Never has
Mahler's symphonic
song cycle Das Lied von der Erde seemed so operatic as it does in this 1959 RCA recording by
Fritz Reiner and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra with tenor
Richard Lewis and alto
Maureen Forrester.
Lewis sounds heroically defiant in the opening Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde and brashly amusing in Der Trunkene im Früling, while
Forrester sounds heartbreakingly lonely in Der Einsame im Herbst and radiantly transcendent in the closing Der Abschied; both singers sound like characters in an imaginary
opera belting out arias to shake the rafters and rattle the last row of the balcony. The strong-willed
Reiner and the big-toned
Chicago Symphony accompany
Lewis and
Forrester only in the sense that the focus is always on the singers, but
Reiner's accompaniment is itself highly dramatic in that it progresses through a series of emotional set pieces to an overwhelming climax. Recorded in stunningly immediate stereo sound in the days just before the so-called
Mahler Revolution of the '60s,
Lewis,
Forrester, and
Reiner's Das Lied sounds much less like
Beethoven meets
Wagner and more like
Verdi meets
Puccini. If the idea of
Lewis as a German Pinkerton and
Forrester as an Austrian Cio-cio san sounds appealing, this is the performance for you. Das Lied neophytes might consider
Walter's lyrically impassioned 1937 recording with
Thorborg,
Kullman, and the
Vienna Philharmonic or, if sound is an issue,
Klemperer's symphonically stoic 1964-1966 recording with
Wunderlich,
Ludwig, and the
Philharmonia. ~ James Leonard, All Music Guide
![Fritz Reiner - Mahler: The Song of the Earth [Hybrid SACD]](http://ca.sacdstatic.com/200/cm300/m388/m38811rot9l.jpg "Fritz Reiner - Mahler: The Song of the Earth [Hybrid SACD]")
