Search - Gustav Mahler, Simon Rattle, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra :: Mahler: Symphony No.4

Mahler: Symphony No.4
Gustav Mahler, Simon Rattle, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Mahler: Symphony No.4
Genre: Classical
 
  •  Track Listings (9) - Disc #1


     
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CD Details

All Artists: Gustav Mahler, Simon Rattle, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Amanda Roocroft
Title: Mahler: Symphony No.4
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: Angel Records
Release Date: 4/7/1998
Album Type: Import
Genre: Classical
Style: Symphonies
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 724355656322
 

CD Reviews

Perhaps the best Mahler 4 currently available
Craig LeHoullier | Raleigh, NC USA | 07/14/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Put this CD on the player and prepare to see Mahler's 4th in a whole new light. Listen to the tempos of the opening themes - once you adjust, it all seems to make perfect sense. Beautifully recorded, with each movement memorable - the coda of the slow movement is breathtaking. Finally, a 4th that stands above the other fine versions by Maazel, Karajan, Tennstedt, and Szell."
Lovely
George Grella | Brooklyn | 09/05/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Mahler 4 recordings are a highly competitive field. The two classic CDs, one led by Szell, the other by Maazel, are both available at great prices. If price is a consideration, there is no shame in going for either of those [I'm particularly found of the Maazel, with the fantastic playing of the Vienna Phil and Kathleen Battle, perhaps the ideal voice for the final movement]. While this Rattle recording is at full-price, in musical terms it is the equal of the others, a new classic.While Szell and Maazel are pretty straight with the music, Rattle in many ways lets Mahler be Mahler, to his great credit. He focuses on the modulations of tempo that are so important in Mahler performances. This is immediate in the very opening, with the unusual woodwind fanfare taken slower than one is used to hearing, with the phrase left a tempo as the strings take up the theme with a palpable quickening. Very effective!Throught, the conducting is lively. The scherzo is spry and witty, the beautiful slow movement really unfolds at a gentle, flowing tempo each moment seeming still but the line always moving forward, the type of thing Bernstein really mastered. Amanda Roocroft is not the ideal voice for the final movement, but her singing is fine.Rattle emphasizes lines and details, especially those in the low brass and winds, that do not come out in other recordings of this symphony, which again makes it worthwhile to hear and great music making. The CBSO doesn't have the lushness of the Vienna Phil, but their playing and musicality is peerless, reminiscent of the extraordinary instrumental quality on the Giulini led "Das Lied" with Berlin. The recording quality is excellent, resonant and full of detail. This is a great Mahler 4, competitive in musical terms with any, and one a Mahler collector should own."
Not bad, but
s_molman | CT United States | 06/21/2001
(3 out of 5 stars)

"there are so many great fourths that a "good" one is not really competitive. Rattle doesn't have the energy of Szell, the poetry of Walter, or the sheer vision of Horenstein and Barbirolli. It is, in a word, "nice". But this work is so much more than that. Even though it is Mahler's "lightest" work, it is by no means without its depths."