Gustav Mahler – Lieder aus „Des Knaben Wunderhorn“
Katharina Kammerloher | Arttu Kataja | Eric Schneider
“Kammerloher has an appealing high mezzo with a silken tone and a subtle approach to the dynamic range. There are some beautiful flowing high notes, for example in ‘Fragilité‘ (…), while the energetic lines in ‘Roulis des grèves‘ (…) are phrased impeccably. (…) Most surprising perhaps is ‘Jadis!‘, a bitter reflection on the bodily decline in old age. If you have been thinking of Chaminade as simply a vehicle for entertaining salon music, this might make you reconsider.“
Grammophone, UK
Gustav Mahler time and again took an interest in the collection of folksy tales titled “Des Knaben Wunderhorn,“ an assortment of poems which were published nearly two hundred years ago. They speak of idyllic spring time pleasures, flowers, birds, and a world free from worries. Between 1888 and 1899, Mahler set more than a dozen poems from this collection to music, specifically for vocals, piano, and orchestra. Katharina Kammerloher selected some of these pieces for her latest recording. She is being supported by baritone Arttu Kataja and pianist Eric Schneider as congenial accompanist.
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Until 1900, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) almost exclusively wrote music for texts from the collection “Old German Songs (Lieder).“ This three-volume collection was put together by romantics Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, edited, and published unter the title “Des Knaben Wunderhorn“ in 1806/1808. In this collection, Mahler found a universe of plenty with many stylistic layers, yet none of it fit into the category of so-called “high poetry.“ It includes a “silly song,“ like the “Lob der Kritik (Praise for Criticism)“ next to a parable like “Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt (The Fish Sermon of Antonius von Padua)“ or the would-be children’s song “Verlorne Müh‘! (All for nothing)“ next to war and soldier songs like “Zu Straßburg auf der Schanz.“ A huge cosmos unfolds and is mirrored in all its heterogenous facets in Mahler’s music. The best-known song of this collection is probably “Urlicht (Primal light).“ Here, Mahler forges a bridge between naive childhood beliefs and ritual choral mysticism all the way to individually anchored transcendence. At a later date embedded into the great resurrection narrative in his Second Symphony, this piano song has a completely independent meaning and is even more entangled in the imaginary worlds of the “Wunderhorn’s“ romantics.
The haunting anti-war song “Revelge“ is among Mahler’s most commanding Lied scorings. With its thrills, fast beginnings, and octave dobles, the piano version demands a lot from the pianist. In its deliberate difference to the orchestra version, it is thought of pianistically, but at the same time is meant to be almost impossible to play. From the vocalist, too, Mahler expects to burst beyond all boundaries, like only composers from the Vienna School would later do again. With Katharina Kammerloher, Arttu Kataja, and Eric Schneider, three well-versed artists dedicate themselves to Mahler’s Lied cosmos. Kammerloher and Kataja are both ensemble members of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin and are welcomed on many stages and in several genres. Eric Schneider is one of the most prolific song accompanists of our day. This promises exciting insights in Gustav Mahler’s art of the song.
Mezzo soprano Katharina Kammerloher was born in Munich. After completing her oboe studies in Detmold, she studied voice with Mechthild Böhme, worked with Vera Rozsa (London), Brigitte Eisenfeld (Berlin), as well as Mark Schnaible (New York). She has received prizes at several vocal competitions. In 1993, Daniel Barenboim invited her to join the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, where she could be heard in numerous roles, among others as Ottavia (L‘incoronazione di Poppea), Magdalene (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) or Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier) and La malaspina (Luci miei traditrici by S. Sciarrino). Katharina Kammerloher has performed at international festivals, among them the Salzburger Festspiele, Münchner (Munich) Opernfestspiele, BBC Proms and the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival. She commands a wide lieder and concert repertoire and has sung with leading orchestras in London, Edinburgh, Chicago, Taipeh, Tokyo, Budapest, Leipzig, Berlin, Paris, Turin, Madrid and others, and has worked with conductors like Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Iván Fischer, Wolfgang Sawallisch, René Jacobs, Phillipe Jordan, Kent Nagano, Zubin Mehta and directors like Harry Kupfer, Jürgen Flimm, Doris Dörrie, Dieter Dorn, Hans Neuenfels, Andrea Breth and Cornél Mundruzco.
Baritone Arttu Kataja has been an ensemble member at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin since 2006. His singing career began in 2002, when he won the Lappeenranta Vocal Competition in Finland. He has since established himself as a sought-after concert singer. Among his latest performances are the Johannespassion by J.S. Bach with the Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, Händel’s Messiah with the Zurich Singakademie, Le nozze di Figaro (Graf) and Così fan tutte (Guglielmo) with the Freiburg Barockorchester under René Jacobs as well as Sibelius‘ Kullervo with the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest Amsterdam.
Born and raised in the Bergisches Land, Eric Schneider studied piano and math. At the age of 22, he received his artistic diploma cum laude from the Musikhochschule Cologne. After first competitive awards and piano evenings, he decided on pursuing a graduate program in song design (Liedgestaltung) with Hartmut Höll. He received important impulses for his career from Bruno Leonardo Gelber, Paul Badura-Skoda, and Alfred Brendel, as well as from Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. In the 1990s, he studied conducting under Rolf Reuter at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. Eric Schneider has been collaborating closely with singers like Matthias Goerne, Christine Schäfer, Christiane Oelze, and Anna Prohaska. As a soloist, he gave successful recitals at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the Bad Kissinger summer, and Klavierfestival Ruhr. Since 2009, he has been teaching a lied class at the University of the Arts Berlin.