A l'image des neuf autres symphonies enregistrées par ce même orchestre zurichois, cette quatrième symphonie est magnifiquement interprétée. Très belle image sonore en version SACD.
I heard this symphony, played by this orchestra, at this year's prom concerts, and I was bowled over by their standard of playing, and their interpretation of this popular symphony, so I was delighted to find that they had recorded it, albeit with a different soloist in the last movement. The performance on this disc comes up to all expectations, in terms of balance, quality of sound, standard of playing and tempos, and I would recommend it to anyone considering buying a copy of this beautiful symphony.
The Mahler Fourth has recently faired quite well on disc. There was Michael Tilson Thomas's stunning, is somewhat manicured, performance, the highlight of his San Francisco Cycle. Ivan Fischer's Fourth was also thrilling, featuring spectacular attention to detail. And now Zinman offers a wonderful Fourth which may fail to reach the vertiginous heights of these other installments in the vocal department but in all other instances is certainly their equal.
Zinman is true to the idea that this is a child's symphony and keeps the orchestra in check in most of the tutti passages in the first movement. While this could potentially rob the music of tension, Zinman's detailed account of the development is just fabulous, all the various timbral nuisances of this music ringing through. He walks the tightrope between gentle grace and mysterious wonder better than many others. Predictably, the scherzo is less sleazy sounding than conductors who really relish in the solo violin writing, but Zinman does highlight the duplicitous quality of this movement and transitions into the trios well. The adagio, on the other hand, is ideal. There are literally too many wonderful moments throughout to highlight here, but the E-major heaven burst is one of the best on disc period. The various tempo shifts are handled brilliantly and the strings really sing their part as beautifully as any. A real joy too because Zinman's architectural understanding of this movement never lets tension snag do to tasteless rubatto or by wallowing in unnecessary sentiment. Zinman's contribution in the finale is equally fine, sensitively highlighting Mahler's beautiful accompaniment. However, Luba Orgonasova's contribution is off-putting at best. Her voice is both too mature and too heavy for the part and, although she tries very hard to sound child-like, she makes some truly ugly sounds throughout the finale. She has had wonderful success in opera and as a vocal soloist, most recently in Chung's magnificent Stabat Mater (Rossini), but even a cursory examination of her discography reveals she is in no way the right instrument for the part. True, her performance is nowhere near as awful as Rene Flemming's atrocious Fourth with Abaddo, but she is nowhere close to sounding right for the part. She does not ruin the performance, per se, but it certainly downgrades this installment from a reference position to one of qualified recommendation. Still, those familiar with this symphony will certainly love what Zinman brings to the table, and Orgonasova is not so terrible as to make the finale unlistenable.
ウェブプレーヤーを開く
