...The performances, in fact the most important part of the story, may as far as I am concerned be given the stamp of 'grandiose' (Hannigan will also have thought so, but she has expressed herself more modestly about it). The Rolf Verbeek-led Camerata RCO performs and thus interprets truly formidable music, with moreover Barbara Hannigan at her best (and that is saying something!), while the Dutch baritone Raoul Steffani feels audibly perfectly at home in the Vier Gesänge. It is the musical imagination that prevails. The entire ensemble on that memorable last evening in April thus guaranteed an enchanting atmosphere that moved between deemphasis and reality, with Sehnsucht as more than just an arbitrary metaphor. It was also clever how Verbeek, with the help of finely crafted rubati - Mahler IV clearly benefited from them - gave the music the necessary space...