Barenboim's Tannhauser from the Berlin Staatsoper

Richard Wagner, Tannhauser

Peter Seiffert (Tannhäuser)

Marina Prudenskaya (Venus)

Ann Petersen (Elisabeth),

Peter Mattei (Wolfram von Eschenbach)

René Pape (Hermann, Landgraf von Thüringen)

Peter Sonn (Walther von der Vogelweide)

Tobias Schabel (Biterolf)

Jürgen Sacher (Heinrich der Schreiber)

Jan Martiník (Reinmar von Zweter)

Sónia Grané (Ein Hirtenknabe)

Stage direction and choreography by Sasha Waltz

Staatskapelle Berlin & Staatsopenchor

Conducted by Daniel Barenboim

Belair Classics BAC422

Recorded live at the Staatsoper in Berlin in April 2014 this recording of Tannhauser has a lot going for it. Daniel Barenboim is probably the most authoritative living Wagner conductor and he is working with a fine orchestra and a cast with no obvious weak links. The staging is low-key, unobtrusive, and by and large effective. The enthusiastic applause at the end is well-deserved. This is certainly one of the best Tannhauser’s available on DVD/Blu-Ray – certainly significantly more satisfying than Alex Kober’s recording from the 2014 Bayreuth festival, which I reviewed here.

Barenboim basically offers us the Dresden version of 1845 with a ballet in Act 1, as per the 1861 Paris version (coyly described in the program notes as “reference to the Bachanals (Act 1 Scene 1) in the Paris version”). As is well-known, the ballet Wagner added fell somewhat short of the expectations of the Jockey Club, but any Jockey Club members who wandered into this Berlin performance would feel, I think, that they had got their money’s worth. The dancing is extensive with significant amounts of bared flesh on display in the first and third acts. If I have one reservation about the production it is that there are really too many visual distractions. Writhing semi-naked dancers are, I suppose, appropriate for the Venusberg scenes, but I found the dancing pilgrims returning from Rome rather jarring. This is a relatively minor quibble, however, since the choreography is well-judged and the enhanced by the visual impact of the understated designs which, apart from the giant bamboo curtain in the Minstrel’s Hall, primarily exploit shadows and suggestions of empty space.

The singing in this Tannhauser is uniformly strong. Peter Seiffert is a very convincing Tannhauser. He has the power and volume of a heldentenor but, unlike most of the other current heldentenors, he can act and sing with real expressiveness. He is also capable of sharing the stage, which is one reason why the principal duets and ensembles work as well as they do. The other reason is the quality of the other principals. Probably the most impressive is Peter Mattei’s Wolfram von Eschenbach. Mattei’s Wolfram is far from the pedantic and whiny troubadour that we often find. Despite his odd costume (he looks like Sherlock Holmes in cavalry boots) Wolfram comes across as a character with real depth, providing dramatic and musical continuity throughout Act III, in counterpoint first with Elisabeth and then with Tannhauser. Rene Pape (as Hermann, Landgraf von Thüringen) is probably the most celebrated member of the cast. His singing is immaculate, although the role is much less demanding than König Mark, which he has sung with great distinction.

I do think that Venus is more effective when sung (as it is here) by a mezzo soprano. Marina Prudenskaya sings with venom in Act I and she is convincing at both ends of the tessitura. Although a little more body would have been ideal, Prudenskaya is a compelling Venus. Ann Petersen’s Elisabeth is a worthy rival to Venus’s charms – and clearly not immune to the pleasures of the flesh. This role, like Wolfram’s, is often interpreted in an excessively prissy way. Not so here. Petersen borders on the heroic at various points in Act III.

The Staatskapelle and Staatsopenchor do fine work for Daniel Barenboim, who has a characteristically strong sense of drama and architecture. All in all this is a very fine recording. I only have two complaints. First, the liner notes  are extremely thin with no information on the singers or production. Second, and particularly galling, the credits are projected on the screen during the overture. Still, the audiovisual quality is excellent and this recording is highly recommended.

Mahler 1 from Hannu Lintu and the Finnish Radio Symphony

Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 1

Gustav Mahler, Blumine

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Hannu Lintu, conductor

Mahler’s First Symphony is often recorded and issued on its own. Generous record companies have occasionally partnered it with the Songs of a Wayfarer, which makes good musical sense given the role of the second song in the first movement. Another (less logical) option is the first movement of the Tenth. A quick survey of the 162 recordings available on Archiv Musik suggests that the Blumine movement, included as the second of five movements for the first four performances of the symphony, is not as widely adopted as one might imagine. But it is the chosen pairing on David Zinman’s 2007 recording and quite a few others, including this very good SACD recording from Hannu Lintu and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, issued by Ondine. Blumine makes an excellent filling, delightful in its own right and also giving us a much clearer sense of the symphony as Mahler originally conceived it.

Lintu opts, like Zinman, to add Blumine as an optional extra, rather than present the First in its original five movement form. This is the right call, I think. Mahler’s judgment seems to have been more secure than Bruckner’s in evaluating early versions. Blumine is a charming piece that deserves to be played, but including definitely breaks the continuity between the opening movement and the scherzo.

Michael Steinberg quotes from a letter Mahler wrote to the conductor Schalk in which he says: “In the first movement the greatest delicacy throughout”. Lintu’s approach is entirely in line with this. He sets the stage with very precise playing in the opening minutes before the transition to the Wayfarer theme. Favoring delicacy over boisterousness makes the climax at the end of the movement more telling. The same pattern reappears in the scherzo, where the end of the movement gains from the relatively understated playing that precedes it (as well as from the gentle lilt in the trio).

Unfortunately the element of parody, while not entirely absent from the third movement funeral march, is certainly not foregrounded. Lintu’s emphasis is on beauty of sound, and he certainly succeeds in this. In my opinion the symphony demands a rougher edge in this pivotal movement –in the opening bass solo, for example. One benefit of Lintu’s approach, though, is that it highlights the drama of the finale, where the tone is definitely set by the tempestuous opening. Very expressive playing in the lyrical sections builds into a rousing and affirmative final hymn with very sturdy playing from the Finnish Radio Symphony brass.

There is no shortage of recordings of Mahler’s First (in fact – no shortage of SACD recordings), but this is a very worthy addition to the field, more convincing to my ear than the recent DVD/Blu-Ray live performance from Paavo Järvi and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony (see here for my review of Järvi’s cycle). Recommended. 

A tale of two Rheingolds - Rattle and van Zweden

Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold

Michael Volle, baritone (Wotan),

Christian van Horn, bass baritone (Donner)

Benjamin Bruns, tenor (Froh)

Burkhard Ulrich, tenor (Loge)

Elisabeth Kulman, mezzo soprano (Fricka)

Annette Dasch, soprano (Freia)

Janina Baechle, mezzo soprano (Erda)

Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Conducted by Simon Rattle

BR Klassik 900133 (2 CDs)

Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold

Matthias Goerne, baritone (Wotan)

Oleksandr Pushniak, bass baritone (Donner)

Charles Reid, tenor (Froh)

Kim Begley, tenor (Loge)

Michelle DeYoung, mezzo soprano (Fricka)

Anna Samuil, soprano (Freia)

Deborah Humble, soprano (Erda)

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra

Conducted by Jaap van Zweden

Naxos Blu-Ray Audio NBD 0049 (also available in CD)

These performances of the opening drama of Wagner’s Ring both originate in concert performances. The Rattle production was recorded over two days at the Hwerkulessaal in Munich (April 24-25, 2014), while van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philharmonic were recorded at the Hong Kong Cultural Center Concert Hall (January 22 and 24, 2015). The van Zweden Rheingold is the beginning of a complete Ring for Naxos, but I am not aware of similar plans from BR Klassik for Simon Rattle and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.

Concert performances have some, but by no means all, of the immediacy and power of a live recording. At the same time, though, they provide a more controlled environment for acoustic fine-tuning and post-production editing, particularly important for the Naxos issue, which is (to the best of my knowledge) the first Wagner music drama to be recorded in Blu-Ray audio. Both recordings have excellent sound quality – although the Blu-Ray disc version of van Zweden’s performance seems to have been recorded at rather a low volume.

The Hong Kong Philharmonic is not known as a Wagner orchestra, but it clearly has aspirations in that direction. The current Ring project is the first cycle undertaken by a Chinese orchestra. Jaap van Zweden, who is simultaneously music director at the Hong Kong Philharmonic and at the Dallas Symphony, is a good choice for the podium. He is an excellent Bruckner conductor and his concert performance of Parsifal with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic (on Challenge Classics) was well received, and deservedly so. The Symphonieorchester des Baterischen Rundfunks operates of course at a different level of visibility, particularly  with Sir Simon Rattle at the helm. Wagner, however, is relatively under-represented in Rattle’s repertoire and discography, with his first Ring conducted at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence from 2007 – 2009 (and subsequently released on Blu-Ray).

Of the two conductors Rattle has much more fluidity, particularly with the strings. Van Zweden is flatter and communicates less energy and momentum. The contrast is particularly clear in the closing minutes of the Prelude, which Van Zweden conducts like the prelude to Das Rheingold, whereas Rattle shapes it as the prelude to the entire Ring cycle. Throughout the performance Rattle is more effective at foregrounding the forward-looking references in the score.

The Hong Kong Philharmonic is most effective in the more intimate, chamber-like sections, but falls somewhat short when drama is called for – such as, for example, the journeys to and from Nibelheim – not helped by occasional disjointedness in, e.g., the scene with the giants. Rattle, in contrast, is at the monumental end of the spectrum. I think that this works well for him in Das Rheingold, which is not easy to bring off (as a single uninterrupted block of music of well over two hours, without any of the cycle’s signature episodes). Interestingly, van Zweden is 10 minutes or so longer than Rattle.

Of the two casts the finest single vocal performance comes from Matthias Goerne as Wotan. As a highly experienced lieder singer his enunciation and articulation are of course excellent, and he has the vocal presence to sing Wotan successfully. We will have to wait until Die Walküre to see how Goerne copes with the real depths of the character, but all the indications are very promising. Michael Volle’s Wotan for Simon Rattle is definitely lighter and overall less impressive, but still dramatically satisfying.

In fact, there are no real weak links in the chain in either performance. Highlights from van Zweden’s cast include Kim Begley’s Loge and Michelle de Young’s Fricka. The first is sung without the tendency to caricature that some singers feel necessary in Loge, while Fricka is less petulant than she often appears. Burkhard Ulrich and Elisabeth Kulman sing the same roles well for Rattle. Peter Sidhom’s Alberich (in the Hong Kong cast) has fine moments, but the performance is marred by exaggeration at crucial moments (e.g. both of Alberich’s curses). I found Rattle’s Alberich (Tomasz Konieczny) more balanced. Rattle’s Erda (Janina Baechle) has a fine tone, but sounds a little too light for the weight of her message. The various giants and gods are all well sung, with Kwangchul Youn’s Fasolt (for van Zweden) particularly standing out.

Both of these sets have their merits. There is some very fine singing from van Zweden’s cast, particularly Matthias Goerne, while Rattle and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks take the orchestral honors. The Hong Kong performance has the advantage of being recorded on Blu-Ray audio and offers a surround sound option (DTS-HD 5.1). I don’t think that either will force its way to the front of a very large field, but each is certainly worth listening to, and I look forward to the next installments of van Zweden’s cycle with the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

Kurtág, Kafka Fragments

György Kurtág, Kafka Fragments Op. 24

Caroline Melzer, soprano

Nurit Stark, violin

BIS Hybrid SACD 2175

The Hungarian composer György Kurtág was a fellow-student of György Ligeti at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest in the late 1940’s and studied with Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud during the year he spent in Paris in 1957-8. The Kafka Fragments are one of his best-known and most frequently-recorded compositions. The origins of this unusual and complex song cycle for soprano and solo violin go back to his year of exile in Paris. It was during that year that Kurtág began collecting fragments from the works of Franz Kafka – not from his published works but from his notebooks, diaries, and letters. At the same time Kurtág was helped to recover from a major depression by the psychotherapist Mariann Stein, to whom he eventually dedicated the Kafka Fragments, which he began to compose in 1985 and completed in 1987.

The word ‘fragment’ in the title is to be taken quite literally. This piece contains 40 songs (for want of a better word), divided into four sections. Each song is drawn from an observation or aphorism. Unlike some more famous song cycles the texts are a wonderful read without musical accompaniment, and Kurtág shows great skill as a curator of Kafka’s marginalia. The flavor of the piece, and perhaps also its central theme, comes across very clearly in the longest song in the cycle – “The true path”, which is the only song in the second section. In Kafka’s words (translated by Julia and Peter Sherwood). “The true path goes by way of a rope that is suspended not high up, but rather just above the ground. Its purpose seems to be more to make one stumble than to walk on”. Kafka aficionados will recognize the sentiment.

The haunting and fragmentary words are set to music of great expressiveness, but it is an expressiveness that does its work through economy and suggestion. Many of the songs last less than a minute, with two coming in at 17 seconds. The combination of soprano and violin is very effective for the texts. In the final song (“The moonlit night dazzled us”) the soprano enters into a wordless song, but elsewhere the violin picks up on moods and nuances hinted at by the words, using the instrument’s full harmonic, rhythmic, and percussive ranges.

Caroline Melzer and Nurit Stark are very much attuned to each other and to the sound-world of the song cycle. The sound quality on this hybrid SACD is first rate (I listened in two-channel, but 5.0 surround sound is also available), and the program notes are well-written and informative. I highly recommend this disc.

Rigoletto in Warsaw

Guiseppe Verdi, Rigoletto

Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa, Warsaw
13 December, 2015


Rapturous applause greeted this performance of Rigoletto, which by now is getting rather long in the tooth (it was first premiered in March 1997). Judging by the applause when the curtain rose for Act III much of the appreciation was for the set, which the opera-going audience of Warsaw must have seen many times. Personally I could do without the heavy scenery and lavish interiors, particularly since the scene change between the two scenes in Act 1 required a15-minute interval that broke the flow of the first act.

Musically, however, there were definitely things to admire. Carlo Montanaro, the music director at the Warsaw Opera, made clear from the opening bars that he would be emphasizing the dark side of the opera. In this he was fully supported by the Mexican baritone Jorge Lagunes in the title role. Lagunes gave by quite some way the most memorable performance of the evening, with a compelling portrayal of the bitter, besotted, and vindictive hunchback, culminating in the roar of self-hatred that ends the opera.

Unfortunately Lagunes was not well matched by the Kosovan tenor Rae Lahaj as the Duke of Mantua. Lahaj, who has been singing this role and Alfredo Germont to some acclaim in Germany, has a nice voice and certainly looks the part of the mediterranean Lothario, but he falls somewhat sort when it comes to expressiveness.

Soprano Małgorzata Olejniczak-Worobiej replaced the scheduled Aleksandra Kurzak at short notice. Looking at her history on Operabase this is one of her first principal roles at a major house (although she did sing Gilda in Warsaw in June 2013). After what appeared to be some initial difficulties getting in sync with the orchestra and other participants she gave a fine performance. Her voice is delicate, with a commendable purity of tone, best suited to the more contemplative moments of the role (as opposed to the final quartet, for example).

The cast was rounded out to good effect by Piotr Nowacki as the assassin Sparafucile. Nowacki was suitably menacing and also strong enough to carry the lead soprano round in a sack. Anna Bernacka was convincing as Sparafucile's sister Maddalena. Likewise Magdalena Idzik as Giovanna. The orchestra and choir of the Teatr Wielki acquitted themselves very honorably.

Enescu - Complete Works for Solo Piano and Symphony No. 4

George Enescu, Symphony No. 4 in E minor

George Enescu, Nuages d’Automne sur les Forêts

George Enescu, Chamber Symphony Op. 33

NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover

Conducted by Peter Ruzicka

CPO 777 966-2 (1 CD)

George Enescu, Complete Works for Piano Solo

Suite Op. 3 No. 1 “dans le style ancient (1897)

Prélude et Scherzo F sharp minor (1896)

Barcarolle B flat major (1897)

La Fileuse D major (1897)

Impromptu A flat major (1898)

Regrets G flat major (1898)

Impromptu C major (1900)

Prelude and Fugue C major (1900)

 Suite Op. 10 No. 2, Les Cloches Sonores (1903)

Nocturne (1907)

Pièces Impromptus Op. 18 (1913/16)

Sonantensatz  F sharp minor (1912)

Pièce sur le nom de Fauré

Sonata Op. 24 No. 1 F sharp minor (1924)

Sonata Op. 24 No. 3 D major (1935)

The Romanian composer and musician George Enescu had an extraordinary effect on his musical contemporaries. He was a student at the Paris Conservatoire with Ravel, who described him as “the most skilled among all of us with Gedalge” (who taught composition). Pablo Casals described him as “the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart”, while Enescu’s student Yehudi Menuhin declared that “Enescu gave me the light that has guided my entire existence”. Nowadays he is a relatively neglected figure, probably best known for his two Romanian Raphsodies, which are perfectly agreeable but probably not what Ravel, Casals, and Menuhin were talking about.

This 3-CD set from Hänssler Classic of Raluca Stirbat playing Enescu’s complete music for solo piano and CPO’s release of the Symphony No. 4 and two other orchestral works will help open eyes to the scope and originality of Enescu’s compositions. It is telling that this is the first ever recording of the Symphony No. 4 (which, admittedly, Enescu left unfinished), and there are a number of other firsts among the solo piano works. Yet, almost all of the pieces reveal a composer with a distinctive voice and innovative approaches to harmony and structure, and some of them deserve a place in the standard twentieth century repertoire.  

The principal highlights from these discs are the Symphony No. 4 and the Chamber Symphony. The Symphony No. 4 receives its world première recording from Peter Ruzicka and the NDR Radiophilharmonie. It was sketched out in full by the composer, but only the first of the three movements was completely instrumented. Musicologist Pascal Bertiou completed the instrumentation in 1996. Enescu considered himself to be primarily a symphonist, and this symphony reveals him to as a very fine orchestral colorist with a distinctive harmonic voice and sense of structure. The slow movement is particularly striking, opening with a funeral march on the horn with hand drum accompaniment. The march slowly gives way to fragmented melodies in an exotic harmonic universe, leading to a seamless transition to the final movement – largely sunny in mood, but with flashbacks to the slow movement.

The Chamber Symphony occupies a similar sound world to the opening of the last movement of the Symphony No. 4. It was Enescu’s final work, composed when he was in very poor health. Particularly memorable is the sense of intimate dialog between distinct melodic lines, as well as the funeral march in the third movement. This is a very concentrated and focused work.

The three CDs of Enescu’s piano music are more or less chronologically ordered. Enescu was a noted child prodigy, completing his course of study at the Vienna Conservatory by the age of 14. The works on the first CD were almost all written before his 20^th birthday. None of the pieces are masterpieces, but most bear the distinctive stamp of the composer – rhythmically in the A flat major Impromptu (with the unusual time signature of 15/16) and harmonically in the Barcarolle. Enescu’s neo-classical leanings are also prominent. The Op. 3 Suite, written when Enescu was 16, has an impressive neo-Baroque fugue, and the 1903 Prelude and Fugue incorporates a distinctive blend of late Romantic harmonies and expressiveness.

As Enescu’s career progressed his Baroque leanings receded more into the background. Compare the Op. 10 Suite with its predecessor, for example – there are echoes of Debussy and Ravel in the Pavane, and the bell motif plays an important structural role (the piece is subtitled ‘Les Cloches Sonores’). Also on CD2 we have Nocturne, which offers a very good introduction to Enescu’s sound world, and Pièces Impromptus, composed in 1913-1916 but lost until 1957. Two are particularly striking – the haunting and ghostly Mazurk Mélancolique and the shimmering sounds of the Carillon Nocturne.

The principal offerings on CD3 are the two late sonatas. 24 No. 1, dating from 1924, and No. 3, written 11 years later. (Enescu never got beyond the preliminary sketches for No. 2.) The disc opens with the 1912 Sonatensatz, which was the first version of the Allegro from Sonata No. 1. This piece, lost until 1993, has a very late Romantic musical idiom, and sprawls somewhat. The later version in the sonata is much more focused and less generic. It has a pronounced folk element, although not as much as the second movement Presto Vivace, which has very strong and percussive rhythms, or the Andante molto, which sounds like a sort of folk nachtmusik. The Sonata No. 3 is, to my ear, the most completely satisfying of Enenscu’s works for piano. The outer movements combine late Romanticism with Enescu’s Romanian melodies and harmonies, framing a haunting slow movement.

Both of these issues do an invaluable service in bringing Enescu to the attention of a modern audience. Not everything here is gold, but there are certainly some gems. Raluca Stirbat, the distinguished Romanian pianist, is clearly wonderfully well attuned with Enescu’s musical voice. Likewise Peter Ruzicka and the NRD Radiophilharmonie. The sound and recording quality is uniformly high.

Mahler 6 and 7 from Harding and Chailly

Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 6

Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Conducted by Daniel Harding

BR Klassik CD 900132

Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 7

Gewandhausorchester Leipzig

Conducted by Riccardo Chailly

Accentus Blu-Ray ACC10309

The liner notes for Chailly’s live recording from the Leipzig Gewandhaus of Mahler’s Seventh have this to say about the conductor’s approach –

Instead of viewing this music as personal confession – a mirror of autobiographical tragedies, inner turmoil, and anticipated catastrophes – Chailly returns the focus to the music’s purely compositional qualities: the innovative formal complexity, harmonic ambiguity, refined use of instrumental sound, and inexhaustible imagination of Mahler’s symphonic worlds.

It is hard to know what to make of this. Of course, music does have purely compositional qualities, and the list given is a fair description of the compositional qualities of Mahler’s symphonies in general, and the Seventh in particular. But compositional qualities are not an end in themselves. They typically serve an expressive purpose (and of course music can be expressive without being autobiographical – Mahler’s Sixth, the so-called Tragic, was written when he was rather unusually contented).

A little further on the author (Julia Spinola) says that Chailly takes the music at its word, which “rescues his Mahler interpretations from false pathos and sentimentality” and allows the music “to be experienced as a natural phenomenon, a world quite capable of speaking for itself without the assistance of well-meaning interpreters.” I am sorry to say that this is nonsense of the first order. Music can’t speak for itself. It has to be performed, and any performance that is more than getting the notes right is an interpretation. Chailly is no less of a “well-meaning interpreter” than anyone else.

So – on to the music! Chailly’s interpretation certainly favors lucidity and clarity over high drama and anguish. He is very successful at bringing out Mahler’s superb orchestration and at times the symphony sounds closer to a sinfonia concertante than to a symphony (thanks in part also to some fine and sensitive filming from the team led by Nyika Jancsó). One of Chailly’s great strengths is coordinating an intimate conversation between soloists across the orchestra. This comes across particularly clearly in the Andante Amoroso (the second Nachtmusik).

Chailly’s conducting is not cold, but he does avoid what some would describe as Mahlerian excess (and what others, of course, would describe as the essence of the composer!). Lovers of the kind of approach favored by Bernstein and Solti will be disappointed. Frankly, they may have a point. Take the first movement for example. The three marches have great forward momentum and impulsion, but they lack a certain bite and edge. The first Nachtmusik and the Scherzo are played very revealingly, but without the undertones of menace that I was expecting to hear. Chailly’s night is not “dark and full of terrors”, to borrow a phrase from Game of Thrones.  Still the Rondo-Finale ends with all the affirmation one could want!

Daniel Harding and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks share Chailly’s preference for lucidity and clarity, but their performance is not on balance quite as successful. The best moments in the first movement (to my ear) are in the other-worldly sections in the middle of the movement (the cowbell sections) – some of Mahler’s most contemplative music, played with great sensitivity. But what Harding doesn’t manage to convey is how this section, and the Alma theme, contrast so powerfully with the grim marches that drive the movement.

Harding positions the Andante before the Scherzo (as Mahler himself did for the first three times he conducted it). The movement is played with fluidity and gracefulness, but the Scherzo lacks the element of the grotesque that makes the contrast with the Andante so telling. One characteristic of Harding’s conducting is an apparent unwillingness to commit to strong accents (of the type so beloved of  traditional Mahler conductors), which makes the music sound rather smooth and emotionally understated. The drama comes back a bit with the opening bars of the finale. This movement contains much more emphatic contrast than its predecessors, but it is still missing that element of exaggeration that I think is so important to Mahler – a case in point is the rather flattened entry of the harps after the second hammer blow, which it is hard not to hear as a missed dramatic opportunity.

Both recordings have very fine sound – CD for the Harding recording and a choice between PCM stereo and DTS HD surround sound for the Chailly Blu-Ray (which is also very well-filmed). I think that almost every Mahlerian will want to buy the Chailly performance of the Seventh. I am not so convinced by Harding’s Sixth, however.