This Mahler Symphony No. 1 comes from Gustavo Dudamel’s inaugural concert as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The performance was duly documented and swiftly released by Deustche Grammophon with all the fanfare of a major artistic event. On evidence of the applause at the end, the event certainly impressed the audience at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, but how about the home listener? Well, the fine-sounding live recording does preserve some of the atmosphere and sense of “occasion”, but beyond this we’ve just the performance itself to judge.
Dudamel obviously knows the music and cultivates a real Mahlerian sound from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which plays beautifully for him. The first movement’s pre-dawn opening has the appropriate sense of expectancy, but the climax is let down by barely audible trumpets. In the scherzo the conductor attempts to put his stamp on the music by starting with a slow tempo that builds up speed as it goes along–sort of like a wind-up music box. It’s interesting–once. The problem is that Dudamel does this nearly every time the main theme appears, and the gesture goes from novel to gimmicky pretty quickly.
The funeral march creates a nicely sardonic atmosphere, even if the too-fast dance music doesn’t work terribly well. The finale impresses with its prominent bass drum, and Dudamel does churn up a stirring, if not exactly terror-inducing opening storm, with the Los Angeles strings and winds making a virtuoso show of it. The quiet passages benefit from Dudamel’s tender caresses, but he tends to rush the big coda, which has less impact due to the recessed-sounding horns (are they not observing Mahler’s instruction for the players to stand up?).
Overall, it’s a decent enough Mahler First that, while in no way displacing the great recordings (Bernstein, Boulez, Walter, Muti), does present Dudamel’s Los Angeles credentials, making this release of interest to those following this new young maestro’s swiftly rising career. Those interested in just hearing great Mahler, however, will do better with the listed alternatives.
