There is no doubt that the new critical edition of Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which was given its British premiere by Riccardo Chailly and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, is a fascinatingly rich enhancement of the Mahler canon. Using the suggested complement of four soloists, as Chailly did, the song-cycle becomes an almost operatic investigation of tragedy and innocence.
The most immediately striking feature of the new edition is the inclusion of songs from two of the symphonies: Urlicht from the Second Symphony, and Das himmlische Leben, which, in a different orchestration, would become the final movement of the Fourth Symphony.
Placed in the middle of the cycle, Urlicht is transformed into the still, contented heart of Des Knaben Wunderhorn. However, the song means something very different in this context from its function in the symphony. There it provides a premonition of the opening of the pearly gates that the end of the Second Symphony will finally and fabulously achieve. In Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Urlicht is more intimate yet equally affecting. Here, surrounded by St Anthony's Sermon to the Fishes (another song that would form the basis of a movement in the Second Symphony) and the chilling reveille of a soldier doomed to a terrible death, Urlicht - especially in mezzo-soprano Sara Fulgoni's rapt account - was the spiritual epicentre of a profoundly human universe.
Something similar happens to Das himmlische Leben, which does not sound like the clinching vision of heaven to complete a huge, symphonic trajectory, but more like the final panel of a series of images and allegories of childhood. With the cornucopia of rustic folk-tales in Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the sensual imagery in Das himmlische Leben is as important as the transcendent. Barbara Bonney brilliantly balanced child-like wonder with intensely felt piety.
But the star of the show was baritone Matthias Goerne. The full range of the delicate colours of his voice may be best suited to the concentration of lieder, but in the seven songs he performed in Des Knaben Wunderhorn, his gifts as a dramatist were equally valuable. He created a panoply of keenly etched characters, from the terrified drummer boy who has been sentenced to death, to a pair of gleefully fickle lovers in the story of a Hussar and his maiden. Paralleling this variety of dramatic situation, Mahler's orchestrations - and Chailly's conducting - are object lessons in achieving an extraordinary, jewel-like clarity and precision.
***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible
