Paavo Järvi almost always has interesting ideas, and this performance is no exception. The Andante features lots of little accents and inflections with no loss of flow: it’s mesmerizing, and very beautiful. The scherzo also offers an unusual amount of characterful detail from the woodwinds, and the “cry of despair” climax is suitably crushing. The finale is very exciting in its early stages, and the end is really grand, with big, confident choral singing and resplendent bells (not enough tam-tams, though). So far, so good.
Now for the downside. There’s something about this performance that’s not quite ready for prime time–you get the sense that if Järvi’s ideas had a little more time to ripen, or if he’d had a touch more rehearsal time, this really could have been special. For example, he takes off like a shot at the soprano and alto duet (“O Schmerz!”) just before the final chorus; a little time to reflect and perhaps he would have sounded less frenetic here. Alice Coote’s tremulousness in “Urlicht” isn’t exactly ugly, but it’s not the best we’ve heard in this music by a long shot.
However, it’s the first movement that disappoints most. Järvi takes it quite slowly–23 minutes–but he has all the right instincts. It should have been harrowing, but instead it bogs down in the quieter moments, and the orchestra, lower strings particularly, just doesn’t dig into the music with the necessary sharpness of accent. In short, the music lacks rhythm, and while its sepulchral qualities are well caught, it’s just not relentless enough.
The engineering offers the same combination of pluses and minuses: a big rich bass, lots of room at the climaxes, the offstage instruments well captured, but some very odd balances. At the big outbursts (the “cry of despair”, the opening of the finale, the very end, and a few other places besides), the loudest instruments are–the harps! In its way, it’s kind of thrilling, but not when it happens at the expense of the brass and percussion. It will be very interesting to hear Järvi revisit this music in a few years to see how his interpretation evolves. However, the question at hand is whether or not to buy this CD. For diehard Mahlerians, I would say “yes” for its interesting points of detail. Casual listeners should look to the reference recordings above for a more reliable first or second choice.
