Mahler’s Liederabend: A Recreation of Mahler’s Concert in Vienna on 29th January 1905

Mahler
Des Knaben Wunderhorn – selection (1892-1901)
Kindertotenlieder (1901-4)
Vier Rückert-Lieder (1901)

April Fredrick (soprano), Stacey Rishoi (mezzo-soprano), Brennen Guillory (tenor), Gustav Andreasson (bass), Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra / Kenneth Woods

Macky Auditorium, 1595 Pleasant Street, Boulder CO (Links to concert sections embedded below)
Saturday 20th May 2023

by Richard Whitehouse

In an event as inclusive as Colorado’s MahlerFest, it was happily inevitable the Liederaband Mahler gave in Vienna on 29th January 1905 be recreated and, while the decision to distribute these songs between four singers was not strictly ‘authentic’, it yet emphasized their variety of thought and expression more readily than had one vocalist been present throughout. What remained consistent was the creative zeal of Mahler at a crucial juncture in his composing, as he left behind the fantastic realm of his earlier music for greater realism and even abstraction.

The first half was of seven songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which collection dominated Mahler’s thinking the previous quarter-century. Two of them are ostensibly dialogues, but the absence of a second singer mattered little when April Fredrick rendered that interaction of the yearning woman with her condemned lover in Lied des Verfolgten im Turm so graphically; as too the more wistful imaginings of separated lovers in Der Schildwache Nachtlied. She also underlined the glancing irony of Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt and the playful whimsy of Rheinlegendchen with understated assurance. Brennen Guillory pointed up the deadpan humour of Trost im Unglück and if Der Tamboursg’sell felt a little too earnest, the stridency that increasingly borders on aggression of Revelge was bracingly delivered.

Here, as elsewhere, adherence to Mahler’s scoring, with its emphasis on woodwind and brass, brought out its evocative quality which outweighed any passing thinness of tone in the strings. This was even less of an issue during the sparser textures of Kindertotenlieder, whose songs find universal truths in Friedrich Rückert’s intimate ruminations. Gustav Andreasson seemed a little raw of timbre in Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n, though the yearning fatalism of Nun seh’ ich wohl, warun so dunkel Flammen was tangibly conveyed, as too was the aching poignancy of Wenn dein Mütterlein. The bittersweet elegance of Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen felt slightly undersold, but not those contrasts of In diesem Wetter as this final heads from fraught anguish toward a repose from which all dread has been wholly eradicated.

Kenneth Woods directed the Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra with that unforced rightness evident from his earlier Mahler performances. Never more so than the four Rückert-Lieder which ended this programme – albeit in a discreet but effective reordering from that of 118 years before. Thus, the capricious whimsy of Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder! preceded the deft enchantment of Ich atmet einen Linden duft; Stacey Rishoi proving as responsive to these as to Um Mitternacht, with its crepuscular winds and majestic climax with swirling arpeggios on harp and piano. Fittingly, the sequence closed with Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen – the finest of Mahler’s orchestral songs in its rapt serenity, Rishoi’s conveying of Rückert’s otherworldly sentiments more than abetted by Lisa Read’s eloquent cor anglais. If recreating the Liederabend meant no place for Liebst du um Schönheit (now available in a far more idiomatic orchestration by David Matthews), which might have made a pertinent encore), its absence did not lessen the attractions of this enterprising and successful concert.

Click on the name for more information on Colorado MahlerFest 2024, and on the artist names for more on Kenneth Woods, April Fredrick, Stacey Rishoi, Brennen Guillory and Gustav Andreasson