Valery Gergiev’s interpretation of Mahler’s First Symphony has many individual touches, some of which work, and some of which don’t. On the plus side, he characterizes the “klezmer” episodes of the funeral march wonderfully well, and the entire finale is exciting and extremely successful, with a terrifying opening and a really voluptuous second subject. The closing pages go splendidly, with the LSO brass in particularly fine fettle (with some additions to the timpani part–see if you notice where they are!). Indeed, this orchestra has made at least three noteworthy recordings of this symphony, under Solti, Levine, and Horenstein (arguably that hapless conductor’s finest Mahler recording).
On the debit side, Gergiev takes the opening comparatively quickly. This isn’t a bad thing in itself, but it’s a matter of proportion. The fanfare figures for clarinets and offstage trumpets are supposed to sound faster than the basic tempo, and to this extent unrelated to it. Here they come across as strictly in tempo, or perhaps even a touch slower. It’s not a huge point, but it is a mite odd. The scherzo proper has a nice, gruff, rustic feel at a moderate speed, but Gergiev surely takes the trio section too slowly, though his fondness for string portamento both here and in the first movement can only be applauded.
At the opening of the funeral march, Gergiev, like Haitink and some other conductors, accepts the latest (1989) critical edition that decides–wrongly and on no firm evidence whatsoever–to give the double bass solo to the entire section. I find it fascinating that conductors trained to make musical decisions based on theoretically musical criteria will follow the pseudo-scholarship of the morons at the International Mahler Society in Vienna like a pack of witless lemmings. Now is not the place to go into this stupid decision at length; suffice it to say that editor Sander Wilkens and his boss, Reinhold Kubik, represent a disgrace to Mahler studies, and between them show not a shred of understanding of Mahler’s style (never mind basic common sense). This factor does not weigh heavily in my estimation of the performance, particularly given Gergiev’s otherwise splendid handling of the movement, but I do wish he had kept the passage solo, as we know Mahler intended.
Sonically, in all formats this is not one of LSO’s better productions. The acoustic is extremely dry, giving the timpani and bass drum a very hard sound that dominates tutti sections. It also turns the brass somewhat tinny and robs the strings of richness. Obviously, these problems are most evident in loud passages, though the opening of the finale does acquire an aptly nasty and snarling edge. At quieter moments the basic orchestral sonority and sectional balances have a much more natural presence. Ultimately, this is an undeniably characterful performance, but not quite top-rank for this much-recorded work.
