Des Knaben Wunderhorn ("The Youth's Magic Horn") is an anthology of old German poems and folk songs published in the early 1800s, a product of the Romantic yearning for the simple days of the past. By the time Mahler set a number of them to music (between 1892 and 1901), the Zeitgeist had changed, and his approach is almost antiromantic in feeling. He used eight of them in his symphonies, and chose 13 (often changing the text for his own purposes) for this collection. These elaborately orchestrated songs speak of love, life in the military, comedic episodes, mysticism, and sometimes several of these at once. The recording by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf has set the standard for many years, but this new version is just about as good. Both singers have fine voices, intelligence and understanding, and good technique and diction, and they express the changing moods of the songs very effectively. Thomas Quasthoff doesn't quite have Fischer-Dieskau's security and pointed phrasing, but he comes close, and Anne Sophie von Otter sings with a subtlety that rivals Schwarzkopf and with greater beauty and radiance. The accompaniment by Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic is crisp and idiomatic, and the sound is excellent. Highly recommended. --Alex Morin