This is the sort of performance you’d probably enjoy if you heard it live, but it’s also one that really didn’t need to be preserved on disc. James DePriest conducts solidly, if without special insight. The opening funeral march moves swiftly but without much atmosphere, a function of underplayed soft percussion and a certain lack of imagination in the phrasing of its principal melody. An exciting second movement can’t counterbalance the extremely slow scherzo, which (as Bernstein shows) can work at nearly 20 minutes, but only with gutsier string playing and a more characterful approach to its waltz rhythms.
The Adagietto sounds lovely, as it almost always does, and the finale goes well until the final chorale, where DePriest slams on the brakes earlier than Mahler demands, thereby proving that the composer’s original idea is much the better of the two. The sonics, from Abbey Road studios, are very good: the disc was produced by Michael Fine, lately of Koch and more famously, Deutsche Grammophon. In short, this is a fully professional effort from all concerned, but it’s just not an inspired Mahler Fifth, and there are far too many excellent performances out there for you to have to settle for less, even at Naxos prices.
