Stellar new recordings come from musicians who aren't yet stars

Although marketers rely heavily on name recognition for success, some of the best new orchestral recordings are from established musicians who are not stars, while another showcases a solo violinist who will be a star.

Two recent albums from the small German Hanssler company reinforce the striking impression Michael Gielen made when he conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in January. On the CDs, recorded at Freiberg Concert House, he leads the Southwest German Radio Orchestra in concert performances of Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony and Anton Bruckner's Third Symphony.

The success Gielen achieves challenges our notions of orchestral ranking. The Southwest German Radio Orchestra is a good ensemble with an honorable history, but it's not in the same league as the Vienna Philharmonic or Chicago Symphony or Pittsburgh Symphony. Yet its performance in concert of Mahler's Third under Gielen is as enthralling as any recording of it by a "big league" orchestra, including the classic Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic version on Sony Classics.

The opulence of Mahler's scoring offers obvious opportunities for nuances, as do the long narrative lines of the longest symphony in the standard repertoire. Working with top orchestras or those of a second tier, Gielen's original way of putting the music together makes his performances exceptionally exciting.

The orchestra plays boldly in the long first movement, but with uncommon attention to characterization. Both loud and very soft music has personality. Even the longest phrases are vibrant to their last notes.

Mahler's Third culminates in a transcendent slow movement, whose main theme is very similar to the main theme of the slow movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's last string quartet, which the Orion String Quartet played here last weekend. Gielen paces Mahler's finale as slowly as Bernstein did in his classic recording, and achieves a comparably transcendent result with more transparent voicing.

The two-disc set is completed with beautiful performances of Franz Schubert's "Rosamunde," incidental music and Anton Webern's Six Pieces for Orchestra. Although movements of Schubert and Webern are oddly interfolded, that's easy to avoid when listening to the CD.

Mahler studied with Anton Bruckner at the Vienna Conservatory. His teacher's Third Symphony was such a favorite he made a piano arrangement of the orchestral score. Gielen's new Bruckner recording is masterful in its command of long-range form and rhetoric. It is both intelligent and radiant, as is the Act I Prelude to Richard Wagner's opera "Lohengrin" that is one of the fillers.

RUNNICLES & ATLANTA

The first recording by Donald Runnicles with the Atlanta Symphony is a spectacular account of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" on Telarc.

The music is familiar locally after being presented two years running by Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. Orff used simple materials — simple melodies, diatonic harmonies and repeated rhythms — to set lusty medieval poetry. Framed by a big chorus about the Wheel of Fate, the piece is divided into three sections: "Springtime," "In the Tavern" and "The Court of Love."

Runnicles is Atlanta's new principal guest conductor, sharing responsibilities with music director Robert Spano. The Scottish conductor is also music director of San Francisco Opera. He has conducted at Heinz Hall, but his major work was Alexander Scriabin's Third Symphony, which limited the favorable impression he might have made here with more rewarding repertoire.

Certainly, his "Carmina Burana" is the work of a top conductor. Runnicles presents Orff's music with poetic sensitivity, humor and a flair for rollicking fun. His rhythmic command, so important in this piece, is propulsive but disciplined. Everything is lined up.

When the trumpets burst in for the final number of Part I ("Were this world all mine") they create an energy that is carried straight through to the end of the movement. The Atlanta Symphony Chorus sings more impressively for Runnicles than it did for the legendary choral conductor Robert Shaw when he recorded the same Orff work for Telarc 20 years ago. Their diction, specially honed for medieval Latin, is superb, but their tone, balance and intonation are also exemplary.

Soprano Hei-Kyung Hong, who will perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem with Mariss Jansons and the Pittsburgh Symphony at the end of the month, sings beautifully in "The Court of Love," while tenor Stanford Olson's falsetto for Orff's song of the roast pig is a hoot. Earle Patriarco completes the admirable vocal trio and leads the final tavern song with great brio.

Telarc, which released the first digital recordings more than 20 years ago, continues to define the "state of the art" in sound reproduction with its new "Carmina."

VIOLINIST ZNAIDER & JANSONS

Nikolaj Znaider is at the start of his career and has already been compared to legendary violinist Eugene Ysaye by no less than the late violin phenomenon Yehudi Menuhin. His new recording of Russian works with Mariss Jansons making his first recording with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra shows he has the most important criterion for success — personality.

The young violinist is immensely gifted technically, and has developed a striking assortment of portamenti, sliding between notes rather than attacking them straight on. He uses those different ways of starting notes, along with tonal nuance and considerable tempo freedom, to give his phrasing unique character that does indeed recall the unforgettable personalities of the past. In a recent television program on the great violinists, Itzhak Perlman emphasized that the old-timers had more individuality than most fiddlers today.

Znaider's projection of dreamy lyricism on this recording is especially memorable and will earn him devoted followers. His projection of virtuoso passages is spectacular, too.

Sergei Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto, written when his style had become more romantic after his early "bad boy" days, receives a wonderfully singing performance. But in Alexander Glazunov's Violin Concerto, Znaider's note-to-note lyrical focus is so strong that long lines fragment.

Jansons and his new orchestra sound superb in the resonant RCA Victor recording made in the Herculessaal in Munich, but then the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra has long been one of the world's finest under previous music directors Raphael Kubelik, Colin Davis and Lorin Maazel. The solo oboist on this recording is an excellent musician, but his tone is quite German. The orchestra's French co-principal would have been more appropriate for this repertoire.

Mahler: Symphony No. 3, Schubert: "Rosamunde" Incidental Music, Anton Webern: Six Pieces for Orchestra