You know there’s something wrong with a recording of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony when its high point is the coda of the third movement Scherzo. RCA’s “High Performance” audio treatment only serves to illuminate what a truly dismal performance this generally is. Things go bad from the very start: the opening eight horn unison fanfare is too broad, with mushy articulation–hardly the way to usher in the god Pan, or a 105 minute symphony for that matter. The next several minutes of introductory material are soft edged, with Leinsdorf downplaying (or even removing?) some of the percussion writing along the way. The trombone solo goes well enough, but the subsequent “happy” march is too zippy in tempo to have any sense of accumulating strength as it goes. Things do pick up at the start of the development section, with some really exciting playing leading up to the infamous 30 seconds of hysteria known as the “rabble”, or “southern storm” passage. But do we get wild abandonment at this spot? No! Instead, Leinsdorf pulls back just when he should go for the jugular, and both the recapitulation and coda are disappointingly matter of fact. The second and third movements survive Leinsdorf’s poker-faced treatment with their charms intact, but the following two vocal movements take a serious turn for the worse. The delightful “bim-bam” chorus, in particular, is simply too heavy and lacking any sense of joy–it’s hard to tell what Leinsdorf was trying to achieve. Worst of all, RCA has chosen to make the jump from disc 1 to disc 2 between the choral movement and the final Adagio–a continuity-destroying move that flies in the face of Mahler’s instructions to play the last three movements without a break. In any event, the finale has never received such a swift and indifferent reading as here, with a coda totally devoid of grandeur.
The First Symphony receives a more sympathetic and idiomatic interpretation–but not by much. The first movement has real freshness, the following Scherzo plenty of lilt. In the third movement, Leinsdorf makes an effort to introduce an authentic rustic feel to the “village” music, but he’s undermined by some stiff playing and bad balances, while the phlegmatic finale is nothing special. What’s particularly galling about this release is that RCA has far better versions of both works in their vaults from James Levine (Chicago and London Symphony Orchestras respectively). In summary, anyone wanting this exact coupling would do far better to pick up the Double Decca issue with Zubin Mehta leading the Los Angeles and Israel Philharmonics. And if it’s the Boston Symphony you’re after, stick with Seiji Ozawa on Philips– both the First and Third were highlights of his finely played (and underrated) Mahler cycle.
