Now that the Mahler Fifth has passed into the business-as-usual
repertoire of most orchestras, it's not every day that the opening
notes make the listener sit up and take notice. It happens here,
though: every note of the trumpet solo is intoned with round,
clear tone, with the dotted and double-dotted rhythms crisply
differentiated so as to provide a sense of lift.
Such attention to detail, to the placing, weighting, and balancing
of notes and chords, marks the entire performance. Jonathan
Nott sees to it that every musical "i" is dotted
and every "t" is crossed, not out of a spirit of
pedantry, but to achieve the maximal expressive effect --
sometimes pictorial, sometimes abstractly "musical"
-- with minimal means.
Thus -- to return to the first movement -- the soft timpani strokes
at 1:12 suggest a sustaining heartbeat, even as the music
slows down; in the march theme that follows, the dotted rhythms
are pointed in a way that underlines its wistfulness. In this
theme, Nott's care over all the little accents and fortepiano
effects in its contrapuntal underpinnings makes for unusually
active, vibrant textures; in its varied statement at 8:14,
the conductor, applying the occasional discreet tenuto,
colors the various harmonic shifts to bring out its contrasting
phases of desolation and optimism. In the final statement,
the "soft" landing at the fortefortissimo
(11:59) makes for an expansive climax, rather than a harsh
one, after which the movement closes amid dissolution.
The tricky Scherzo also goes exceptionally well. Nott sets a
medium tempo, but, again, carefully points the articulation
and accents to elicit a graceful lilt; that lightness, miraculously,
is maintained as the textures fill out. Even smaller-scaled
peaks, like the horn-based climax at 9:27, have a radiant
glow. The acceleration beginning at 10:19 has an unbuttoned
forward impulse, but doesn't lose the underlying waltzy elegance.
Nott is especially good at bringing out the differences of
detail that "spice up" the various recapitulations
-- after the sudden pullback to Tempo I at 11:00, for
example -- and his pointing of the hemiolas in the bass at
12:06 enlivens the rhythm. At 14:03, the basses' motif emerges
clearly, for a change -- it's not played any louder than usual,
but it's sculpted with more purpose. The Wild coda
is thrilling yet ambivalent, somehow fusing exuberance and
menace. Throughout this movement, the unidentified solo hornist
plays with deep, round tone and infuses his solos with a waltz-like
buoyancy.
At the start of the Adagietto, the clarity of detail briefly
becomes a liability. The tempo feels self-consciously held
back, and the theme doesn't immediately emerge from the welter
of precisely pointed notes around it -- the harpist could
have phrased more. Once things get going, however, the music
opens into full-throated climaxes without sacrificing rhythmic
rigor. Nott steps up the intensity for the uneasy central
section with just a mild acceleration -- resulting in a tempo
which would better have served the opening! The pianissimo
at 5:25 is a nice moment of suspension, and the recap is lovely
and serene. The sectional transitions in this movement are
seamlessly executed.
The horn-call heralding the start of the Rondo-Finale almost
overlaps the Adagietto's final chord, as permitted
if not necessarily suggested by the score's attacca
marking. The sprightly opening fragments are leavened by flexible
ritards; in the main theme, Nott inflects the various lines
to underline the interplay of parts. The realization of this
movement is perhaps incomplete -- a fair amount of supporting
detail, although clear enough, sounds unnecessarily reticent
-- but the overall balance among buoyancy, firmness, and tonal
weight achieves a cumulative jubilation.
The astute reader will have noticed that I've not discussed the second
movement. Unfortunately, it doesn't come off nearly as well
as everything else. Nott takes the same pains over fine points
of balance and accent as elsewhere, but a lot of the playing
sounds subdued, even uncertain, as if the players hadn't yet
quite digested their assignments. The strings manage their
figurations well enough, but without the tonal command they
display in the other movements. Only the brass contribution
is uniformly positive -- note the deft, solid trombones and
tuba at 8:46. The clarity and focus we hear at 11:51, as the
music moves into the two closing chorales, would have been
helpful earlier.
In the first and third movements, at least, the Bamberg Symphony sounds
like a first-class orchestra, playing with firm, warm tone
and producing a full ensemble sonority. If they're less accomplished
in the other movements, they're still a far cry from the dull,
tired-sounding orchestra that anchored Vox's early stereo
catalogue.
I heard this SACD in plain frontal stereo, and it's mostly impressive.
The overall ambience is clean, yet there's plenty of fullness
and depth as the textures expand. I like the almost tangible
sense of texture, contrasting horn and liquid clarinets, for
example, in the Scherzo, in which spatial effects also
come off well: at 1:48, the sectional horns, while clear and
"present," obviously sound from a different location
than the soloist; the plaintive trumpet at 8:40 seems to be
calling across a vast open expanse. I was, however, disappointed
by the creeping congestion whenever the percussion got going,
a flaw on far too many modern CDs, "super audio"
or otherwise.
What to do? Two, maybe three, movements of this performance are better
than on any other modern Fifth. But overall, this one must
yield to the Zander (Telarc) among more recent issues, though
even Telarc's excellent engineering isn't as breathtakingly
clear as Tudor's. Meanwhile, Jonathan Nott's musicality and
scrupulous musicianship mark him as a conductor to watch.
Stay tuned.
Stephen
Francis Vasta
[72:20]
