For many years, Michael Gielen has been the go-to conductor for a discriminating contingent of Mahler fans who enjoy his clear-eyed, modernist approach, and his 2011 release of Des Knaben Wunderhorn on Hänssler Classic shows the discipline and careful attention to details that have made his interpretations required listening. With soprano Christiane Iven and baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Gielen presents the 12 published songs for voices and orchestra, and also includes two of the songs that were later used in the Second and Fourth symphonies ("Urlicht" and "Das himmlische Leben"), as well as the purely orchestral movement rejected from the First Symphony, "Blumine." This is a satisfying ordering of the collection, though the inclusion here of "Blumine" is Gielen's inventive way of finding a place to stow this orphaned movement, since he did not include it in his recording of the First. The singing is uniformly excellent, and the accompaniment by the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg is clear, sympathetic, and in step with the soloists' phrasing and rhythms. The sound of the recording is transparent and slightly resonant, so the performance has a fresh, open quality with ample space for the singers to project.
© TiVo