Tilson Thomas’s Mahler
cycle continues apace, and with mixed
critical responses ranging from very
favourable (No.
6) to cool (No.
3). I have to admit at the outset
to feeling slightly ambivalent about
this latest instalment. On a purely
objective, technical level, there is
a great deal to admire. The orchestral
playing is quite phenomenal, whether
it’s piercingly accurate woodwind solos,
perfectly tuned brass chords or strings
that appear to play with such precision
as to be ‘as one’. The recorded sound
is also amazing, with a depth and detail
that leave many other versions in the
shade. But as anyone who loves Mahler
knows, this is simply not enough. In
the greatest performances and recordings
you share an epic journey that leaves
you wrung dry by the end but feeling,
in a cathartic sense, better for the
experience. I’m afraid, at the end of
the day, I simply did not get this from
these discs.
Thomas’s treatment
of the first movement is one of the
sticking blocks. He has drilled his
orchestra to such a degree that they
can obviously follow his every gear
change, but his wilful and somewhat
irritating use of rubato ultimately
robs the music of its sense of flow
and cumulative power. We know that Thomas
comes from the Bernstein school of Mahler
conducting, where a sense of vivid drama
and theatrical spectacle often take
precedence over structural clarity,
but Bernstein’s charisma usually ensured
he pulled it off. Here, the stop-start,
episodic nature of the conducting emerges
as plodding and rather mannered (try
the big climactic passage, track 1,
15’40). One only has to turn to Klemperer’s
famous 1962 account to understand that
keeping the tempo flowing does not mean
details have to be missed, and his astonishingly
swift, grittily direct approach gives
the movement momentum, direction and
power. There is, unbelievably, nearly
nine minutes difference overall in the
two performances, and half of that is
due to this first movement. I don’t
tend to clock watch, but I do feel Mahler
conducting over the years has become
generally slower, not always to the
benefit of the music. On the other hand,
if inspiration and concentration levels
are high enough, it can work, as in
Simon Rattle’s CBSO performance, which
comes in with timings similar to Tilson
Thomas. Indeed, Rattle is possibly Thomas’s
nearest counterpart (at least in my
collection) yet I never felt the frisson
in San Francisco that I feel in Birmingham.
The inner movements
do fare better. Whilst I still find
the basic pulse of the Minuet a little
cumbersome, the strings are so luminous
and featherlight as to make amends.
There is also some razor-sharp brass
playing in the trio. One does leave
this lovely little movement with a distinct
air of what Mahler referred to as ‘a
memory – a shaft of sunlight from out
of the life of this hero’.
The third movement,
a droll C minor scherzo in waltz tempo,
is also superbly done. The orchestra
digs deep, producing trenchant sounds
that capture the many facets of the
music. Here is Mahler’s ‘dance of life’
encapsulated, with sinister brass sitting
alongside a joyful trio and sentimental
close harmony trumpets, St. Antony’s
restless moto perpetuo underpinning
everything.
The ‘Urlicht’ fourth
movement, which correctly follows on
without a break, is worthy of attention
for the raptly intense singing of Lorraine
Hunt Lieberson, one of the artists of
the moment, and for those beautifully
weighted brass chorale chords. Of course,
competition is fierce, with Janet Baker
(Rattle) and Hilda Rössl-Majdan
(Klemperer) providing just as much text
insight and quality of tone. But Lieberson’s
singing is undoubtedly up there with
the best, and nobody will be disappointed
with her contribution to this version.
The massive finale
returns us to the ‘curate’s egg’ situation.
The famous ‘cry of disgust’ opening
is overwhelming in its impact, both
in terms of playing and recording. Also
well handled are the spatial effects,
with off-stage instruments sounding
realistically distant but in a clear
acoustic relation to the full orchestra,
something not always easy for the conductor
or engineers to bring off. Once again,
individual touches are impressive; one
has to marvel at the principal trumpet’s
crystal clear top c which pings through
the texture at 9’52. One could also
fairly argue that Tilson Thomas is correctly
observing Mahler’s plethora of tempo
and phrase markings throughout the symphony,
but in this movement, as in the first,
this listener found some of the gear
changes emerging as agogic distortions
that impede the full surge of the music.
I feel Rattle and Klemperer both have
the bigger picture in mind, and turning
back to them also highlighted their
own orchestras’ superb playing. There
is not much to choose in the choral
contributions, but suffice it to say
that the vintage, Pitz-trained Philharmonia
chorus are pretty much unbeatable, with
superb grading of dynamics and a welter
of unforced tone where required. The
peroration in this famous EMI recording
is simply overwhelming (as indeed is
the Rattle) and I suppose it’s down
to that elusive ‘x factor’, but the
San Francisco version didn’t get my
spine tingling in quite the same way.
The packaging is attractive,
with typically illuminating notes by
Michael Steinberg, though the track
listing on the back is wrong for disc
2. If you are collecting this cycle,
don’t let me put you off – remember,
much of this is real hair-splitting.
The audience is commendably quiet –
in fact there is more shuffling and
extraneous noise from Klemperer’s studio
forces! But bear this in mind; the great
old man’s recording is now part of EMI’s
Great Recordings of the Century series,
re-mastered and sounding simply awesome.
It is on one disc (the only one-disc
Resurrection?) and is mid-price.
[review]
[purchase]For
me, there is no contest.
Tony Haywood
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/Michael
Tilson Thomas 
