Some consider this symphony to be Liszt’s masterpiece. It surely contains one of the most colorful families of leitmotifs in the orchestral repertoire. In fact, each character in Goethe’s play is so vividly depicted that you might not be remiss in calling it an opera without words. The themes even interact like real characters: In the finale the Mephistopheles theme assimilates the others, “possessing” them and spitting them back out as caricatures, at least until the “chorus mysticus” banishes him–and his motif–back to hell. Listeners need a taut performance of this work to really experience its drama, and each of the reference recordings delivers. This new one almost makes it. Thomas Dausgaard doesn’t dawdle and keeps things moving at an exciting pace, but his attacks lack a clearly defined edge, thus dulling the otherwise energetic effect. The orchestra, while perfectly capable, lacks the virtuoso players of the New York and London organizations on competing labels. In the coda, tenor Christian Elsner sounds a bit too forward and aggressive to be a heavenly voice (Bernstein’s Charles Bressler is just right), and the recorded sound, though the best I have heard from Chandos in a while, is just a mite lacking in presence. If you have the opportunity to hear this very good version, go for it; but if a purchase is the point, then stick with the killer B’s: Bernstein or Beecham.
