Mahler: Symphony No. 4 / Ruckert-lieder

ABBADO; LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA; KOZENA

That Claudio Abbado should be ending his career delivering standard repertoire as super-refined chamber music to the well-heeled has unsettled some commentators but his is a glorious example of his latter-day music-making in a programme which suits the softer grain completely. You can scarcely imagine this unassuming maestro ripping his score to shreds as did Arturo Toscanini while rehearsing Wagner for the Lucerne Festival on the brink of the Second World War. The latter’s scratch band was stuffed with luminaries including the members of the Busch Quartet; Abbado’s 2009 line-up has the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra at its core and is quite simply beyond praise. There are innumerable incidental beauties from all sections: the woodwind nothing short of sublime, the brass tactfully reticent, the strings perhaps most remarkable of all with their radiant pianissimos. The conductor’s previous audio recordings of the work for DG (6/78 with Frederica von Stade, 1/06 with Renée Fleming) are, for me at least, comprehensively outclassed. The mood is more relaxed and the contribution of Magdalena Kožená in the finale a definite plus. She may not be a natural for childlike wonder by she sings with consummate technical control and intellectual understanding. If the Rückert-Lieder seem a little cool at first, the astonishing subtlety and tact of the orchestral response inspires Kožená to a rapt account of “Ich bin der Welt”, perhaps the finest since Janet Baker and John Barbirolli famously collaborated in these songs (EMI, 2/68). The fact that the soloist is sometimes marginally ahead of musicians whose every phrase is shaped to jewel-like perfection only goes to show that these renditions are pretty much “as heard” in the hall. Visually things are less happy. The filming is conventional in style but old Abbado hands could be distressed by his extreme frailty. Meanwhile Kožená’s tanned face and pink décolletage seem ill-matched and you may take against her wild-eyed gurning, something I hadn’t noticed before in live performances witnessed from the cheaper seats. You can always turn off the visuals although, usefully, subtitles are provided. Sonically, it is just a little dry, possibly a faithful reflection of the much-lauded sound in the venue. Abbado’s ability to create a frisson at the outset of the Adagietto of the Fifth is trumped here by the instantaneous rapture he magics at the start of the Fourth’s slow movement. Sceptics should sample without delay. Here is profoundly affecting artistry which for once lives up to the hype.

Price: $37.98