MAHLER Symphony No 7 (Jansons)
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Gustav Mahler
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: RCO Live
Magazine Review Date: 03/2018
Media Format: Super Audio CD
Media Runtime: 79
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: RCO17006
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphony No. 7 |
Gustav Mahler, Composer
Gustav Mahler, Composer Mariss Jansons, Conductor Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam (members of) |
Author: Edward Seckerson
The originality of the opening, with its gruff tenor tuba over eddying strings, is here compromised by the altogether too lovely and mellowed sound of the solo and a manner too cultured by half. With contours softened and rhythms sluggish (unusual for Jansons), this whole first movement begins to sound lugubrious as opposed to atavistic. Precious little is made of tempo contrasts – indeed, contrasts in general – and because the sound is so uniformly warm and inviting, the contrast of that marvellous middle section where we are wafted to higher regions does not stand apart from what enfolds it. Note, too, Jansons’s precious phrasing of the lovely second subject on its first appearance, every rubato and hairpin calculated to the nth degree. Even the brash and brassy paganistic procession of the coda sounds woolly to me.
The two Nachtmusiks bring the kind of ravishment you would expect from this orchestra (especially the first horn) – but the characterisation is bland and the music’s other-worldly mystique is nowhere. As for the central Scherzo – spooky as they come – nothing truly goes bump in the night and all its grotesque grunts and guffaws and ‘boo’ effects (including the snap-pizzicato in lower strings, which is the loudest dynamic in the piece) are far too polite.
The finale’s ‘apotheosis of the dance’ is nothing if not throughly audacious and this must be the dullest performance I’ve ever heard in terms of its characterisation (always so crucial in Mahler). It’s like it’s been reprimanded for bad behaviour and all its raucousness taken in hand. Rarely does the opening timpani- and trumpet-led tattoo fail to excite – but super-incisive this is not (the timpanist sounds way too casual about his big moment). Even the spectacular coda – and especially its thrilling final crescendo – goes for nothing. Whatever this is, it isn’t Mahler’s Seventh.
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