Benjamin Zander understands Mahler’s sound world well. He takes great pains to make sure that the hammer blows resound, the cowbells tinkle atmospherically, and the strings observe Mahler’s indications for slides between notes. Important as these matters may be, getting them right is not in the last analysis a function of Zander’s musicianship on the podium, and there he comes up wanting. He’s handicapped by having to work with the Philharmonia, a fully professional, international-caliber group to be sure, but one whose tonal qualities do not suit Mahler. In particular, the orchestra’s weak trombones, tuba, and lower strings fail to give the music the solid bass lines it requires. Page after page of fortissimo writing cries out for greater force and clarity at the lower end of the sonic spectrum (one example: the theoretically fortissimo passage marked “wuchtig”–“angry”–at measure 716 in the finale). At lower dynamic levels, the sound loses body and texture, and numerous details go missing (the “whoosh” of cymbals at the finale’s opening, the sfpp accents in lower strings a few bars later, the gentle triangle tap at measure 135 in the Andante). Overcoming these inherent weaknesses is part of the conductor’s job, and in this respect Zander simply isn’t up to it.
Zander adopts a slow tempo for the opening march (too much “ma non troppo” and not enough “energico”), similar to Chailly’s Amsterdam recording on Decca but far less successfully sustained because Zander has the orchestra play all of the march music with shortened, clipped note values. The result, at this tempo, breaks the music up into little two- and four-bar phrases separated by pauses. You can hear this particularly clearly at the start of the development, and the resulting choppiness kills any sense of growing momentum. The central pastoral episode, with excellently placed cowbells, simply stagnates at such a glacial pace, and the bass clarinet soloist, who manages to ignore virtually every dynamic or expressive opportunity, doesn’t help. Zander’s conducting of the “Alma” theme in the recapitulation, an especially tricky pasage, goes very well, but he fails to make the most of the “Più mosso subito” onslaught at figure 37, and the final apotheosis of the “Alma” music two bars before figure 45 lacks the “molto rit.” that Mahler demands.
Of all the movements, the scherzo goes best, largely because the rhythmic high jinks in the trio require a goodly bit of rehearsal, from which this performance clearly benefits. Both trios feature shapely phrasing with the constantly shifting tempos, accents and dynamics deftly touched in. The scherzo proper, though, suffers from the absence of bass, a backwardly balanced xylophone, and a certain rhythmic instability that results in a serious loss of focus from figure 84 right through to the return of the trio. What happens to the tuba and basses in measures 227 through 234? And why can’t the suspended cymbals play comparable dynamics to the crash cymbals? The excellence of the two trios only serves to emphasize the elements lacking elsewhere in the movement.
I have tried not to bring into this review remarks from Zander’s included lecture, which is the subject of an independent editorial, but it just so happens that he explains there that he views the opening melody of the Andante as ripe for a typically Mahlerian rubato treatment, and played with some subtlety I can see his point. But Zander is not subtle: he seems to regard every phrase-ending or half-close as an opportunity to insert an “expressive” ritard, and the resulting hesitations cripple the music’s onward flow. Then, when Mahler actually asks for some flexibility, as at the “nicht schleppen” directive followed by “Poco rit.” after the central alpine pastoral episode, Zander ignores him. The ensuing “Misterioso” passage just before the climax also suffers from the orchestra’s lack of tactile presence at lower dynamic levels, while disregarding Mahler’s “Fliesend” (“Flowing”) injunction when the solo horn enters at Figure 57 contributes to an exaggerated feeling of stasis. But the movement’s climax at figure 61, when it comes, is beautifully shaped. How much better would it have sounded with some properly balanced input from the lower strings!
The finale suffers from the same problems described in detail above regarding Zander’s clipped phrasing of the march music and lack of sensitivity to proper balances and dynamics. The opening pages don’t bode well. Already at measure 28, Zander disregards Mahler’s call to increase the tempo (“gradually more flowing”) through measure 40, where we then have two bars of “dragging once again”, and then “Più mosso”. Mahler asks the oboes and horns to “take time” in their horrific shrieks and moans. They surely don’t, and I miss the bass drum rhythm and suspended cymbal strokes a few bars down the road. Check out Bernstein (DG) to hear how terrifying this music should sound. As might be expected, Zander pegs the two hammer blows in the development section, but his approach to them is very weak and ineffective: the orchestra simply fails to achieve a loud enough crescendo before they kick in, with the result that they sound pasted onto the texture rather than logically placed. That said, Zander’s treatment of the entire passage from the second hammer blow back to the introduction follows Mahler’s tempo indications perfectly, with thrilling results.
Unfortunately, the return to the music of the introduction suffers from the same problems as the first time around, and adds to them an excessively slow tempo that fails to make an effective transition to the “grazioso” oboe tune at figure 147. The mad dash to the recapitulation, beginning at figure 150, almost gets away from Zander entirely, with strident trumpets and horns, careless dynamics, oddly impact-less triple-forte timpani, and one apparently very lost triangle player (the cloudy recording makes it difficult to tell). The same tonal coarseness afflicts the remainder of the movement. Where the music ought to sound rugged and powerful, here it simply comes across as noisy. Zander includes the third hammer blow, and also Mahler’s original orchestration of the seven following bars. With the exception of a single exposed clarinet note that sounds like a mistake (doubtless the reason Mahler removed it when he revised the orchestration), you’d never notice. Still, Zander offers the option of hearing the entire finale as usually played, without hammer blow number three, thereby proving quite conclusively that it doesn’t make any significant musical difference at all.
Telarc has a stunning Mahler Sixth in its catalog from Yoel Levi with the Atlanta Symphony. Levi is not an “idiomatic” Mahlerian. He doesn’t take the exposition repeat in the first movement and he’s less concerned than Zander with the score’s “special effects” (though his hammer blows are every bit as powerful). But he’s a much better conductor, and at least on this outing has the superior orchestra at his disposal. If you care about musical matters first and foremost, you’ll prefer Levi every time. You also can find in conductors as diverse as Bernstein, Gielen, and Thomas Sanderling all of Zander’s overt expressiveness, with none of his technical shortcomings. Take out the tinkles and the thuds, for which he earns a one point rating bonus, and he’s no better than average.
