 Bel hommage à la haute figure d’Otmar Suitner (1922-2010), chef autrichien ayant essentiellement exercé en Allemagne (où il fut même titulaire de la Staatskapelle de Dresde) mais resté peu connu chez nous. On le retrouve à la tête de la Staatskapelle de Berlin pour une 5e symphonie de Mahler tirée au cordeau, sans sentimentalisme même dans le célèbre adagietto, mais d’une tenue exemplaire d‘un bout à l’autre. Il accompagne le grand baryton Siegfried Lorenz dans quatre lieder « militaires » du « Knaben Wunderhorn », ceux où la veine fantastique de Mahler s’exerce avec le plus de férocité, visions de cauchemar de la vie de soldat où la mort guette en permanence. Formidable bonus aussi que les cinq Rückert lieder dont le sublime « Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen » accompagnés cette fois par un autre grand chef germanique trop peu connu, Günter Herbig ; un bel album qui rappelle à nos oreilles une école de direction d’orchestre qu’on associe trop peu à la musique de Mahler. (Richard Wander) Memories are still vivid in the minds of contemporaries when asked about recordings that were made over thirty years ago. Such recordings must have made a lasting impression on those involved, including Lothar Friedrich (longstanding violinist of the Berlin Staatskapelle), who is quoted above. This 1986 double LP release by the East German label Eterna, featuring works by Gustav Mahler, is certainly no exception. The main work, the Fifth Symphony, once a groundbreaking success for the composer, is joined by songs from the anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn (the boy’s magic horn). The interpreters: baritone Siegfried Lorenz, the Staatskapelle Berlin and Otmar Suitner. Suitner, the conductor who died in Berlin in 2010, was Austrian, a fact that may be key to understanding why this record was ever made at all. Suitner Wagner’s miraculous harp Fired with enthusiasm, the twenty-year-old Richard Wagner embarked on the composition of his opera Die Feen (the fairies), based on a play by Carlo Gozzi, and completed it as early as 1834. No-one wanted it, though. He did at least manage to premiere Das Liebesverbot (the ban on love), an excellently conceived comic opera based on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, at the Magdeburg Municipal Theatre on March 29, 1836. However, the second performance had to be cancelled after a fistfight broke out backstage before the curtain had even risen. Incidentally, this scuffle had been triggered by a private conflict among the cast and certainly had nothing to do with the quality of the new opera! Fortunately, no major loss was incurred as only three people had turned up to watch this performance. Anyone less was general music director of the Berlin State Opera on Unter den Linden from 1974 until 1991 and thus directed the Berlin Staatskapelle at the same time. “He was very relaxed, not over-focussed – a fantastic conductor, always at ease and enthusiastic. These songs needed an orchestra that produces pure expression”, said singer Siegfried Lorenz about the recording of the “Wunderhorn” lieder with Otmar Suitner. The longtime violinist of the Berlin Staatskapelle, Lothar Friedrich, adds regarding the Fifth Symphony: “When I listen to the recording now, I feel vindicated. Suitner struck an excellent balance between his emotional side on the one hand and his intellectual approach on the other.” An Austrian conducted Mahler in the GDR. An uncommon combination at the highest artistic level.
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