Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn.(Sound Recording Review)

[] Bonney Fulgoni; Goerne, Winbergh: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Chailly. Texts and translations. Decca B0000029-02

For a long time, it was customary to perform certain songs from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn cycle as duets. These "dialogue songs," where two characters are involved, do in fact have "tie" mad "She" indications in the score, but Mahler, we are told, intended one singer per song, with two characterizations implied where appropriate. The outstanding von Otter/ Quasthoff/Abbado recording from 1999 (DG 459646) was the first recorded version since 1963 to observe Mahler's single-singer intentions, and the present recording continues this trend. (Donald Mitchell's notes huffily describe the two-singer approach to the dialogue songs as a "crass error.") Another innovation provided by Abbado et al. was to include "Urlicht," the fourth movement of the Second Symphony, which is in fact also a Wunderhorn song. In this performance, recorded in June 2000, Riccardo Chailly does Abbado one better by including "Das Himmlische Leben," the last movement of the Fourth Symphony, as well as "Urlicht."

More important than all of this, of course, is how Barbara Bonney and Matthias Goerne sound in these extraordinary songs, and they do sound splendid. Bonney's lilting, girlish rendering of "Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?" is delectable, her swirling roulades fairly sparkling with exuberance. Her gende caresses maximize the charm of "Verlor'ne Muh'," and she makes child's play out of the dauntingly long phrases of "Wo die schonen Trompeten blasen." ...