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Title: Gardiner Reveals!
Review: Gardiner's choral conducting needs no introduction: he is simply the very best. Here, as in most of his other recent recordings of Bach's cantatas, he elicits beautiful singing and playing from his forces, breathing new life into these masterpieces. BVW 125 contains an amazing revelation (about which I've heard nothing before -- but perhaps I've been inattentive): Gustav Mahhler built the Der Abshied segment of Das Lied von der Erde on the "Ich will auch mit gebrochnen Augen" aria in this work! I knew that, before composing Das Lied, Mahler was restudying Bach, but I had no idea how closley he modelled the most moving part of Das Lied (the Der Abshied melody motiff, harmony, voicing and tempo)on what Bach wrote long before him in this aria. Amazing stuff!
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