9th December 1907

Gustav Mahler's admirers will be gathering to say farewell to him on Monday 9 December, before half past eight in the morning, on the platform of the Westbahnhof, and invite you to attend and to inform others of like mind. As this demonstration is intended as a surprise for Mahler, you are earnestly requested not to take people having connections with the Press into your confidence.
Paul Stefan, Anton von Webern, Karl Horwitz, Heinrich Jalowetz


Whoever saw how all those who came (and there were about two hundred people) greeted each other, anyone who saw how warmly, how emotionally every one of them shook Mahler's hand, and how affectionately and delightedly he submitted to it, how he, who had always been so sparing of his words, found so many kinds words for his faithful friends, must have been delighted, and those who loved him could enjoy this last happy moment. It had all been organised at a few hours' notice, and no 'official' personalities had been notified. There was no artifice: simply an overpowering wish, among all of us, to see once more the man, to whom we owed so much... the train started to move. And Gustav Klimt said what we had all been feeling about the sad ending of a great epoch: 'It's over' (Vorbei!).
Eleonore Vondenhoff (after a conversation with Helene Berg)


It was time to leave Vienna. Schoenberg and Zemlinsky had gathered their pupils and Mahler's friends on the station platform. Pollak had arrange for them to get on to the platform secretly. When we arrived, there they all were, their hands full of flowers, eyes full of tears; they climbed into out compartment and garlanded seats, floor, everything. We pulled slowly out of the station, without regret or nostalgia. We had been too hard hit, we only wanted to get away, far away, We were indeed almost happy the further we got from Vienna. We did not even long for our child, whom we had left with my mother. We knew that no amount of care and love can prevent the worst from happening. One is nowhere invulnerable. We had been hardened by fire. So we believed. But one thing, despite everything, filled out thoughts: the future.
Alma Mahler

WINTER JOURNEY – Day 9 – Spirit

In die tiefsten Felsengründe
Lockte mich ein Irrlicht hin:
Wie ich einen Ausgang finde,
Liegt nicht schwer mir in dem Sinn.

Bin gewohnt das Irregehen,
's führt ja jeder Weg zum Ziel:
Uns're Freuden, uns're Leiden,
Alles eines Irrlichts Spiel!

Durch des Bergstroms trock'ne Rinnen
Wind' ich ruhig mich hinab,
Jeder Strom wird's Meer gewinnen,
Jedes Leiden auch sein Grab.

The spirits enticed me
Into the deep rocky chasms;
My mind is not troubled
In finding a way out.

I am used to wandering;
Every path leads the same way.
Our joys, our sorrows -
Are all a game for these spirits.

Down the dry course of the stream
I slowly make my way;
The river will meet the sea:
My sorrows will reach the grave.

Der Rosenkavalier - between romantic and modern

As Der Rosenkavalier returns to Covent Garden after a near-6 year absence, I ponder why this work would be considered regressive in comparison with its most recent Straussian bedfellows at the Royal Opera House, Salome and Elektra.


It is a widely held opinion that, after Richard Strauss (1864-1949) completed his violent and musically extreme 1909 opera Elektra, the composer turned his back on its innovation; instead he pursued a love of the box office with the comparatively conservative Der Rosenkavalier. The rest of Strauss’s career, it is reported, had a markedly nostalgic streak, with shimmering ‘silver rose’ sounds only a sickly icing on an otherwise bland language. But to see the redolent and humane comedy of Der Rosenkavalier as a stylistically regressive piece is a purely reactionary attitude; it is merely the posturing of the modernist critic against an apparently twee bourgeois tale. The comic opera, which had its premiere in Dresden in 1911, may appear outwardly frothy, but the characters and its world are riddled with contemporary preoccupations.


Although he worked mainly out of Germany as a successful conductor and composer of large-scale symphonic poems, Strauss was hugely aware of the cultural revolution exploding in the concert halls, galleries and bookshops of Vienna. His friendship with Gustav Mahler, and the performances that Mahler gave of Strauss’s works in Vienna, allowed Strauss immediate access to many of the well-known creators of the new arts in the Austrian capital. The playwright and poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) was at the forefront of the Viennese avant-garde. His 1903 adaptation of Sophocles’s Greek tragedy Elektra (originally directed by the impresario Max Reinhardt) had inspired Strauss and drove him on to complete his burgeoning religious shocker Salome (1905). It was only after the success of that opera that Strauss found the courage to ask Hofmannsthal to collaborate with him on turning his Sophoclean adaptation into a libretto. Their opera Elektra didn’t quite replicate the controversy of Salome, but Strauss tested his daring with a yet more extreme musical language. But as Strauss’s hero Wagner had followed the brooding tragedy Tristan und Isolde with the benevolent pared-down comedy of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, so Strauss and Hofmannsthal turned from the extremities of the corrupt ancient world to this warm-hearted story set in mid-18th century Vienna.


The opera begins with an orchestral representation of the sexual act, all wildness and fun, but it quickly becomes clear that the Marschallin’s heart is more fragile than she allows her beloved Octavian to see. We are aware, by the close of the first act, that their relationship is coming to an end. The Marschallin fears the passing of time and is all too aware of the discrepancy between their ages; she, perhaps unwittingly, sets in motion the process that will take Octavian away from her, thereby teaching Baron Ochs, the Marschallin’s boorish cousin, a lesson. Sophie, a nouveau riche heiress, is the picture of the new order, just as the Marschallin, with her husband’s rank indicated in her moniker, embodies Imperial Vienna. As the ancient worlds of Judea and Mycaenae in Salome and Elektra had echoed with the contemporary situation in Europe (with their Viennese-style waltzes resounding at points of crisis), so Hofmannsthal and Strauss commented on contemporary life in Imperial Austro-Germany within an 18th century setting. Theirs was a world that was floating away. We should be aware not only of the dangerous proximity of the First World War but also of the last gasps of class-based hierarchy, something emphasised by Jonathan Miller’s 1994 ENO production of the opera, which the director set at the time of its composition. When the Marschallin tells how she gets up in the middle of the night to stop the clocks, she is not only halting the ageing process, but attempts to put on pause the Imperial life that has afforded her the levees and rides in the Prater that are her comfortable ritual.


It is easy now to be blasé about the florid excess of Strauss’s operas, but their messages, their sound worlds and the daring of their compositional dexterity – whether in the atonal brutality of Elektra or in the lilting ‘search for lost time’ of Rosenkavalier – exhilarated and alarmed contemporary audiences in equal measure. To inform the chattering classes of Dresden and Vienna that the life they were currently enjoying would soon be washed away was no nostalgic conservatism. Although the Marschallin may be typically post-Freudian in her self-awareness, Baron Ochs is the picture of the myopic upper class. He thinks, by dint of his position, that Sophie will immediately consent to be his wife. But under his bombastic bravura is also the heart of a man who merely wants a pretty girl on his arm. His refrain of ‘ohne mich, ohne mich jeder Tag dir so bang... mit mir, mit mir keine Nacht dir zu lang’ has the perfect balance of melancholy and hope, even if it emanates from an unworthy source. That the critics have lambasted Strauss for enticing us with the potency of his apparently ‘cheap music’ is to miss its ironic message. In order to speak to their own generation in early 20th century Germany and Austria, composer and librettist had to invoke an idealised memory of 18th century Vienna, heard through the anachronistic prism of late 19th century waltzes.


Strauss and Hofmannsthal would later investigate the duality of their time with the overblown but musically heartening fairytale Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919), but it was with Der Rosenkavalier that they created the perfect bittersweet picture of the irreparable passing of time. For that reason, the opera was an even more bitter reminder than even Salome or Elektra of the frailties and misplaced hopes of the human condition; a more contemporaneous message one could not wish to find.

WINTER JOURNEY – Day 8 – Backward Glance

Es brennt mir unter beiden Sohlen,
Tret' ich auch schon auf Eis und Schnee,
Ich möcht' nicht wieder Atem holen,
Bis ich nicht mehr die Türme seh'.

Hab' mich an jeden Stein gestoßen,
So eilt' ich zu der Stadt hinaus;
Die Krähen warfen Bäll' und Schloßen
Auf meinen Hut von jedem Haus.

Wie anders hast du mich empfangen,
Du Stadt der Unbeständigkeit!
An deinen blanken Fenstern sangen
Die Lerch' und Nachtigall im Streit.

Die runden Lindenbäume blühten,
Die klaren Rinnen rauschten hell,
Und ach, zwei Mädchenaugen glühten. -
Da war's gescheh'n um dich, Gesell!

Kommt mir der Tag in die Gedanken,
Möcht' ich noch einmal rückwärts seh'n,
Möcht' ich zurücke wieder wanken,
Vor ihrem Hause stille steh'n.

My feet are burning,
Yet I'm walking on ice and snow;
I'm not going to draw breath
Until those towers are out of sight.

I tripped on every rock,
As I hurried to get out of town;
The crows threw snowballs and hailstones
From the rooftops as I left.

How differently I was received
By the inconstant town!
At your brimming windows
The lark and nightingale sang competitively.

The round linden trees bloomed,
The clear fountains sprayed brightly,
And a maiden's eyes glowed;
But then your fate was sealed.

When I think about that day
I want to look back again
And stumble back
To stand in front of her house.

WINTER JOURNEY – Day 7 – On the River

Der du so lustig rauschtest,
Du heller, wilder Fluß,
Wie still bist du geworden,
Gibst keinen Scheidegruß.

Mit harter, starrer Rinde
Hast du dich überdeckt,
Liegst kalt und unbeweglich
Im Sande ausgestreckt.

In deine Decke grab' ich
Mit einem spitzen Stein
Den Namen meiner Liebsten
Und Stund' und Tag hinein:

Den Tag des ersten Grußes,
Den Tag, an dem ich ging;
Um Nam' und Zahlen windet
Sich ein zerbroch'ner Ring.

Mein Herz, in diesem Bache
Erkennst du nun dein Bild?
Ob's unter seiner Rinde
Wohl auch so reißend schwillt?

You rippled so happily,
Clear, river wild.
How quiet you have become;
You give no parting words.

With a hard, tough crust
You've covered yourself;
Lying cold and still
Stretched out on the banks.

I carve the name of my love
On your smooth surface
With a sharp stone,
With the hour and the day.

The day we first met
And the day I had to leave.
Around these names and numbers
You can find a broken ring.

My heart, can you see
Your reflection here?
Behind the mirror flows
An unbearable flood.

150 years of the cafe chair

150 years ago, Michael Thonet perfected Konsumstuhl Nr.14. Having begun in the 1830s by bending a gluing wood to make functional yet beautiful furtniture, the Gebrüder Thonet makers perfected this unique design. The chair was made in huge numbers (over 50 million replicas) and filled the kaffeehausen of Thonet's native Vienna. In addition to its streamline beauty, the distribution of the chair was equally ingenious. 36 disassembled chairs including their screws could be packed in a single box (with a volume of one cubic meter) and then shipped across the world. They were assembled on arrival. Thonet is considered a pioneer of industrial design and the chair no. 14 - today 214 - the most successful industrial product in the world: it established the starting point for the history of modern furniture. For more on the Thonet company and their revolutionary chair click here.

WINTER JOURNEY – Day 6 – Flood

Manche Trän' aus meinen Augen
Ist gefallen in den Schnee;
Seine kalten Flocken saugen
Durstig ein das heiße Weh.

Wenn die Gräser sprossen wollen
Weht daher ein lauer Wind,
Und das Eis zerspringt in Schollen
Und der weiche Schnee zerrinnt.

Schnee, du weißt von meinem Sehnen,
Sag', wohin doch geht dein Lauf?
Folge nach nur meinen Tränen,
Nimmt dich bald das Bächlein auf.

Wirst mit ihm die Stadt durchziehen,
Munt're Straßen ein und aus;
Fühlst du meine Tränen glühen,
Da ist meiner Liebsten Haus.

All the tears have fallen
From my eyes into the snow;
The cold flakes swallow up
My burning grief.

When the grass is going to appear,
A milder breeze blows;
The ice breaks up
And the soft snow melts.

The snow knows of my pain;
Tell me, where am I going?
Follow my tears
And you would drown in the brook.

You would flow through the town,
Through the bustling streets;
My tears will begin to glow
When you reach my sweetheart’s house.

Der schweigsamen Zweig

As this article in the Chronicle Review appears about Sibelius's contacts with the Nazi party and the Pushkin Press publish Stefan Zweig's seminal The World of Yesterday, my thoughts turned again to Richard Strauss and the furore around Die schweigsame Frau, his sole collaboration with Zweig.


For Strauss, who had worked so extensively with Hugo von Hofmannsthal earlier in his career, it had been hard to replicate that close (if occasionally fractious) collaboration. Hofmannsthal died of a stroke a little time after the premiere of Die ägyptische Helena and before he could embark fully on their next work, which was to be Arabella. Despite his grief over the death of his writer partner and friend, Strauss considered that in Zweig he had found a partner equal to Hofmannsthal. Sharing with Hofmannsthal the rich Viennese education of the Jahrhundertwende, urbane and sophisticated, he was a perfect match. Strauss said of Die schweigsame Frau that, "None of my earlier operas was so easy to compose or gave me such light-hearted pleasure". Zweig ultimately wasn't so sure, saying that it was "a terribly difficult work and thus the very opposite of my original conception of it".


The major difficulty came, however, when the opera was first shown to the public. As Zweig was Jewish, the opera’s première at Dresden in 1935 met with political scandal; Hitler refused to attend and it was cancelled after its fourth performance. The inevitable strain brought to a close his working relationship with Strauss. Although some Jewish writers had been given dispensation by the Nazi party (including Hitler's beloved Léhar and Kálman), Zweig would not countenance such hideous hypocrisy. Strauss was appalled that the authorities felt they could control with whom he wrote, thinking not of the larger implications of the Nazis control of Jewish activities, but of how it changed his working life. Strauss wrote a forceful letter to Zweig, decrying the authorities - under whom he had been appointed president of the Reichsmusikkammer. It was intercepted and Strauss had to resign from his official post, though he maintained a close relationship with Hitler's regime, given the unofficial protection allowed to him for his Jewish daughter-in-law and grandsons (officially classified as ‘grade-one half-breeds’ under the Nuremberg laws).


Strauss's stupid (or wilful) ignorance has plagued his reputation since. For Zweig, however, the impact was greater. Fleeing his native Austria in 1934, he at first settled in the UK, before departing for the US and then for Brazil. This background of political wrangling, exile and remembrance flowed into the gestation of Die Welt von Gestern. The text was begun in Vienna in 1934. Prior to the Anschluß and the resultant Nazi persecution, Zweig prefigures what would happen to his beloved Austria and his Jewish compatriots. The text was subsequently continued in the UK and the US and completed in Brazil. His beloved wife Lotte Altmann typed the manuscript, which they sent to a publisher in Stockholm a day before the couple killed themselves in February, 1942.


Seeing Europe as morally bankrupt, Zweig and his wife had hidden themselves far away in Petrópolis. Written as both a remembrance of things past and a rejection of things present, The World of Yesterday is, as David Hare has said, "one of the greatest memoirs of the twentieth century, as perfect in its evocation of the world Zweig loved as it is in its portrayal of how that world was destroyed." For Strauss, of course, that sadness, that realisation came later. Yet it did come and the lachrymose Metamorphosen (1945) or the deathly acquiescence of the Vier letzte Lieder, shows Strauss in a regretfully nostalgic vein. As Zweig surmises, "when I attempt to find a simple formula for the period in which I grew up, prior to the First World War, I hope that I convey its fullness by calling it the Golden Age of Security."


To order a copy of the text either click here to order direct from the Pushkin Press or click here to order via Amazon.

WINTER JOURNEY – Day 5 – Lime

Am Brunnen vor dem Tore
Da steht ein Lindenbaum;
Ich träumt in seinem Schatten
So manchen süßen Traum.

Ich schnitt in seine Rinde
So manches liebe Wort;
Es zog in Freud' und Leide
Zu ihm mich immer fort.

Ich mußt' auch heute wandern
Vorbei in tiefer Nacht,
Da hab' ich noch im Dunkel
Die Augen zugemacht.

Und seine Zweige rauschten,
Als riefen sie mir zu:
Komm her zu mir, Geselle,
Hier find'st du deine Ruh'!

Die kalten Winde bliesen
Mir grad ins Angesicht;
Der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe,
Ich wendete mich nicht.

Nun bin ich manche Stunde
Entfernt von jenem Ort,
Und immer hör' ich's rauschen:
Du fändest Ruhe dort!

By the well, before the gate,
Stands a linden tree;
I used to dream in its shadows
So many sweet dreams.

In the bark I carved
My words of love;
In joy and in sorrow
I came back to it again.

As before, I had to walk
Past it in the middle of the night;
Even in that darkness
I closed my eyes.

The branches rustled
As if they were calling out:
‘Come, my friend,
And rest under me.’

The cold wind blew
Straight into my face,
My hat flew off
And I could not return.

Now I am an hour away
From the place;
Yet I still hear the leaves
Saying, ‘rest under me’.

WINTER JOURNEY – Day 4 – Numb

Ich such' im Schnee vergebens
Nach ihrer Tritte Spur,
Wo sie an meinem Arme
Durchstrich die grüne Flur

Ich will den Boden küssen,
Durchdringen Eis und Schnee
Mit meinen heißen Tränen,
Bis ich die Erde seh'.

Wo find' ich eine Blüte,
Wo find' ich grünes Gras?
Die Blumen sind erstorben
Der Rasen sieht so blaß.

Soll denn kein Angedenken
Ich nehmen mit von hier?
Wenn meine Schmerzen schweigen,
Wer sagt mir dann von ihr?

Mein Herz ist wie erstorben,
Kalt starrt ihr Bild darin;
Schmilzt je das Herz mir wieder,
Fließt auch ihr Bild dahin!

I look in the snow
For her footsteps, but to no avail,
And where she used to walk
On my arm in the meadow.

I want to kiss the ground
And break the ice and snow
With my burning tears,
So I can see the earth again.

Where are the flowers?
Where is the green grass?
The flowers have died,
And the grass has faded.

Can I take no memory
From this place?
When my sorrow is over,
Who will jog my memory?

My heart is almost dead
With her face frozen in there;
If it ever thaws
Her image would melt away.

The Banana Dance Haus

When is a house not a house? When you're designing it for Josephine Baker. The great American expat settled in Paris after her riotous success appearing practically nude at the Théatre des Champs-Élysées. A perennial tour-de-force, she returned to Paris to star in a new show the Folies Bergères, where she performed her infamous Danse sauvage, wearing her inimitable skirt of artificial bananas.


Her celebrity grew with the chic of Art Déco in the french capital and, following a number of appearances in the, then, burgeoning cinema industry, with appearances in Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zouzou (1934) and Princesse Tam Tam (1935), becoming a fabulously wealthy woman.


Placed in the sprawling and sedentary (but profoundly affluent sixième arrondissement), Baker acquired land on the Avenue Bugeaud. In the style of true farce, the most decorous performer of the Art Déco age employed one of the most austere strippers-back of decoration, Adolf Loos.


This house was perhaps the most unexpected commission for Adolf Loos, far from being a practical. It shows Loos's full architectural flare, a kind of homage to Josephine Baker's own talents. There was to be a large glass swimming pool, with the swimmers floating as in if an aquarium. The reception rooms were designed to be large enough for Baker to host large social gatherings. The house was more of a temple than a residential dwelling, all encased in bands of black and white marble. It is perhaps one of the more surprising meetings of modernist minds and a great pity that it never came to fruition.... just imagine the banana dance charades taking place in Loos's startling halls.

WINTER JOURNEY – Day 3 – Frozen Tears

Gefror'ne Tropfen fallen
Von meinen Wangen ab:
Und ist's mir denn entgangen,
Daß ich geweinet hab'?

Ei Tränen, meine Tränen,
Und seid ihr gar so lau,
Daß ihr erstarrt zu Eise
Wie kühler Morgentau?

Und dringt doch aus der Quelle
Der Brust so glühend heiß,
Als wolltet ihr zerschmelzen
Des ganzen Winters Eis!

Frozen drops fall
From my cheeks;
I didn’t realise
That I was weeping.

Ah, tears... my tears,
Are you so lukewarm
That you can turn to ice
Like the cold morning dew?

Yet you burst scaldingly
From my heart,
As if you could melt
All this winter's ice.

WINTER JOURNEY – Day 2 – The Weathervane

Der Wind spielt mit der Wetterfahne
Auf meines schönen Liebchens Haus.
Da dacht ich schon in meinem Wahne,
Sie pfiff den armen Flüchtling aus.

Er hätt' es eher bemerken sollen,
Des Hauses aufgestecktes Schild,
So hätt' er nimmer suchen wollen
Im Haus ein treues Frauenbild.

Der Wind spielt drinnen mit den Herzen
Wie auf dem Dach, nur nicht so laut.
Was fragen sie nach meinen Schmerzen?
Ihr Kind ist eine reiche Braut.

The wind spins the weathervane
On my sweetheart’s house.
In my delusion I thought
It was mocking me, wandering.

I should have noticed the sign
Fixed to the door before now;
Then I never would have looked
For friendship in that house.

The wind spins the hearts inside,
Like on the roof, only quieter.
Why should they care about me?
They have a rich bride for a child.

WINTER JOURNEY – Day 1 – Good Night

Fremd bin ich eingezogen,
Fremd zieh' ich wieder aus.
Der Mai war mir gewogen
Mit manchem Blumenstrauß.
Das Mädchen sprach von Liebe,
Die Mutter gar von Eh', -
Nun ist die Welt so trübe,
Der Weg gehüllt in Schnee.

Ich kann zu meiner Reisen
Nicht wählen mit der Zeit,
Muß selbst den Weg mir weisen
In dieser Dunkelheit.
Es zieht ein Mondenschatten
Als mein Gefährte mit,
Und auf den weißen Matten
Such' ich des Wildes Tritt.

Was soll ich länger weilen,
Daß man mich trieb hinaus?
Laß irre Hunde heulen
Vor ihres Herren Haus;
Die Liebe liebt das Wandern -
Gott hat sie so gemacht -
Von einem zu dem andern.
Fein Liebchen, gute Nacht!

Will dich im Traum nicht stören,
Wär schad' um deine Ruh',
Sollst meinen Tritt nicht hören -
Sacht, sacht die Türe zu!
Ich schreibe nur im Gehen
An's Tor noch gute Nacht,
Damit du mögest sehen,
An dich hab' ich gedacht.

I arrived a stranger,
And departed just the same.
The month of May was kind,
Giving me flowers along the way.
The girl spoke of love,
Her mother spoke of marriage,
But now the world is bleak
And the road is clogged with snow.

I cannot choose the moment
To make my winter journey,
I must find my way
Through this darkness.
The moon casts a shadow
Which follows behind,
And pressed into the meadow
I see the tracks of a deer.

Why should I linger longer
Just to be driven away?
The dogs should howl
Outside their master’s house.
Love loves to wander -
God has decreed it -
From one to another,
My beloved, good night!

I will not disturb your dreams,
You must have your rest.
My footsteps will be quiet,
Softly, as I close the door.
As I walk by I will write
‘Good night’ on the gate,
So you will know
That I thought of you.

WINTER JOURNEY - An Icy Advent Calendar

Last year, I marked the progress through the various days of December to Christmas with a tonal Advent Calendar. This year we will be taking a bleaker journey with Franz Schubert and Wolfgang Müller. There are twenty four poems in the Winterreise cycle, so each day of December a different part of the journey will appear on the blog. The original text in German will be accompanied by a suitably reflective image and a new translation of the Müller poetry.

The title indicates not only the pervasive frigidity of the songs, but an older man’s hopelessness at the pain of the world; there is no sun that can make glorious this particular winter of discontent. Schubert returned to Müller’s verse four years after Die schöne Müllerin, using 24 of the poems from the second volume of the Waldhornisten poetry. From February 1827, these verses dominated the composer’s thoughts. Unlike the earlier cycle, with its separate characters, its vivid situation and its sunny and naïve disposition (at least at the outset), Schubert was attracted to the more interior landscape of Die Winterreise. Although there are rich comparisons to be made between the boy of Die schöne Müllerin and the man of Winterreise, these bleaker lines drew from Schubert music of an unbearable pathos. The lyricism of the early Müller settings is replaced by a desiccated accompaniment, which underpins a melodramatic vocal line. Although bitterly ironic throughout, Schubert toys less with our feelings and presents the majority of the cycle in a desolate minor mood. Feel free to follow this frost-bitten journey with your recording of choice. Here are some suggestions:


Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Jörg Demus (Decca)
The 'classic' recording with the master of lieder, though some find the performance too mannered. A second recording is available accompanied by Gerald Moore.
Click here to order a copy.


Matthias Goerne, Alfred Brendel (Decca)
A modern baritone recording. There is a gruff beauty to Goerne's performance here. The accompaniment is exemplary.
Click here to order a copy.


Christian Gerhaher, Gerold Huber (Arte Nova/RCA)
As an alternative to the Goerne, there is the poise and introspection of this recording from Gerhaher and Huber, whose Mahler I recently advocated.
Click here to order a copy.


Peter Bears, Benjamin Britten (Decca)
Torrid and neurotic, Pears is an acquired taste. Britten provides measured and beautiful support. Not a benchmark but essential listening.
Click here to order a copy.


Christine Schäfer, Eric Schneider (Onyx)
Purity of sound features prominently in this soprano version of the cycle. The performance is beautiful, but changes the character of the cycle too much for my taste.
Click here to order a copy.


Mark Padmore, Paul Lewis (Harmonia Mundi)
My disc of the year, this is a wonderful performance. Less is more from both performers, with grace and phrasing, though it is never undramatic.
Click here to order a copy.


Ian Bostride, Leif Ove Andsnes (EMI)
Following on from Pears, Bostridge (though more gorgeous in tone) leans gently in the direction of the histrionic. Lacking the distinct poise of Padmore, this is nevertheless a wonderful recording.
Click here to order a copy.

A N
U N P R E C E D E N T E D
U P D A T E
It is dangerous to listen to your audience too much, but given the keen advocacy of some of the vintage benchmarks of this great cycle, here are two more recommendations:


Peter Anders, Michael Raucheisen (DG)
According to one anonymous comment, "they're not "interpreting" but living it," and "the ne plus ultra of extreme expression" by David Nice. Recorded in Berlin 1945.
Click here to order a copy.


Peter Schreier, Sviatoslav Richter (Decca)
This was an unforgivable lacuna... in fact, it was this recording I first heard during my 'Lieder' tutes at University. Sublime.
Click here to order a copy.