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After a 30 year-long partnership with harmonia mundi, Philippe Herreweghe has founded his own label, PHI, coproduced with Outhere. For his first CD, he presents Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. Under the leadership of Philippe Herreweghe, l’Orchestre des Champs-Élysées has been striving, for almost twenty years, to attain an idiomatic style and forgotten colours. This Fourth Symphony by Mahler, interpreted on period instruments, champions resolutely modern aesthetics, far from standard interpretations. Beyond the sumptuous colours of l’Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, beyond the meticulous work on the musical score, this recording confirms Herreweghe’s intimacy with the world of the Viennese composers of the turn of the century.
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In Gemächlicher Bewegung. Ohne Hast
Ruhevoll
Sehr Behaglich
14th January 2011
***
“the use here of gut strings, and their effect on the bowing style, combined with Mahler's undersized brass section, brings an unusual lightness to the balance between wind and strings that works to pleasing effect in conveying the buoyant religious ecstasy behind the work.”
The Independent on Sunday
16th January 2011
“The 19th-century woodwind instruments infuse Philippe Herreweghe's account of Mahler's Fourth with the thick green smell of buds and leaves...this is a performance rooted in the forest and in the symphonic traditions of Mahler's predecessors. Slow-burning but never sluggish, "Ruhevoll" has Beethovenian radiance, ripening into Brahmsian passion”
February 2011
“Joshua is a pure-toned soloist with not a hint of archness...For anyone wanting to hear the sound of instruments from Mahler's time, Herreweghe's is a treat, and his unfussy interpretation works very well...the PHI disc is a model of transparency, reflecting the character of the performance very well.”
3rd February 2011
****
“The performance is a finely judged one, the pacing moderate. What distinguishes it is not so much the expected opening up of the soundworld – more transparency from the gut strings, less weight from the wind...Above all, it's wonderful to hear a body of strings using portamento to shape their phrases”
6th March 2011
“Herreweghe is never an extrovert interpreter, and after some very scrunchy, pointed dissonant climaxes, he lets the music float with Rosemary Joshua's ethereal soprano solo in the last movement, fading to nothing in eternal bliss. Distinctively pure and touching.”
April 2011
**
“There are arresting moments, and the playing has a delicate beauty and textual clarity that repeatedly draw one's attention to Mahler's technical finesse - and the slightly soft-focus recording doesn't get in the way.”
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