Description
Symphony No. 1 in D major
World Premiere of the new Breitkopf & Härtel Critical Edition
Blumine Symphonic Fragment
World Premiere of the new Breitkopf & Härtel Critical Edition
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), arranged by Schoenberg
Kenneth Woods – Artistic Director and Conductor
Joshua DeVane – Baritone
Recorded live at Macky Auditorium in Boulder, CO
May 18 and 19, 2019
This album is also available as a mp3 and hifi digital download via Bandcamp.
“…. the First Symphony was given a full-hearted and exuberant performance to close the festival on Sunday afternoon (May 19) at Macky Auditorium… The MahlerFest orchestra came through heroically as it always does in the audacious First Symphony. Woods carefully paced the symphony’s famous “breakthroughs” (which provided the theme for the festival). The ironic funeral march of the third movement was atmospheric, as was the buoyant second movement. Woods prefaced the symphony with its original second movement, “Blumine,” which Mahler removed after the first performance. Both were played from a new critical edition by Breitkopf & Härtel, the first time it has been used in any performance worldwide.”
“At the heart of that program on May 18 at Macky was Mahler’s song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), which is closely connected with the First Symphony. The cycle was performed in the interesting chamber orchestration by Arnold Schoenberg and sung by CU-Boulder alumnus and favorite local operatic performer Joshua DeVane. DeVane’s interpretation was exciting, heart-rending, and passionate, displaying a keen understanding for the emotions in Mahler’s words and music.
Woods led the small ensemble deftly throughout the program…”
By Kelly Dean Hansen, Freelance Classical Music Writer
Admin –
Richard Whitehouse/Arcana.FM. Original here:
https://arcana.fm/2024/07/22/mahler-devane-woods/
Joshua DeVane (baritone); Colorado MahlerFest Chamber Orchestra (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen), Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra / Kenneth Woods
Mahler Symphony no.1 in D major (1887-8, rev, 1898)
Mahler arr. Schoenberg Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1884-5, arr. 1920)
Mahler Blumine (1884, rev. 1889)
Colorado MahlerFest 195269164287 [79’02”]
Live performances on 18 May 2019 (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen), 19 May 2019, Macky Auditorium, Boulder, Colorado
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Recorded representation of the current MahlerFest era continues to grow with this release on CD (previously available as a download) of the First Symphony with related pieces, given at its 32nd edition and what was the fourth such event with Kenneth Woods as artistic director.
What’s the music like?
What was doubtless intended to inaugurate a chronological traversal began in 2019 with this performance of the First Symphony, the first to be heard in the critical edition published that year by Breitkopf & Härtel. Woods has written about this extensively at his website [Ken on the Great Mahler Debate of 2019 | Kenneth Woods – conductor]: suffice to add the numerous corrections and textural amendments enhance that fuller and more stratified orchestral sound such as Mahler favoured in 1899 when compared with earlier versions from 1889 and 1893.
Interpretatively, this performance is a satisfying one with few overt surprises but no obvious idiosyncrasies. Any lack of atmosphere during the first movement’s mesmeric introduction is offset by its easeful if never uneventful continuation – thus a subtly differentiated exposition repeat, then stealthy marshalling of expressive tension to a coda whose joyousness is rightly kept within limits. The scherzo is robust yet propulsive and the trio even finer in its unforced suavity, while the funeral march never over-inflects its Klezmer elements unfolding from the ominous and ironic, via gentle repose, to a closing fatalism. Woods succeeds better than most in holding together the unwieldy finale, allowing due emotional space for the recall of initial ideas that is its sure highlight, and the ensuing apotheosis lacks nothing in blazing affirmation.
Included as an encore is Blumine, the ‘romance’ salvaged from earlier incidental music which formed part of this symphony until being jettisoned in 1894 – here emerging with its elegance and pathos devoid of wanton sentiment. The actual concert continued with Korngold’s Violin Concerto then Beethoven’s Third Leonora Overture reorchestrated by Mahler, but the present release opens with a performance from the previous day’s concert of Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. This is heard in a chamber arrangement as supervised by Schoenberg for the 1920 season of his Society for Private Musical Performances, its textural transparency underlining the soulfulness then buoyancy of its opening two songs. If the (over-wrought?) drama of the third song is under-projected, the wistful radiance of its successor comes across unimpeded.
Does it all work?
Indeed it does, overall. Mahler symphonies may have been performed and recorded by a host of international orchestras, but that of the Colorado MahlerFest lacks nothing in commitment or tenacity; any lack of atmosphere and finesse owes more to the clear if confined acoustic of Macky Auditorium than absence of quiet playing or overriding of dynamics. Joshua DeVane is a thoughtful exponent of the song-cycle, at his best in the restrained inwardness of its outer numbers, while the ensemble drawn from the CMO makes a persuasive case for this reduction.
Is it recommended?
It is. The orchestral playing may have grown in conviction with each new instalment, but this is a notable statement of intent for MahlerFest under Woods’s direction. That the 33rd edition had to be scaled down then presented online had little effect on the resolve of those involved.