Brigitte Fassbaender (mezzo-soprano)
Münchner Philharmoniker, Sergiu Celibidache

Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
Strauss, R: Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24

The chosen repertoire on the album is Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, recorded 30 June 1983 at the Herkulessaal der Residenz, Munich and Richard Strauss’ Tod und Verklärung, recorded on 17 February 1979 also at the Herkulessaal der Residenz, Munich.

For a long time, Tod und Verklärung was the most popular of Richard Strauss’s early tone poems. It contains a wide range of memorable motifs subtly differentiated with the result that its music recurs whenever there is mention of death or transfiguration in Strauss’ later output. Together with the innocent tone and positively artificial naïveté of the poems that attracted Gustav Mahler as a composer and prompted him to compose the Kindertotenlieder, this thoughtfully curated pairing creates an altogether intimate character while revealing an astonishing wealth of colours.

Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder feature German mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender, who holds the prestigious title Kammersängerin from the Bavarian State Opera and the Vienna State Opera.

"Fassbaender’s concentration is compelling; the voice’s characteristic richness and the inherent intelligence and emotional engagement of the mezzo’s approach only gain in power by the remarkable steadiness of the singing, by an apparent attempt to maintain something like a stiff upper lip...The playing of the Munich Philharmonic throughout is a model of concentrated, sensitive support." - Gramophone Magazine March 2018