Has anyone else directed Mahler’s Fourth Symphony while singing the finale from the podium? Surely not … but the present release, preserving a concert live-streamed mid-pandemic from Rotterdam’s empty De Doelen hall, makes a different, more collegial kind of splash than fans of Gramophone’s Artist of the Year might be expecting. The ensemble Camerata RCO, which previously recorded Erwin Stein’s reduction of the Mahler under oboist turned maestro Lucas Macías Navarro in 2017, is helmed not by Hannigan herself but by a frequent collaborator and past member of her Equilibrium mentoring scheme, the young Dutch conductor Rolf Verbeek. This 2021 programme, loosely inspired by the concerts of the Society for Private Musical Performances run by Schoenberg and his pupils after the First World War, also finds room for four songs from baritone Raoul Steffani, another of the soprano’s protégés. Veering towards atonality, Berg’s Op 2 set is Mahlerised in Henk de Vlieger’s arrangements, of which Steffani proves an accomplished exponent. He is brisker, less lyrical than Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in his classic taping of the original songs with Aribert Reimann (DG, 1/72). Does Hannigan’s guru status extend to setting the interpretative direction?

Whether or not the Mahler symphony is played in its full orchestral form, its presentiments of modernist rigour have lately carried less weight than its nostalgic appeal. With ever more recordings of Stein’s version entering the lists this one may be the best option for those favouring a softer focus, no mere palm-court period piece when rendered with the fabulous stylishness of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in miniature. The effect is enhanced by the group’s substitution of accordion for the customary harmonium. As Hannigan explains, the album’s title refers to an untranslatable Viennese fin de siècle expression embracing aspects of longing, melancholy and wistfulness and that gives a clue to the character of the reading. Her own contribution to the finale is the nearest thing to a disruptive element, a headstrong youngster’s view of the hereafter, turning from breathless excitement to exquisite calm on the head of a pin.

Hannigan is no stranger to Berg’s Seven Early Songs, which she set down with her longtime accompanist Reinbert de Leeuw (Alpha, 12/18). The songs are heard here in that much-missed musician’s own chamber version of 1985, a retrospective contribution to Schoenberg’s stock of chamber-size transcriptions. Against a backdrop more transparent than Berg’s own orchestration of 1928 forceful projection is redundant, not that one would expect Hannigan to stint on detailed characterisation or her own brand of sensuality. It’s difficult to imagine these betwixt-and-between realisations being more seductively handled, although perhaps the soloist could be less closely miked.

This glowing anthology clocks in at a generous 80 minutes plus, the attractions of the physical product enhanced by session photos, trilingual annotations, texts and translations. Should you anticipate something vaguely insipid, think again. For Hannigan ‘there are no rules, except to be authentic to oneself’.