Under their former member the GSO play beautifully and with sensitivity. The superb recording catches both the marvellous acoustics of the Gothenburg Concert Hall as well as giving the most detailed orchestral picture of Mahler’s scoring. I am a lousy score reader but since I happen to own the scores for both Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Rückert-Lieder I could at once note that Ms Mälkki obeys Mahler’s detailed indications concerning tempos and nuances to the letter. Listening to the music again—I regularly return to these songs more often than to any other orchestral songs, bar Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder—I could savour all the felicities, from the violent outbursts in In diesem Wetter to the chamber music transparency of Um Mitternacht and Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen. From an orchestral point of view this disc is an unqualified success.

At first I wondered whether the voice wasn’t too recessed in relation to the orchestra. It seemed that Karnéus was in the middle of the orchestra instead of standing in front of it. Soon I adjusted to the sound-picture and it come home to me that what BIS present here is a realistic balance of the kind one encounters in the hall at a live concert. The difference is that in the hall I see the singer as well, which gives the impression that she is more forwardly balanced than she actually is. Let me say at once that Katarina Karnéus is never overpowered by the orchestra: every syllable, every nuance is fully audible—and we get all the orchestral details in the bargain.

Jaded concert-goers and record collectors naturally have their favourite readings. For me there are two singers—and I am limiting the choice to female singers—that for years have stood head and shoulders above many others who are also excellent: Dame Janet Baker’s EMI recordings with Barbirolli from the mid-to-late sixties and Brigitte Fassbaender on Decca with the Concertgebouw under Riccardo Chailly from a couple of decades later. They differ quite a lot with Dame Janet the smoother and more beautiful, Fassbaender with a rawer sound that seems to come directly from nature. Both are magically involved and I can honestly say that neither is superior to the other.

Karnéus comes somewhere between the two older singers and this is no faint praise, more....