison with any of the soloists in my other favorite Mahler Fourths: Klemperer/Philharmonia with Schwarzkopf, Kletzki/Philharmonia with Loose, Solti/Amsterdam (Royal) Concertgebouw with Stahlman, Kubelik/BRSO with Morison and Horenstein/London Philharmonic with Price.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Haydn67 said:


> The soloist in the Bernstein/New York Philharmonic Mahler Fourth is Reri Grist. I have long felt her singing in the final movement comes closer to sounding child-like in comparison with any of the soloists in my other favorite Mahler Fourths: Klemperer/Philharmonia with Schwarzkopf, Kletzki/Philharmonia with Loose, Solti/Amsterdam (Royal) Concertgebouw with Stahlman, Kubelik/BRSO with Morison and Horenstein/London Philharmonic with Price.


\

The soloists that I like best are Barbara Bonney (Decca, with Chailly and the RCO) and Sylvia McNair (Philips, with Haitink and the Berlin PO).


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Of the three recordings using a boy soloist mentioned in the above posts, by far the best is Max Emmanuel Cencic on the Nanut / Ljubljana recording. Unfortunately it's very had to get hold of as a hard CD, but it is available to listen to on Youtube and Spotify.

Helmut Wittek sounds uncomfortable on the Bernstein recording, trying just that bit too hard, whereas Cencic has a confident but not-quite-perfect, natural tembre that gives an edgy innocence to the sound he creates. For me, Daniel Hellman in the chamber performance is far too artificial and is probably the least successful of the three.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

They must be the only ones then. We have so many Mahler experts here that I expected more. But maybe there is no more.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Oldhoosierdude said:


> Then there is Anton Nanut and the un-pronouncable Orchestra


Ljubljana = "Lee-oob-lee-ana"


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> Ljubljana = "Lee-oob-lee-ana"


Cool. I never knew what to think.


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## KevinJS (Sep 24, 2021)

Old thread I know, but since the OP is still active, I'll fill in some gaps:

September 2017, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Mahler's 4th, using 3 boys from the Trinity School. AFAIK, the performance was not recorded.

The second album shown in the lead post is probably a bootleg. I've seen it once on Amazon. The disk on offer was a CD-R. That album art makes a complete hash of the soprano's name, although it managed to get the middle bit right - Max Emanuel Cenčić.









There is another Bernstein version, which has made it to CD (supposedly). The CDs appear to be Italian and Japanese bootlegs. They incorrectly attribute the soprano performance to Helmut Wittek. In fact, the soloist was Allan Bergius, who was a member of the same choir as Wittek - Tölzer Knabenchor. His performance of Mahler's 4th came in 1984, three years earlier than Wittek's. Another member of the same choir, Andreas Mörwald sang Himmlische Leben in concert, but not as part of the symphony. Bergius and Mörwald can be found on YouTube. The YT video featuring Bergius was recorded live at La Scala. Bergius also sang under Harnoncourt (Bach cantatas), appeared as Amore in Gluck's Orfeo Ed Euridice:









and as Melia in Mozart's Apollo Et Hyacinthus, in a performance that was televised but not recorded on disk. The later CD:









used Christian Fliegner in the role.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Have not heard Cencic (Chenchich), the overtaxed Wittek is more a curiosity (this was oddly the first one I heard, the Mahler/DG series being all the rage in the late 1980s when I encountered Mahler's music for the first time). My favorite female singers are Netania Davrath (Abravanel) and maybe Ruth Ziesak (Gatti) although it's been a while I heard a lot of Mahler 4th.


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

It's great to have a soloist in Mahler 4 who has the light, innocent timbre that the text requires, or can bend her voice in order to make it sound more "Lied"-like and less operatic. Schwarzkopf for Klemperer is often quoted as an example of how not to do it.

But the same goes for the "Bim bam" movement in Mahler's 3rd. I always cringe when the innocent, fairy-like atmosphere, established by the chorus, is destroyed by an matronly, heavy-duty alto soloist, in fact that happens more often than a miscast in the finale of the 4th. What makes the alto part in the 3rd so hard to get right is that you need two completely different voices for it - after the dark, slow "Nietzsche" movement, which requires a matching dark voice, the soloist then has to assume a much lighter timbre for the next movement.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

RobertJTh said:


> It's great to have a soloist in Mahler 4 who has the light, innocent timbre that the text requires, or can bend her voice in order to make it sound more "Lied"-like and less operatic. Schwarzkopf for Klemperer is often quoted as an example of how not to do it.
> 
> But the same goes for the "Bim bam" movement in Mahler's 3rd. I always cringe when the innocent, fairy-like atmosphere, established by the chorus, is destroyed by an matronly, heavy-duty alto soloist, in fact that happens more often than a miscast in the finale of the 4th.


After listening to Das Lied von Der Erde by Klemperer, a minute ago I though of purchasing the Klemperer/Schwarzkopf of the 4th. Your timing is spot on! And I could not agree more on the 3rd Symphony "Bim bam".

(You seem to have good points after good points.)


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Yes but tbh it is Mahler's own fault to a considerable extent for mixing together his faux-naive stuff with different music (such as the Nietzsche movement in the 3rd that could well use a dark and full sounding "matron")


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

Waehnen said:


> After listening to Das Lied von Der Erde by Klemperer, a minute ago I though of purchasing the Klemperer/Schwarzkopf of the 4th. Your timing is spot on! And I could not agree more on the 3rd Symphony "Bim bam".
> 
> (You seem to have good points after good points.)


Well, it's not a verdict set in stone. Schwarzkopf's strongest point (apart from her radiant voice) is her interpretative strength, she always goes to the core of the text and brings out its meaning using perfect pronunciation and phrasing. Much like Fischer-Dieskau did. But that approach doesn't always work to the advantage of the music. Her recording with Szell and DFD of the Wunderhorn songs is another example of what people have called "over-interpretation" that robs the music of its naturalness and innocent spirit.
But I'd say anything that Klemperer did in Mahler is at least interesting and worth hearing, including that 4th. In fact, Schwarzkopf's contribution, whether you like it or not, matches Klemperer's analytic approach to the symphony.

I don't know if the French EMI box with Klemperer's complete Mahler recordings (2, 4, 7, 9, LivdE and songs) is still around, it was dirt cheap when I got it years ago, and offers a superb 2nd and 9th and LvdE - and the most eccentric 7th ever recorded...

Also, stop, you're making me blush


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

RobertJTh said:


> Well, it's not a verdict set in stone. Schwarzkopf's strongest point (apart from her radiant voice) is her interpretative strength, she always goes to the core of the text and brings out its meaning using perfect pronunciation and phrasing. Much like Fischer-Dieskau did. But that approach doesn't always work to the advantage of the music. Her recording with Szell and DFD of the Wunderhorn songs is another example of what people have called "over-interpretation" that robs the music of its naturalness and innocent spirit.
> But I'd say anything that Klemperer did in Mahler is at least interesting and worth hearing, including that 4th. In fact, Schwarzkopf's contribution, whether you like it or not, matches Klemperer's analytic approach to the symphony.
> 
> I don't know if the French EMI box with Klemperer's complete Mahler recordings (2, 4, 7, 9, LivdE and songs) is still around, it was dirt cheap when I got it years ago, and offers a superb 2nd and 9th and LvdE - and the most eccentric 7th ever recorded...
> ...


Thanks! I did ALMOST buy the 4th but as the 2nd inspires me so much, I listened to the 2nd by the same combo: Klemperer/Philharmonia/Schwarzkopf. This is something I just could not pass!  What is it about the Klemperer articulation and sound?


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

RobertJTh said:


> I don't know if the French EMI box with Klemperer's complete Mahler recordings (2, 4, 7, 9, LivdE and songs) is still around, it was dirt cheap when I got it years ago, and offers a superb 2nd and 9th and LvdE - and the most eccentric 7th ever recorded...


It seems to be out of print, but this one, which I would presume is identical, is still available:


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## OCEANE (10 mo ago)

Art Rock said:


> The only other one that I know uses a transcription for chamber ensemble:











Dorian Recordings ....used to be my favorite recording company...those were the days.

Honestly, I prefer the original and full scale performance but would not resist this version ......it's still Mahler!!


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> Yes but tbh it is Mahler's own fault to a considerable extent for mixing together his faux-naive stuff with different music (such as the Nietzsche movement in the 3rd that could well use a dark and full sounding "matron")


True - and I wonder if Mahler 3 has ever been done with two soloists, a true alto for movement 4 and a mezzo for movement 5?


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