Album review: Zubin Mehta’s rich and satisfying Gurrelieder with Israel Philharmonic

Operatic in scope, Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder cantata scares presenters away because of the cost of the big orchestra, chorus and soloists. The composer’s name scares away those people who don’t realise this is young, tonal Schoenberg writing the apotheosis of late-Romantic Germanic music.

That means we don’t hear this masterpiece nearly enough. So all the more reason to snap up this great recording.

The work had its premiere 100 years ago in Vienna. Unlike the Rite of Spring‘s in Paris, this premiere was rapturous. And an all-stops-pulled performance like this one by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Philharmonic Choir, the Gary Bertini Israel Choir, six great soloists and conductor Zubin Mehta is a fantastic way to recapture that feeling a century later.

The poetry by Danish author Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847-1885) tells of the doomed love of 14th century Danish King Valdemar IV for his mistress, who is eventually murdered by his wife, Queen Helvig.

Whether the history is accurate or not, Schoenberg’s complex, harmonically slippery setting of these verses, capped with impossibly long melodies, is absolutely gripping from beginning to end of this 100-minute supersized melodrama.

Mehta is masterful at marshalling the massive forces involved in this recording, and yet providing the sound with a compelling clarity and remarkably relaxed pace.

This 2-CD set concludes with a golden moment of respite: Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, from 1899.

The only downside to this Helicon Classics album is the absence of any background notes. You can find out a tiny bit more about the album and catch a few audio samples here.

John Terauds