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Gustav MAHLER
Symphony No.3 in D minor
Nathalie Stutzman (Contralto)
Women of The Dallas Symphony Chorus
Texas Boys Choir
Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Andrew Litton
Delos DE 3248 [100.11]
Crotchet
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It takes a particular breed of conductor to turn in a great Mahler Third. Here is the whole of creation presented in music as a carefully graded series of steps from primeval inertia to glittering perfection. No place for the tentative and no place for the sophisticated. The greatest interpreters have all knocked about the world and been knocked about by it - Horenstein, Bernstein, Barbirolli, Adler. Litton gives every impression of not falling into this category as what he gives us is an all too sophisticated, contrived and ultimately rather complacent reading that makes me wonder if he really believes in Mahler's vision or whether he isn't, in effect, rather embarrassed by it. Attention never flags in the immense first movement and that's a major achievement. But neither is there what you would call a style apparent, an attitude, from Litton. Which means the performance is not, in any real way, marked out for distinction from those of greater men who have gone before. Rather that he appears so daunted by the forces Mahler's imagination unleashes he has decided the best thing to do is get out unscathed which he does and with much aplomb. But is "aplomb" appropriate in this movement? A crucial passage is between bars 530 and 642 where the March that dominates the animated sections does battle with the primeval forces to see who is dominant. It should be the scene of abandon, danger and struggle. As Schoenberg suggested, one between good and evil, perhaps. Under Litton it's just an example of fine orchestral playing and sound recording where the level of attack seems blunted. So often in other passages there is the feeling Litton cannot bear to let things get too much out of control. The usually awesome climax at 367-368 where the enhanced horn section is left bellowing at the universe, Litton again "hangs fire.

The second movement has elegance and charm and seems to suit Litton's style much more. I admire the way he responds to the tempo changes that are more marked in this recording than is often the case. The orchestra responds well to his lead also. Mahler wrote about the third movement: "This piece really sounds as if all nature were making faces and sticking out its tongue. But there is such horrible, paniclike humour in it that one is overcome with horror rather than with laughter." A tall order for the conductor which only the best come close to matching. Litton's animals all sound too Beatrix Potter to me. The woodwind solos don't have the character of, for example, those of the LSO for Horenstein. The lovely Posthorn solo is well brought off but even here I thought Litton and his player go for the saccharine bringing us music more suited to a candy advert. Then in the passages between the two solos we are faced again with that problem we faced in the first movement. There is no sense of the dangerous abandon this music needs for it to bring us close to Mahler's "horrible, paniclike humour." There is also that crippling habit Litton has of holding back when he should let rip which shows itself especially in the amazing passage from 529-556, a crescendo from ppp to fff followed by a diminuendo down to pppp that Mahler describes as "the heavy shadow of lifeless nature".

Nathalie Stutzman has a full and verdant tone and fine sense of words in the fourth movement. The problem is Litton pushes her and the orchestra along. This movement must convey more of a sense of the mysterious than this. Following this the boys sing prettily in the fifth movement but they sound too much like the women who join them to be distinctive enough. The reading of the great last movement that Litton then gives is sweet and intense to start with. It is possible for the attention to be allowed to wonder unless the conductor has a clear idea of where is has come from, where he is now, and where he's going. The only aspect I'm aware of with Litton is a desire to beguile the ear.

The orchestra plays well but doesn't, as yet, have the ability to convey the idea they are reaching back into a real tradition of playing this music. The sound recording is full and atmospheric with the slightest tendency to smoothness that is a little disconcerting.

A reading that has enjoyable features but is some way short of greatness. Litton's inability to shed the garb of the smart sophisticate and get his hands dirty with this astounding music sees to that.

Reviewer

Tony Duggan 

Performance:

Recording:

See also Tony Duggan's comparative review of Mahler recordings


Reviewer

Tony Duggan 

Performance:

Recording:


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