This is the second recording in as many months to tell us (in the booklet-notes) that Mahler’s initial foray into the symphonic world inherited the tradition from Brahms. It’s also the second recording that works hard to show us what that means stylistically, though the same questions yield some notably different answers.

Unlike Iván Fischer, whose account with the Budapest Festival Orchestra (Channel Classics, 9/12) arrived at its musical intensity through poise and dignity, Marin Alsop’s performance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra opts for more folk-like immediacy. This may be the result of her early years on the podium – performing a steady dose of new music trains you to hear the ‘new’ in standard repertory, just as communicating American-ness certainly sharpens one’s discernment for other musical vernacular; but from whichever direction she arrives, Alsop brings a vigorous spring to the music’s step.

That rhythmic dance, though, punchy as it is (as well as being deftly recorded in performance at Baltimore’s Meyerhoff Symphony Hall), falls just short of emotional abandon. To be sure, this isn’t as much of a deficiency here as it would be in Mahler’s later symphonies, but it still keeps a mostly satisfying performance from fully taking off.

Having laboured extensively in the symphonic trenches, Alsop’s connection to late-19th-century symphonic repertory in the past decade has both broadened and deepened. At no point does her Mahler seem anything less than well considered and expertly groomed. But one still wishes she’d take off the leash and let the music run free for a while.