If Donald Rumsfeld
were a Mahlerite he would hate this
recording of the Fourth Symphony. The
third movement had barely been underway
two minutes when I had written in my
notes "Old Europe" which,
as you may know, is something of a bête
noire for Mr. R. It’s all in the
strings. Especially in the third movement
there is a marked degree of portamenti
or sliding between the notes
in phrases that you associate with a
recording made over sixty years ago
from "old Europe". I’m not
complaining. Quite the opposite, in
fact. Don’t think that what you are
going to hear will distract you or grate
in any way as this practice can when
taken to the extreme. Tilson Thomas
has asked for and been given by his
string players just enough of that "old
world" phrasing to make this movement
a really moving and distinctive experience,
getting right to the warm heart of the
movement and therefore the symphony
and bringing memories of Walter and
Mengelberg flooding back. It’s a fine
achievement and a welcome antidote to
some of the squeaky-clean, machine-tooled
Mahler recordings I hear so often and
which make me long for recordings made
twenty or thirty years ago or more.
The overall tempo for the movement is
slow, slower than many hitherto favourite
versions, but it never drags. Momentum
never flags; such is the attention to
detail, to springing the underlying
rhythms and the marking of the nodal
points. Though you would never know
it, this CD is the result of "live"
performances so perhaps the experience
of performing the movement in one go
is paying dividends.
Tilson Thomas delineates
so well the two aspects of Mahler’s
"once upon a time" world making
up the first movement’s symphonic argument.
Mahler was probably describing in music
his own bright-sky exhilaration at arriving
as the conquering hero in Vienna. However
he uses a spiky, unsettled development
of the exposition’s more dreamy and
laid-back material to vary the course
of the movement. Tilson Thomas grasps
this aspect admirably. The ability to
"read" a movement’s topography
in this way is so often the sign of
a fine Mahler conductor. There is a
sense of contented repose to be found
in the exposition and then a full exploitation
of the orchestra’s fine woodwind and
brass players to spice up the development.
These players are heard to excellent
effect in what is a superb sound balance.
All comes to a perfectly judged resolution
at the climax of the development where
the emergence of the trumpet solo, prefiguring
the opening of the Fifth Symphony, makes
its mark. Crucially this is from within
the texture. Tilson Thomas and his engineers
are careful not to let this trumpet
moment protrude too much. In the later
stages the string phrasing, the "old
world" slides that will become
so much a part of the third movement,
make their first real appearance and
are deeply satisfying.
The second movement
accentuates the mood of the first’s
development with great scope given to
the weird violin solo and the cluckings
of the woodwind players who are again
heard to fine effect in the recording.
The third movement stresses the contemplative
side of the symphony. All that is then
needed to complete the story of this
wonderful work is an adroit performance
of the final movement to bring it all
to final rest. So much depends on the
delivery of the soprano soloist who
must give a child’s view of heaven and
so must sound young. I am too much of
a gentleman to ask Laura Claycomb’s
age but I think I can safely say she
fits the bill admirably, as does her
feisty "daddy’s girl" delivery.
For his part Tilson Thomas drives the
sleigh bell interludes with a terrific
snap. In this he keeps in our minds,
right to the end, the bipolar element
that exists in even this most amiable
of Mahler’s symphonies.
The playing of the
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra is
exemplary throughout and the recording
rich and detailed. There have been so
many fine recordings of this work over
the years - Mengelberg, Kletzki, Horenstein,
Szell, Maazel - that there are many
that can be recommended to collectors
to last them a lifetime. This latest
one is certainly now among them and
those collecting Tilson Thomas’s developing
Mahler cycle can be assured that this
is a worthy successor, maybe even the
best of the cycle so far. If you have
room for another Fourth that is well-recorded
and well played, and with that striking
sense of "old Europe" in the
third movement, this is certainly one
to consider seriously in a crowded field.
Just don’t send a copy to the Pentagon.
Tilson Thomas and the
SFSO in Mahler go from strength to strength
with a Fourth from the grand tradition.
Tony Duggan
see
Tony Duggans Mahler pages
Laura Claycomb (Soprano) 