Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble - Trevor Pinnock - Mahler: Symphonie No. 4 - Infodad

Sensitively scaled arrangement brings forth elements of Mahler that are always there but that tend to disappear beneath the excellence of his orchestrations. And coupling the symphony with Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun makes for a highly intriguing CD: it turns out that Mahler and Debussy share more sensibilities than might at first be evident, for all that Mahler was scarcely an Impressionist (and Debussy hated being called one). The delicacy with which Debussy's well-known work proceeds turns out to have more in common with the feelings underlying Mahler's third and fourth movements than might be expected-indeed, more than would likely be noticed were it not for Stein's small-ensemble arrangement.