Mahler: Symphony No. 4

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Pinnock directs a disciplined and expressive performance at ample tempos appropriate enough for a resonant full orchestra but sometimes a little too staid to sustain the momentum of a drier-toned... — BBC Music Magazine, October 2013, 3 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 8th Jul 2013
Catalogue No: CKD438
Label: Linn
Length: 64 minutes

Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune

Work length10:50

$1.50

$2.30

$3.05

Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble, Trevor Pinnock
Recorded: 16-18 February 2012
Recording Venue: St. George's, Brandon Hill, Bristol United Kingdom

Mahler: Symphony No. 4

Work length53:43

Album only

Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble, Trevor Pinnock
Recorded: 16-18 February 2012
Recording Venue: St. George's, Brandon Hill, Bristol United Kingdom

I. Bedachtig, nicht eilen

Track length15:59

Album only

II. In gemachlicher Bewegung, ohne Hast

Track length8:53

$1.50

$2.30

$3.05

III. Ruhevoll, poco adagio

Track length19:39

Album only

IV. Sehr behaglich

Track length9:12

$1.50

$2.30

$3.05

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About

Historical performance pioneer, Trevor Pinnock, conducts the Royal Academy of Music Ensemble in revealing chamber arrangements of Mahler’s most frequently performed symphony and Debussy’s Prelude a l'apres midi d'un faune, on its debut recording for Linn.

Arranged for Schoenberg’s 1918 Society for Private Musical Performances, these reductions were designed to highlight the fresh perspective a stripped-back orchestration could offer the listener.

With this recording, Trevor and the Academy launch a series of performances and recordings which are retrospectively reigniting Schoenberg’s vision of performing chamber reductions of symphonic repertoire, including newly commissioned arrangements for this series.

Erwin Stein’s visionary transformation of Mahler’s neo-classicist symphony is for fifteen players and soprano (Sonia Grane). A Mahler symphony of more modest proportions, it lends itself perfectly to a chamber arrangement.

Benno Sachs’ re-orchestration of Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune retains many of the sounds of Debussy’s original, using the span of the piano to fill out gaps in the texture, and the harmonium to sustain missing parts in the winds, additions which add much interest and afford a new coherence and sensuality to the melodic line.

Trevor Pinnock is known worldwide as a harpsichordist and conductor who pioneered performance on historical instruments with his own orchestra, The English Concert.

In the 2012/13 season, Pinnock conducts the Kioi Sinfonietta, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Orchestra, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg (where he is Principal Guest Conductor), Rotterdam Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, and tours with the Kammerorchester Basel and Maria João Pires.

In opera he conducts Mozart's Don Giovanni with Houston Opera and Haydn's La Vera Constanza with the Royal Academy of Music, London.

Pinnock gives solo recitals throughout the UK and trio recitals in the UK and Europe with Jonathan Manson and Matthew Truscott.

The recording is produced by Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, whose producing career has won him several awards including Diapasons d’Ors, eight Gramophone Awards and many further nominations.

Reviews

October 2013

Pinnock directs a disciplined and expressive performance at ample tempos appropriate enough for a resonant full orchestra but sometimes a little too staid to sustain the momentum of a drier-toned chamber ensemble.

20th July 2013

this recording shows [Pinnock] to be well acquainted and at ease with the demands of Mahler’s Fourth...both [performances] capture a simplicity of timbre and colouring that goes to the essence of the music...What they miss in fullness of sound, they gain in transparency and up-tempo crispness

July 2013

the artistic values that Pinnock has long espoused, from textural clarity to historically informed performance, prove crucial to this particular project...Under Pinnock, the Royal Academy of Music's Chamber Ensemble bring to the surface the lithe counterpoint that usually lumbers under thicker string textures.

16th September 2013

[the Mahler] is a performance to treasure, crowned by a delightfully natural account of the soprano solo in the last movement by Sónia Grané...[the Debussy's] original character survives here even with the orchestra greatly reduced...This is one of the most enlightening and enjoyable Mahler discs I have heard for a long time.

15th August 2013

The myriad colours of Debussy's scoring in the Prélude are carefully preserved, even if the result is more like a pastel drawing than an oil painting, while the much more drastic compression of Mahler's soundworld reveals details that are usually never heard...A satisfying, thought-provoking disc.

Mahler: Symphony No. 4

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