First impressions can be proleptic of a more considered response.
I found myself instantly irked by being confronted by multiple
images of the conductor’s face, twice on the front of the booklet,
once on the back and again on the reverse of the CD. Mr Järvi
might be a fine conductor but a pin-up he is not, and I do not
think he is yet ready to be presented à la Karajan or Bernstein,
in soulful, gnomic pose, air-brushed and graphically tweaked to
look like an Old Master oil painting and gazing out upon the hapless
music-lover for all the world like La Gioconda. You need
already to have generated some epic status to carry that off.
Why do record companies feel the need to be seen to massage the
ego of a would-be “sleb” conductor like this?
Having got that out
of my system, let’s turn to the music. I suppose my irritation
was intensified by my finding the content of this disc so disappointing.
I could argue that it is disingenuous of other critics to complain
that the programme here is disjointed; it is what it says it is
and could be of interest to Mahler tyros and buffs alike, in that
it variously presents original, alternative, discarded, incomplete
and re-arranged movements from four great symphonies. The idea
is not without merit, but the sequencing and execution of the
four pieces here is unsatisfactory. We begin with two mighty movements
from two very different worlds: the apocalyptic vision of the
“Totenfeier” with its granitic blocks of sound, followed by the
subtle chromaticism and sublime, painful ecstasy of the Adagio
- which should surely never be followed by anything, either in
concert or on disc. The effect is bathetic when we descend to
comparatively slight trifles such as Britten’s charming arrangement
of Was mir die Blumen in der Wiese erzählen and the “Blumine”.
Järvi’s pallid rendering confirms that Mahler was quite right
to cut the latter from the “Titan”, as it is not his most inspired
creation. In any case, surely these two movements should have
opened the disc rather than act as encores or bon-bons; they belong
chronologically and emotionally to Mahler’s earlier artistic development,
in the world of “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”. We really don’t want
funeral rites before flowery meadows.
This would matter
less if the performances themselves were more recommendable,
but they chime with the current penchant for “Mahler Lite”.
While I have little taste for it myself, I concede that a
sparer, pared down approach to Mahler can afford new insights,
but it must be done better than it is here. There isn’t too
much to say about the execution of the two slighter movements
here except that they are efficiently and prosaically despatched,
evincing little feeling for their poetry. “Blumine” is, in
any case, too lightweight for the First Symphony as a whole
which is why Mahler correctly decided to excise it from the
finished work. Britten’s reduced orchestration version of
“What the wild flowers tell me” was simply a sensible, practical
and reverential expedient to try to get Mahler played more
widely at a time when the inclusion of any of his music in
a concert programme was still a comparative rarity. Incidentally,
it was Britten who introduced “Blumine” to the British public,
too.
Inevitably it
is the quality of the two longer, more serious and substantial
movements which maters most, as the other two items are essentially
fillers. While there are subtle differences in the orchestration
and rhythmic details between the original “Totenfeier” and
its eventual form, the two versions are sufficiently alike
to permit comparison between classic recordings by Klemperer
and Rattle and this new one. I have to say that these comparisons
are all to Järvi’s disadvantage. While he secures clean, clear
articulation of the musical argument, this clarity is achieved
at the expense of excitement; he engenders none of the tension
which characterises both Klemperer’s famous live and studio
recordings. Klemperer’s attack and use of stringendo are electrifying;
his attention to moulding the phrases and grading the dynamics
creates a maelstrom of sound building inexorably to the climactic
cymbal crash. Rattle works differently, showing more restraint.
His double-basses in the opening measures have been asked
to think hard about phrasing and shading. A terrible sense
of foreboding pervades the music until the shattering entry
of the brass. Järvi provides no such arcing overview; there
are sudden fortissimos with out preparation or reason, the
scurrying downward motion of the strings carries little sense
of a descent into panic and the music essentially goes to
sleep just where it should take off. The problem is not one
of timing but shaping. There is a blandness, a lack of conviction
here; Järvi fails to imbue Mahler’s music with inner life
and tension. Rattle’s account of the Adagio from the completed
Tenth Symphony with the Belin Philharmonic sounds so much
grander and statelier – yet a glance at the timings confirms
that he is unbelievably almost two minutes faster. In any
case, I suspect that few Mahler fans want any longer to hear
just the Adagio as an appendage now that we have become used
to hearing the Tenth in its entirety in excellent completions
such as Deryck Cooke’s.
This disc has fine
orchestral playing in excellent sound, but I can find little to
praise. Järvi received rave reviews from the Frankfurt press when
he performed this music in concert, yet one observation from the
Frankfurt Rundschau critic is telling: “Anyone who favours
lush, Hollywood-style Mahler will not feel at home with Järvi
and his orchestra.” If “Hollywood-style” is meant to refer to
Bernstein’s way with Mahler, I’ll go with Lennie any day – yet
this absurd jibe is refuted merely by listening to Klemperer …
and I do not recall anyone trying to accuse him of being in any
way “Disneyfied” as a conductor.
Ralph Moore
Frankfurt Radio
Symphony Orchestra/Paavo Järvi 
