This new Fourth finds the orchestra in excellent form...Artek’s recording is generally excellent...

Gerard Schwarz’s Mahler symphony cycle continues with this performance of the Fourth. According to Elmar Oliveira at Artek, it was recorded in concert in 2002 (there is no date on the CD). However, an earlier release on Classico of the same symphony with this orchestra was released in 2004; it doesn’t document the performance herein reviewed because the soloist on that occasion was Rosa Mannion. (To complicate matters further, the earlier Classico release of the First is duplicated on the Artek set of symphonies 1 and 9.) Whatever the reason for the remake, this is the most appealing of Schwarz’s Mahler that I’ve heard.

Schwarz adopts a comfortable principal tempo in the first movement, while subsequently varying the pace in keeping with the somewhat impetuous character of this interpretation, which also has its dreamy moments. The dark cloud that interrupts the sunny proceedings, giving the foretaste of the Fifth Symphony’s opening fanfare, is soon dispelled; there is nothing even remotely anxiety-producing here. The second movement features a distinctly wheedling solo violin, and the winds have a nice sarcastic edge. The Trios are relaxed and imbued with a nostalgic yearning. The principal horn is very prominent and is a carping presence throughout the movement...There is a comparatively long pause between the third and the final movements, so the marked contrast between the ethereal last measures of the former and the agogic opening of the latter is lost. Maureen Mackay has a most engaging and light-toned voice; her recitation of the text is animated and expressive...This is a very accomplished performance, and the sound is first-rate; admirably clear instrumental definition is complemented by excellent bass and percussion reproduction.

Gerard Schwarz’s Mahler Fourth—also recorded live—is not at this rarefied level, but it is one of the better entries in the Mahler cycle that Schwarz is currently producing with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Simply from the point of view of tempos, Schwarz tends to go in the direction opposite Norrington’s: this is a leisurely Fourth, running almost a full hour. It does not drag, though, because once he selects tempos, Schwarz stays true to them; and the ones he picks help him bring out the naïve and bucolic qualities of the symphony—which is filled with them. The sleigh bells in the first movement give the impression of a wintertime country scene here, and the musical conflicts of the movement are not harsh but more like those of natural forces. The second movement, with its scordatura solo violin, sounds like something out of folk stories: Death may be present, but in the comparatively companionable form of a fairy-tale character rather than the terrifying one of other Mahler symphonies. The slow (sometimes quite slow) variations of the third movement wind unerringly upward in a subtly balanced performance that emerges into real splendor when the gates of Heaven open at the movement’s climax. Once through those gates, though, there is a bit of a letdown, for soprano Maureen Mackay’s singing in the finale is a touch too breathy and a little too emphatic for Mahler’s extremely innocent, childlike setting of the “Heavenly Life” song from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (whose short text Artek really should have provided in this CD’s booklet). The very simplicity of this movement makes the vocal line extremely difficult to deliver effectively—Bernstein famously had it sung by a boy soprano, who almost made up in purity what he lacked in technique. Mackay has a bit too much technique to put across the childlike wonder of the whole scene to which the symphony builds. As a whole, though, this Mahler Fourth is a very satisfying one.