# Berio's Mahler orchestrations



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Lately I've been enjoying this new Harmonia Mundi recording of Berio's _Sinfonia_ plus 10 orchestrations of early Mahler songs, sung superbly by Matthias Goerne.








Berio's attempt to capture Mahler's idiom seems very convincing to me, though of course it would have been interesting to hear them without knowing they were the composer's own work - would I have guessed?
Maybe some of the lighter songs don't really need the orchestral clothes (unlike the _Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen_, whose original piano version Mahler described as a "reduction"), but they still sound fine.

Any thoughts on these, or recommendations regarding orchestrations of other composers' songs?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Just as an aside. Berio's Sinfonia has forever ruined the Mahler 2nd for me. I cannot ever listen to the scherzo without hearing Berio's voices.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

OP: I didn´t knew that one, but like a lot this recording of Berio´s orchestrations:










Specially the Brahms clarinet sonata turned into a kind of clarinet concerto. (I heard it once in concert and it was amazing!)

As for Mahler's songs orchestrations and arrangements I recommend highly what Schoenberg did with them, including his reduction of Das lied... for chamber ensemble.


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