Mahler - Symphony 4 [Ameling/Previn-Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra] These 'Studio Plus' recordings by EMI are marvelous, what an inspired series it is, i have a number of the very best issues, and yet i still don't know the full catalogue of these discs, not long ago i found this disc on Ebay, i've never seen this disc before, and snapped it up pretty quick, and i haven't seen another copy since, how many more wonderful discs in this series are lurking waiting for me to discover?.
Andre Previn is almost 82 now, the Symphony was recorded in 1978, it shows a young Mr Previn, close up shot very very nicely laid out, those coloured boxes for the lettering are great, and each one of these issues in this series have a colour scheme, this one is yellow, sandwiched between blue, one of the very best in this series.
Mahler's Fourth Symphony was the first Mahler Symphony that i got to know, with a cassette tape by Karajan / Mathis on DG, and i would certainly recommend this as a starting point for anyone getting into Mahler, Andre Previn is not a Mahlerite, and apart from the Fifth Symphony, i don't think he has tackled any other Mahler recording, on this disc is Elly Ameling in the fourth movement, she's quite a grown up sounding Soprano, and doesn't quite have that childlike view of heaven.
For me the long [23 minutes here] beautiful slow third movement is my favourite, however, it was the first movement which affected me the most this time, and just lately i've had a thing about being really caught 'off guard' with first movements, it's as if i just wasn't expecting the thing to grab me by the throat right from the start,
Here's Leonard Bernstein conducting the first movement on YouTube.
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