(++++) A COLLECTION OF LEGENDS

Mahler: Das klagende Lied; Symphony No. 4; Symphony No. 10—Adagio; interviews with Leopold Stokowski and Alfred Friese. Teresa Stich-Randall and Joan Sutherland, sopranos; Norma Procter, contralto; Peter Pears, tenor; Goldsmiths Choral Union; London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Walter Goehr; BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hermann Scherchen. SOMM. $24.99 (2 CDs).

     The only possible response to these first-ever commercial releases from the very early days of successful Mahler advocacy is one of awe – at least where devotees of Mahler’s music are concerned. This is an extraordinary time capsule, an opportunity to look back to a time when Mahler’s music was so far from ubiquitous that it was daring in the extreme to offer any of it, except perhaps Symphony No. 4, to audiences.

     It is a longstanding error to state that there was a “Mahler revival” in the 1960s, because “revival” implies that attention given in prior times came back. But in fact, there was what is better referred to as a Mahler discovery in the 1960s, since his works were previously deemed too complex, too large, too uneven, too difficult to play, too hard to understand, despite the efforts of a few, a very few, strong advocates.

     This exceptional SOMM release features several of those advocates – and provides tremendous insight into how Mahler was performed before his works became ubiquitous in concerts and on recordings. It also features non-advocates whose involvement with Mahler was minimal and rare – and is amazing to discover through this two-CD set. Joan Sutherland? That is a high-intensity, high-power name that is definitely not usually heard in the Mahler pantheon – in fact, her performance here in Das klagende Lied may be the only extant recording of her singing any Mahler. Another famed singer, Peter Pears, was an early Mahler booster but is rarely thought of in that respect nowadays. And what of Hermann Scherchen? Well, in fact he was a strong Mahler champion, even recording a 1950s cycle of Mahler symphonies (omitting, oddly, the Fourth) – but he is scarcely remembered today as a major Mahler proponent along the lines of Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, and (later) Leonard Bernstein. That is probably, at least in part, because of Scherchen’s notoriously erratic, quirky performances of Mahler’s music (and others’ music!) – Scherchen’s 1948 recording of the Adagio from Symphony No. 10, heard here, is a reasonable introduction to his highly attentive yet highly personalized approach to the music.

     Walter Goehr, in contrast to Scherchen, was an important force pressing home the value of Mahler’s music in the days before it was commonly heard – and his conducting of both Das klagende Lied (1956) and Symphony No. 4 (1960) shows care, commitment, a sure understanding of Mahler’s style, and a fine sense of orchestral shaping and balance (to the extent that the recorded sound allows that to be heard: the audio restoration here is well done, but the original sound was scarcely of the highest quality). Unfortunately, Goehr’s recording of the Fourth Symphony, which is a fine interpretation by any standards, was one of his last forays into Mahler: Goehr died the same year he made this recording, at the age of just 57. So he was never part of the Mahler discovery that ensued in the 1960s and that he helped bring about – which means that this release is, in part, a tribute to an unsung (or insufficiently sung) hero of Mahler promotion.

     Goehr is scarcely the only one of the early Mahler crusaders represented here. Two very extended interviews give listeners an amazing opportunity literally to hear two first-rate musicians who knew Mahler personally and worked with him in their own careers. Their perspectives are both invaluable and very different from each other. Timpanist Alfred Friese, whose timpani method is still studied and used today, played under Mahler in New York City in 1909 and 1910, and his 18-minute interview gives remarkable insight into Mahler’s thinking as a conductor as well as a composer. It is not an easy interview to hear – Friese, who mentions being nearly 86 years old when he gave it, did not always speak clearly – but the booklet provided with this recording gives a full and very welcome transcript. The 1970 commentary by Leopold Stokowski, who was just days from his 88^th birthday when interviewed, is easier to hear and understand, and at nearly 23 minutes is even longer than the talk with Friese – and here listeners get the perspective of one famous conductor on another, as well as Stokowski’s memories of Mahler in rehearsal.

     It is not overstating things to say that any dyed-in-the-wool Mahlerian will want to have this remarkable release for the extremely high quality of the insights it provides into the days before widespread Mahler acceptance – insights into Mahler the composer, Mahler the conductor, and Mahler the highly influential figure in Romantic and post-Romantic musical circles. The three musical performances here are all worthy and often fascinating in themselves, even if none of them approaches the quality level of much-more-recent recordings that were made by conductors who had plenty of time to study, absorb, evaluate, re-study, re-think and re-evaluate Mahler’s music. These readings are snapshots in time, limited in some significant ways: Das klagende Lied is heard only in its two-part version, its opening Waldmärchen not yet having been published; and Symphony No. 10 was not to be available in a complete, five-movement performing version until 16 years after this Scherchen recording of its first movement. But the limitations themselves are testimony to the growing interest in Mahler’s music in the decades after his own untimely death. The Friese and Stokowski interviews provide further testimony, verbal testimony, that can almost send shivers up a listener’s spine with the realization of the direct line stretching from Mahler’s era to our own, more than a century later. By any means, by any measure, this is an exceptional release for those who study, care about, and are moved by Mahler – there is nothing else quite like it available, and it is as distinguished in its way as Mahler was in his.