This is as fine a Mahler First as just about any in the catalogue. Yannick Nézet-Séguin has paid his dues and is evidently maturing nicely as an interpreter. His Mahler is passionate, idiomatic, distinctive, technically adept, and excellently played by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Transitions are particularly well managed: from the introduction to the main body of the first movement, or from the notably cogent finale’s initial uproar to the lyrical second subject. The scherzo manages to sound rustic but never crude, while the klezmer music in the funeral march is lovingly shaped but not mannered–something that might not have been case with Nézet-Séguin a few years ago.
Best of all, his conducting makes no apologies for the climaxes, for the music’s emotional excess. So many conductors today seem to have lost the ability to “let go,” to give up control and let the musicians play loudly and with abandon. The big climax at the end of the first movement is a case in point: without losing shape it sounds completely uninhibited, and as a result so fulfilling. This applies equally to the finale’s closing pages: they build right up to the final bar, and the entire long movement has no dead spots thanks to Nézet-Séguin’s natural pacing. The engineering captures a wide but not ridiculous dynamic range, with realistic perspectives and excellent depth, top to bottom. In short, this performance is a joy.
