Was Alma Mahler the victim, as this booklet note would have it, “of a deeply rooted sexism in cultural life and musical research” or simply a composer of modest means? The truth lies somewhere in between. Certainly no wife should be compelled, as Alma was by Gustav just before their wedding, to sacrifice her creative gift on the matrimonial altar, and we would be the poorer if all her songs had been destroyed (even so, only 16 out of possibly hundreds have survived).

The selection chosen by Sabine Ritterbusch and her pioneering pianist Heidi Kommerell is anything but conventional. Instead, sprawling turn-of-the-century purple poetry meets harmonic meanderings - embarrassing in “Kennst du meine Nächte?”, where the anonymous poet is very likely Alma herself - and a reluctance to repeat that verges on the tricksy. After that, her husband’s gift to be simple, at least on the surface, comes as healing balm.

Ritterbusch may not have the peaches-and-cream tone for the more voluptuous numbers, though the lyric soprano temporarily hints at a dramatic, Wagner-Wesendonk vein in “Lobesgesang”. Elsewhere her delivery is engagingly fresh and she scales down to a haunting sliver of sound for Alma’s more elliptical songs and Gustav’s greater mysteries. Sadly, it doesn’t quite come off for his two best known Rückert settings, but it serves her well up to that point.

Viele Dirigenten hat es am Jahrhundertende angezogen, dieses "Lied von der...

On February 5th 1976 the Czech-born conductor Rafael Kubelik strode up to the podium in Munich for a live recording of this work with his much-loved Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra players. Although this account was done under the auspices of the Bavarian Broadcasting Company and now appears as a gatefold double 180g LP on the Audite label, Kubelik had previously recorded this work for DGG with the same Orchestra as part of a complete Mahler Symphonic cycle. They clearly recognised his interpretative strengths and the reputation of these Bavarian musicians for sumptuous, nostalgic and exciting performances of a Symphony that is full of daring and incipient tragedy.

The Seventh really is a demanding Symphony both thematically and structurally. Great Mahler conductors like Kubelik and later, Bernstein have brought their own unique visions to a sonorous composition that is equally organic and elemental in nature, especially when it develops the central idyll of the first movement. Yet this is also a completely uncompromising work in those flickering terrors of a nightmarish third section. Technically it is in the first movement where Mahler takes all the risks and it is here that he comes closest to crossing into atonalism. However, he steps back from this abyss with an extrovert and white-hot finale that triumphantly conveys a resilient, euphoric and purpose-filled redemptive quality. It is the conductor?s role to worthily frame these nature themes, his second movement romanticism, the expressionist nightmare and that highly emotive conclusion. This takes nerve, remarkable concentration and a deft handling of the rank-and-file in the orchestra pit. Here Kubelik develops the Symphony along traditional lines. He is convincing, flamboyant, intense and even delicate when required for the string chords that typically precede the scoring for solo violin. His baton is less flashy than Bernstein's was for the famous New York Philharmonic readings of the finale but this Kubelik 'live' cut has snap and synergy throughout instead. This is reflected in his tempo which gives an overall running timing at a little over seventy three minutes whereas Bernstein's Seventh is closer to eighty. A vivid and transparent recording raises the excitement levels even further and the dynamic presentation of instrumental textures is particularly well defined. This is beautifully developed throughout all four movements, but that surreal piercing quality of the clarinet glissandos, which sharply introduces a third movement dreamscape, is really striking. This soon turns to a darker decaying vision-one in which the lean-sounding strings and thumping tubas and contra-bassoons viscously peel away to a grotesque image of a grinning skull beneath the skin. Audite have shown in their re-master just how effective and rewarding the skilful use of engineering can be when drawing out these musical pictures.

Richard Franck (1858-1938) gehört wie sein Vater Eduard zu jenen...

Zwei prächtige Kompositionen des deutschen Komponisten und Pädagogen Richard Franck (1858-1938) sind auf dieser CD zu hören, zwei Werke, die reich an Melodien, die Musik ins Fließen bringen und in ihrer kunstvollen und phantasievollen Ausführung die hohen Ansprüche aufzeigen, die Franck hatte.
Beim ersten Abhören der CD hatte ich in Begeisterung über das eben neu Entdeckte die Interpretationen für sehr gut gehalten. Beim zweiten und dritten Durch-gang blieb mir immer noch der Eindruck einer guten und stilvollen Musikalität, aber im Detail fielen mir dann doch einige Mängel in der Phrasierung, im Zusammenspiel und in der Technik der drei Musiker auf, die hervorgehoben werden müssen, aber einen letztlich doch positiven Gesamteindruck nicht verhindern. Wahrscheinlich hätten die Künstler die Werke eine Zeitlang im Konzert spielen müssen, ehe sie ins Aufnahmestudio gingen...

Das Wechselspiel zwischen Tag und Nacht hat schon immer Reiz auf die Menschen...

Wie bereits der erste Teil mit virtuoser Trompetenmusik des Barock kommt auch Folge zwei mit Bernhard Kratzer und Monika Nuber aus dem Münster von Villingen. Bachs "Badinerie" bleibt dynamisch erstaunlich flach, da wollen keine Funken sprühen. Das Esprit-Feuerwerk fällt aus, wird dafür aber im Finale von Telemanns e-Moll-Konzert nachgeholt. Die abschließende Händel-Suite wiederum wirkt wie eine nett gemeinte Gute-Nacht-Musik.

Es war das gefeierte Debütkonzert des damals 21-jährigen, in Europa völlig...

Johannes Brahms' sehr persönliche, durch die Textauswahl aus Luthers...

Helmut Deutsch interpretiert Liszts Präludium und Fuge über B-A-C-H an der mechanischen Walcker/Schuke-Orgel (1930/1979) der evangelischen Versöhnungskirche in Völklingen (u.a. zusammen mit Variationen über "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zargen", Fantasie und Fuge "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam") - eine aparte Möglichkeit besonders in den Fugen.