This is a decent but basically irrelevant recording. Generally speaking, Sakari Oramo provides lively tempos and keeps things moving pretty well. The Funeral March comes off best: alternately spooky and (in the Jewish music) stylish without ever sounding too mannered. The first-movement introduction, though, is a bit too sleepy, with insufficient contrast between the main tempo and the quicker fanfares for clarinets and offstage trumpets. Oramo plays the opening of the scherzo accelerando, as do some others, with the usual unconvincing, precious results, and he rushes the closing pages in an effort to generate excitement. These are just small points, but cumulatively they begin to tell. The orchestra plays quite well, but the brass could be more powerful at the start and end of the finale. Even the engineering, usually an outstanding feature of Exton recordings, is merely good, being a bit dry in the bass and somewhat lacking in body. There’s too much Mahler out there, and being merely good just doesn’t cut it.
