Recording Review #70: Mercurial Mahler

Mahler: Symphony No. 1. Paavo Järvi, conductor; Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. Alpha Classics ALPHA1166. 

This recording is a classic mismatch between conductor and work. Paavo Järvi has a lot going for him: his intensity, earnestness, and first-rate ear for detail come immediately to mind. But he's a very specific kind of interpreter. Essentially he's a patchwork quilter who'll often craft a phrase or period in a fairly self-contained manner before moving on to the next one. Unfortunately he tends not to be interested in every phrase or period equally. This means that while there are often remarkable things happening from area to area, it's accompanied by a rather feebler grip of the long arc. Such an atomistic approach works well in music by Debussy or Stravinsky, but I find it uncongenial for Romantic repertoire that requires a certain narrative sweep. The result is a Mahler 1 that falls short as a complete experience despite its many attention-grabbing moments. 

Like other reviewers, I was impressed at the start of my first listen. The beginning is suitably mysterious, notwithstanding distant trumpets I think could be more audible, and woodwind calls that sometimes come off over-articulated. But when the main theme ("Ging heut' morgen übers Feld") begins, it's admirably robust. A brisk and driving start is not a bad thing here. Then I suffered my first major jolt as the climactic point arrived. True to habit, Järvi belabors the tipping point. The whole stretch from shortly after Rehearsal 23 to the peroration beginning at measure 352 is over-milked and aesthetically inconsistent with the preceding pace of the movement. The burst of energy from there until the end gushes forth too quickly and incongruently; we lose some important details. (This isn't the first time I've heard Järvi conduct that way. His recent Mendelssohn symphonies I reviewed for Classical Candor see him similarly breathless in some of the rapid passages of Nos. 3-4.) It's an unfortunate quirk I'd wish he'd forego. 

The second movement is better, though I wish Järvi would ease up in the trio a bit. Also, though he is not alone in doing so, he over-emphasizes the forte dynamic on the first note. Maybe Mahler wanted to establish a strong downbeat, but too many conductors (Bernstein included) traumatize this pitch with a treatment closer to sf or ff. This kind of kills the ländler feeling, especially when it takes a measure or two to establish a steady tempo afterward. And anyway, the initial dynamic is no different than the single fortes in the measures immediately following. We don't need it singled out. 

I'll have to reuse the word "belabored" for the third movement. I can't think of a better one. Mahler's initial tempo direction specifically says "ohne zu schleppen" (WITHOUT DRAGGING). Dear readers, is this not among the slowest and draggiest beginnings that you can recall? Then there is the weirdly muted second section. This should be moonlit and magical; instead it feels like the conductor isn't comfortable with its frank sentiment. I haven't much more to say about the return of the A material. What stood out to me most here is Järvi (true to his quirk) rushing through the klezmer-like intrusion in a way that saps its effect. 

Identifying everything I think is wrong with the finale performance could fill a dedicated essay. Instead I'll be as succinct as possible. This is where Järvi's lack of architecture and feeling for the epic hits most sorely. The opening salvo is slightly held back while moments of relative repose are sometimes overworked. Some of the string passagework at the beginning and elsewhere sounds almost mechanical. Some of the most passionate utterances feel somehow muffled. A good example is that Rehearsal 44, where the height of the emotional build is clipped and the overall payoff stunted. It just reinforces that the heart at the center of this thing isn't there. 

A negative feature of this recording is its chopping up of the symphony's four movements across 16 tracks. Ostensibly this is to help the listener quickly go to "bookmark" moments in the work. But I found that this merely accentuates the tendencies I just discussed, and betrays how the conductor treats (or doesn't treat) the sections in their totalities. If this was Järvi's decision, it's extremely telling. If it wasn't, it might as well have been. 

Verdict: Not Recommended

Recording Review #61: Mishandled Mahler

 

Mahler: Symphony No. 7; Simon Rattle, conductor; Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks. BR Klassik 900217. 

By now the notion that Gustav Mahler's Seventh Symphony is an enigmatic work has become something of a cliché. But I don't think it's very enigmatic at all. A small amount of imagination (and a touch of homework) make things pretty straightforward. The composer's wife Alma authoritatively associated the second Nachtmusik movement with the poetry of Joseph von Eichendorff, identifying it with "murmuring springs and German Romanticism." Furthermore, Mahler had been conducting Tristan und Isolde in the time leading up to his Seventh Symphony's composition. This opera's second act is a lengthy glorification of the nighttime world, where the eponymous lovers cozily resist the coming of day when they have to face their sticky situation. It is not at all difficult to hear echoes of Tristan throughout Mahler's 7th. These things together make it virtually plain that the so-called Song of the Night is a musical tribute to the nocturnal world in all of its glories, real and imagined. The finale is a rude awakening to match the final act of Tristan. It marks the dream's end; mundane reality takes over. But these associations have been lost upon  many commentators. The most fatuous of these folks might be Theodor W. Adorno, whose lambasting of the Seventh's finale is an epic failure of imagination. (See Adorno, Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy.)

It's true that Adorno's take on Mahler's Seventh makes that of Simon Rattle in this recording look good. But this is a pretty low bar, and Rattle has a problem that both men share in their respective mediums: too much intellect and not enough intuition. This Mahler 7's sound is pristine, its performance decisions meticulous, its control impeccable, and its playing gorgeous. But Rattle just doesn't really "get" the music on a gut level. There's little feeling of "German Romanticism," because Rattle doesn't have that much feeling for Romanticism to begin with. His musical sensibility is a cerebral one, with a focus on sonority and experimentation. His natural home is with material that flatters these tendencies: compositions by Stravinsky, Bartók, Adès, and so forth. It isn't with anything that calls for lusty emotional expression. To be a successful Mahler conductor, one must have an instinct for his passions. Instead, Rattle can only wield the feeble substitute of calculation.

So what specifically contributes to this impression? Occasionally it's the tempi. The first movement should at times be fitful in order to create narrative suspense. But Rattle's pace can better be described as sluggish. Worse still is his quick tempo in the fourth movement. It just feels mechanical, with no glimmer of the night-time fountains and colors that an Eichendorff-ish setting would suggest. This movement just hums along like a sewing machine, with about as much feeling. We get a fairly humdrum finale, too. But here for once Rattle's coldness is exactly what's needed: this is the bustling break of day that dispels the magic of the first four movements. Think King Mark's men busting in on Tristan and Isolde, disrupting their ethereal night-time union. But it's too bad that Rattle never established much of a dream in the first place. "Waking up" here therefore feels a bit indifferent. 

Even more than overall tempi, Rattle's phrase shapings betray his lack of affinity. The simplest way to understand this might be to measure the present performance against those of conductors with a better Mahlerian grip. Observe Leonard Bernstein leading the NYPhil (DG 419-211-2), for instance. There is gusto in his dotted rhythms, and melodic turns of phrase are shaped in ways that relay an easy grasp of Mahler's expressive mannerisms. Rattle by comparison tries to finesse his way through, rarely seeing the forest for the trees. Similarly to how I described Yuja Wang's stilted Rachmaninoff (here), he almost tries to emulate someone who attitudinally understands this music better than he does. 

Much is often made of Mahler being one of the first 20th-century "modernists" in music. If you have read my musicological writing, you know how much I detest the over- and mis-use of this word. If Mahler was a Modernist (or even a modernist), he was still much more of a 19th-century Romantic in temperament. I think Simon Rattle is psychologically the reverse. If (as I believe) far fewer people need to be conducting Mahler, and trying to cash in on his present popularity, Rattle should be one of the first to seek pastures more conducive to his gifts. His Mahler 7 here is highly competent...even more competent than his earlier recording with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (EMI 0777 7 54344 2 2). It's just not very magical. And if the Song of the Night needs one thing to come off properly, it's magic. 

Recommendation: Avoid; instead go for the Bernstein recording mentioned earlier...or the celebrated one by Claudio Abbado and the CSO (DG 445-513-2).