Mahler/Riehn - Das Lied von der Erde

The Guardian 80

Pecková/Samek/Schoenberg CO/Altrichter
(Supraphon)

Petr Alrichter’s recording of Riehn’s chamber version of Mahler’s almost impossibly taxing song-symphony is well worth the listen

Where once it was a curiosity more than anything else, Rainer Riehn’s chamber-ensemble arrangement of Mahler’s great song-symphony, first performed in 1983, seems to appear on disc almost as regularly as the original version nowadays. In 1921, Schoenberg had begun the task of scaling down Mahler’s score so it could be performed at his Society for Private Music Performances in Vienna, but when the society collapsed the same year, he abandoned the project, having reorchestrated only part of the opening movement. Sixty years later, Riehn took over where his great predecessor had left off, making minor adjustments but mostly keeping the same lineup of 15 players.

The cut-down version inevitably inhabits a very different sound world from the original, even though Riehn is at pains to preserve as many of its most striking instrumental effects as possible. There are moments that don’t have quite the effect Mahler originally intended – some of the yearning string lines in the final Abschied, for instance, veer dangerously close to schmaltz when played by a solo violin – but the sinewy bareness of the scoring rings true, even with a piano and harmonium thickening the textures.