Bernstein conducts Mahler: Wunderhorn Songs – with Lucia Popp

For this 1984 live performance of Mahler's settings of poems from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" – a selection of folk poems compiled by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano – Leonard Bernstein conducts the Israel Philharmonic alongside the celebrated Slovak soprano Lucia Popp and the Finnish baritone Walton Groenroos. The Wunderhorn songs are the most important songs of Mahler's earlier career and all but two of the were composed between 1892 and 1895 ("Revelge" and "Der Tambourg'sell" followed in 1899). They range from folksy wit to moving meditations on death and loss and their innovative music and character seeped through into his second, third and fourth symphonies.

Soloists: 

Walton Groenroos (Baritone), Lucia Popp (Soprano)

Ensemble: 

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor: 

Leonard Bernstein