Colin Davis’ Mahler Eighth, while a decent performance, didn’t make a big splash on its initial release. It features generally lively tempos in the first movement, droopy ones in the second (it lasts a bit more than an hour, which is too long), and the soloists are variable. Heppner, Kasarova, and Pape are predictably fine, Sweet is mediocre at best (the voice inappropriately heavy for Gretchen, the timbre unattractive), and the rest nothing special. The choral singing is soft-edged and a touch sloppy. But this SACD 5.1 multichannel reincarnation begs to be considered primarily from a sonic viewpoint, which is curious because the sound of the original was very reverberant and blowsy. Now it’s worse. The brass section comes largely from behind (save for the offstage group in the first movement, which is inaudible), and the solo voices sound as if they were recorded in an echo chamber. While the basic dynamic is decently high-level, the climaxes still lack impact as the bass frequencies come and go and the climaxes turn into mush. Let’s just say this wasn’t one of the Bavarian Radio’s finer days, and leave it at that.
