Mahler: Symphony No. 4

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What is remarkable about hearing Mahler’s most classicallyorientated symphony performed on instruments of the period when it was written is that the music’s strongly Expressionist subtext comes... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2022, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 26th Aug 2022
Catalogue No: HMM905357
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Length: 54 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

September 2022

Recording of the Month
Record Review

27th August 2022

Record of the Week
Presto Editor's Choice

August 2022
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2022
International Classical Music Awards

2023

Nominated - Symphonic Music

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Mahler: Symphony No. 4

Work length54:45

Album only

François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles, Sabine Devieilhe

I. Bedächtig, nicht eilen

Track length15:42

Album only

II. In gemächlicher Bewegung, ohne Hast

Track length9:37

$1.60

$1.95

$2.40

III. Ruhevoll, poco adagio

Track length20:56

Album only

IV. Wir geniessen die himmlischen Freuden. Sehr behaglich

Track length8:30

$1.60

$1.95

$2.40

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After a period-instrument reading of the Symphony no.1 that received unanimous acclaim from the critics, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles return to Mahler.

Joined by the luminous voice of Sabine Devieilhe for the famous finale, they offer us their vision of the Fourth Symphony, which in its own way marks the composer’s transition to modernity, and reveal unsuspected colours and instrumental balances.

We still have much to learn about the polyphonic transparency possible within Mahler’s big orchestra.

Reviews

November 2022

What is remarkable about hearing Mahler’s most classicallyorientated symphony performed on instruments of the period when it was written is that the music’s strongly Expressionist subtext comes across so vividly...Altogether, this very well recorded disc is fascinating in the way it sheds new light on a familiar masterpiece.

September 2022

I absolutely adored this performance...What registers immediately in Roth’s reading – and the deliciously honest playing of his band Les Siècles – is an open-faced, playful nature.

August 2022

Roth's Mahler Four makes you sit up and listen with fresh ears from the very first notes of the symphony, as the unusually stark, plaintive timbre of the flutes gives a foretaste of the different colours which period instruments can bring to this music: transparency and clarity are the order of the day here, revealing all manner of inner detail which had hitherto passed me by. Perhaps not everyone will warm to the almost vibrato-free string sound in places, but I found its spare, astringent beauty a refreshing contrast to the fuller-fat recordings in my collection.

28th August 2022

Clarity, balance, transparency and differentiation are everything on this superlative Mahler Four...The massed orchestral ranks Mahler called on in his symphonies can, with a modern-instrument band, threaten to bludgeon subtlety. Roth and his orchestra, deprived of — and liberated from — this option, audibly relish the opportunity to let the light in.

1st September 2022

Roth’s strait-laced performance suits the symphony’s pared down textures and classical proportions well, though one suspects that later instalments of his Mahler series, if it continues, will be more revealing.

Videos

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Mahler: Symphony No. 4

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