Luogo e data di registrazione		Concertgebouw, Amsterdam (Olanda) - febbraio 1961
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer		John Culshaw
	Recording engineers		Kenneth Wilkinson
	Prima Edizione LP		Decca ffss | SXL 2276 (stereo) - LXT 5638 (mono) | (1 LP) | durata 54' 19" | (p) 1961 | Analogico
	Edizione CD		Decca "Ovation" | 417 745-2 | (1 CD) | durata 54' 19" | (c) 1988 | ADD (ADRM)
	Note		The Decca Record Company Limited, London, England

Despite some early appreciation and encouragement by Richard Strauss, most of Mahler's compositions were misunderstood in his lifetime and passed unappreciated by critics and public alike. The general opinion of his music coupled with his dictatorial and uncompromising administration of his various operatic appointments created a wave of hostility against the composer that was only partly offset by his brilliant reputation as a conductor. Thus it is only recently that Mahler, a legendary figure for his unequalled artistic direction of the Vienna Opera, has started to receive full recognition as a composer. One of the last to appear on the sce of the Romantic Movement, Mahler appears to have been subject to the influence of the highly developed romanticism that manifested iteself particularly in Wagner's later works and Liszt's symphonic poems. He was also caught up in the wave of interest in folk-music in addition to the many collections of these by minor composers Brahms' efforts in this direction such as the German Folk-songs and Hungarian Dances are well-known - which was then inspiring composers to create an art that embraced the simple directness of the German folk-song without departing from the idiom of expression and orchestral apparatus of the period. Mahler's Fourth Symphony is a child of these ideas, as will be seen below. For the composer life was a grim struggle, a constant battle against ill-health and financial insecurity. Torn between the rival occupations of conductor and composer, the unfortunate man was ever compromising between the two, for the one was lucrative whereas the other definitely was not. The unhappy result was that Mahler became, like Borodin and so many others, a 'Sunday Composer', writing only when either ill or on holiday, the rest of the time striving to fulfil engagements as a conductor which his delicate constitution could not and did not endure. He was bornat Kalsicht on July 7th, 1860, the son of a Moravian-Jewish merchant and distiller, and his early years were ones of extreme poverty. Fortunately promise as a pianist secured him a sound musical education at the hands of one Julius Eostein in Vienna. His student sketches were regarded as "promising", and it was not until he started to practise a musical career that antagonism towards his works really began. Typical of the unfavourable atmosphere Mahler had to endure was the incident of 1880 when he submitted the earliest work of his to have survived, Das klagende Lied, for a competition whose jury included Brahms and Hanslick. Unfortunately the format did not like Mahler (or his friends Rott und Hugo Wolf) apparently for no better reason than that they were artistically sympathetic to Bruckner, a composer whose music Brahms detested, and the inevitable result was the rejection of the piece. In the same year Mahler began his conducting career at the Cassel Opera, an appointment which led to silmilar positions at Prague and Leipzig, but it was not until he was engaged by the Budapest Opera in 1888 that he was able to demonstrate his powers as administrator, producer, organiser and conductor. For the first time he had a good orchestra and singers at his command and could give productions that measured up to his own artistic standards. It was here that the first uncut performances of Wagner's Ring in Hungarian were given (in a class said to be comparable to that of Bayreuth), and it was here that his tylish production of Don Giovanni won him, at long last, the friedenship of the ageing Brahms. It was here, too, that the Fourth Symphony was created. Completed early in 1900, the work was first performed in November of the following year, with the composer conducting. The simplest and least overshadowed by gloomy thoughts of all his symphonies, it has now be come one of his most popular. As has already been mentioned it is closely connected with the movement that favoured a new simplicity of style - although not always expressing a simple subject - attired in a heavy romantic apparel (wich is nonetheless never allowed, in Mahler's hands, to occlude the clarity of his expression). This work has as a central idea the expression of a child's view of heaven, a theme which is expanded in the last movement by a setting of verses from an anthology of German folk-poems called Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a work which had already provided inspiration for much of Mahler's music. The vision is naïve in the extreme - the emphasis being on the quantities of food and drink which abound in heaven - and yet is presented in so apt and charming a way that the desired effect is immediately created. After a brief introduction in which the four flutes and jingle bells which Mahler included in the score feature prominently, the first subject, a graceful andlifting violin melody is introduced. It creates the comfortable and unhurried atmosphere of good humour which is to prove the predominant mood of the whole symphony. The second group of themes are soon introduced on the cellos: a pleasantly jocular subject is heard in duet, first between oboe and bassoon, then upper and lower strings and so on. The bells usher in a repeat of the first subject, and an extended development follows. The flutes then introduce a new theme, which is to be heard later in all the three subsequent movements, and this is worked up to a climax marked by fanfare-like trumpet calls. Bells and flutes return and a recapitolation of the main theme, at first disguised, is achieved at lenght. An expressive horn recitative makes way for a brief and jubilant coda which concludes the movement. The second movement is in the form of a scherzo with a rather Lãndler-like trio. An introductory passage for solo horn makes way for the first violin to whom is given the grotesque principal theme of this scherzo. Mahler instructs that the instrument is to be tuned a tone sharp and played "like a fiddle" (implying a street musician's fiddle rather than an orchestral one) on order to divest it of all charm of sound. This device will bring to the minds of many the similar idea in  Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre - a resemblance which is explained when one recalls that Mahler referred to this movement as Freund Hein spielt auf ("Death plays on"). The third movement begins with a beautiful and restful melody which is developed with increasing intricacy and vigour in a set of variations, an ostinato bass plucked on the double-basses serving to link them together. The tempo primo is resumed in the last variation, and there is then a violent outburst of the full orchestra; at this point Mahler transfers the double-bass' part to the timpani and, with wonderful effect, the ostinato is crashed out on the drums with full force. The clamour gradually dies away and eventually ends pianissimo with the unearthly sounds of violin harmonics, supported by the flutes. In the final movement the soprano solo sings the child's announcement that she really is in heaven, enjoying its gastronimic delights. There is a simple but colourful introduction, after which the first stanza of the poem, which tells of the merry children's games that go on in the here after, in sung in the same vein. There follows a lively orchestral interlude and then the second section, dealing with the abondance of food and drink, in sung. Again the interlude and again a verse. After this, and a further repetition of the interlude, there is heard the sound of a new melody, a gentle dance tune which clearly relates to the references in the succeeding stanza to St. Cecilia and her heavenly musicians. After this last verse movement slowly loses momentus and fades away to a peaceful close. © The Decca Record Co. Ltd, London, 1961