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\u201cArnold Schoenberg, trying to balance his love of Gustav Mahler with a notable lack of performance funding after the First World War, took to scaling down Mahler\u2019s orchestral song-cycles for smaller forces. After some success with Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, <\/em>he then turned to the late<\/em> composer\u2019s final masterpiece, Das Lied von der Erde<\/em>, though his sketches lay incomplete until finished by conductor Rainer Riehn in the 1980s.<\/p>\nThese days, with orchestras facing similar financial constraints, Schoenberg\u2019s arrangements have been breaking free from chamber music festivals and finding their way into the symphonic mainstream. Competing recordings of Das Lied<\/em> by two British orchestras, in fact, now coincide with this year\u2019s centennial both of Mahler\u2019s death and the piece\u2019s original premiere.<\/p>\nThe pristine notion of Mahler conceiving Das Lied<\/em> as a hybrid \u201csong-symphony\u201d took a small beating back in1980 with the belated publication of the composer\u2019s autograph piano score, with the treated the material more conventionally as a song-cycle. Schoenberg\u2019s arrangements split the difference, retaining much of Mahler\u2019s instrumental colour while leaving vocalists more room for recital-level nuance. Appropriately enough, these two recordings (both recorded live in their concert venues) take quite opposite approaches, and both have much to recommend them instrumentally. Kenneth Woods leads the Orchestra of the Swan on a near-symphonic scale, thanks to the highly resonant acoustics of Townsend Hall, Shipston-on-Stour. Douglas Boyd makes each instrument count on its own terms, aided by the apparent sonic purity of Bridgewater Hall, Manchester\u2026.<\/p>\nLast word, though, goes to the Orchestra of the Swan. In Schoenberg\u2019s less ambitions Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen<\/em> (not included on the Manchester recording), baritone David Stout\u2019s richly balanced performance easily stands out as the best thing on either disc.\u201d<\/p>\n
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