Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Symphony No. 9
Minnesota Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä
rec. 2022, Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis, USA
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
BIS BIS2476 SACD [82]
I have a personal rule of thumb when it comes to interpretations of the symphonies of Shostakovich and Mahler. In my view the former goes better when played to within an inch of their lives, almost to the level of melodrama. Despite his (false) reputation as a virtual neurotic, the reverse is true when it comes to Mahler. The closer a performer comes to the Central European symphonic tradition, the more in a sense ‘classical’ the approach, the more the music delivers.
I mention all this because it came to mind listening to this new recording of Mahler’s 9th from Osmo Vänskä and his Minnesota orchestra. Starting with the first movement, this is not Mahler as primal scream therapy. For starters, the tempo is very brisk. Right from the opening faltering bars, there is a feeling that Vänskä is a no-nonsense guide. He is in good company – Walter and Klemperer in their very different ways brooked no self-indulgence in this movement. It is equally evident that Vänskä wants that opening to be as lovely as possible. He understands that if it isn’t then the central tension of the movement between that fragile loveliness and the forces that seek to tear it apart is missing. And very lovely it is.
This is a distinctly classical account. To show how odd my mind can be I found myself thinking of how good an interpreter Vänskä is of Sibelius’ most classical symphony, the third. In both instances – and there could hardly be two more different symphonies- he grasps that classicism doesn’t mean unemotional or uninvolving. This, he seems to be saying, is a symphony, not an autobiography.
In the eyes of some readers I will immediately disqualify myself as a serious judge of these matters by remarking that I have never understood the fuss about Simon Rattle’s Berlin Mahler 9. This is not to say I don’t enjoy his Mahler – I think his Klagende Lied, for example, remains unchallenged. But in the Ninth he does all the things Vänskä avoids – he digs in to make points, he disrupts the flow in search of moments of terror or profundity that I find largely elude him. Vänskä, on the other hand, lets the music breathe and move naturally. If you are one of the majority who find Rattle indispensable then I suspect you will find Vänskä glib and superficial. Such are the peculiarities of this music we all love so much.
The faster tempo means Vänskä finds it easier to move to the big climaxes which still pack a big punch – I loved the way he ensures the weight of the strings are never drowned out by his glittering brass – but they are never underlined four times to make sure we get the point. A cursory glance at the score will argue against my point – Mahler was always finding ways to underline his points. My counter to this would be that his scores represent the borderline despair of a great conductor at the liberties taken with scores by, well, performers such as himself. As Mengelberg’s tantalising recording of the fourth symphony amply demonstrates, characterising the music to the nth degree doesn’t mean the reenactment of a kind of mental breakdown. It is worth bearing in mind, Mahler’s own cryptic, maddening comparison of No.9 to No.4. I don’t think he was saying they have the same character but for me the best performances – again I think of Walter in America and Klemperer – make that comparison seem not altogether far-fetched.
Deryck Cooke – a man who knew a thing or two about Mahler – characterised this symphony as “ a starting point for vanishing bitterness and horror with terrible violence, leading to ultimate heartbreak.” It is harder to hear that view represented in this recording. Turning to another of the essential Mahler 9s – Horenstein live at the Proms with the LSO – we find an outlook more in keeping with Cooke’s vision of the symphony. Yes, Horenstein’s conception is bleaker, its sarcasm more trenchant, its climaxes more apocalyptic but, as always with this most chronically neglected of all the great conductors, those moments are always kept within proportion. Even at its most frenzied, Horenstein always keeps a tight, implacable grip of what is going on.
I mention Horenstein to demonstrate that there are many ways to the well with this work. As a consequence, I tend to prefer those recordings that unveil a whole world vision and not just a psychodrama.
Almost everybody gets the second movement ländler right and so it is here. The third, the Burleske often proves tricker to navigate. The issue is how to keep things in reserve sufficiently to make the end of movement sound like the descent into hell that it needs to be if the finale is to have its full effect. Horenstein makes the first part of movement a grim, sarcastic tramp where Vänskä plays up the links to the opening movement of third symphony. He is surprisingly Mendelssohnian and there is a real lightness to the textures abetted by featherlight playing from the excellent Minnesota Orchestra. For once, the idyllic trio isn’t the eye of a particularly nasty storm. Indeed, Vänskä works up quite a head of passion where others strive after a fragile serenity.
The question is: is he capable of the nastiness necessary for the end of the movement to hit its mark? The answer is almost. It is very exciting and brilliant but I found I missed the last ounce of darkness and bitterness to really convince me. I am always glad to hear new ways of playing familiar music and I didn’t ever think I’d hear this movement of all movements as a brilliant, exuberant scherzo. It certainly fits into the overall conception of the symphony as less histrionic and more classical. To reverse what I said earlier this work needs to present a world vision and whilst broader than just a psychodrama, it needs to include that psychodrama within it.
As I got to know this account better, the comparison that kept coming to my mind was Kubelik’s studio Mahler cycle for DG not just on account of the relatively quick tempi. There is a similar gentleness and emphasis on traditional virtues rather than point making. Like Kubelik’s, Vänskä’s Mahler is never under characterised but it isn’t particularly neurotic.
This is exemplified by a noble, lyric take on the finale. There is little sense of a Bernstein wringing every last drop of existential angst from each note. This is a version of this movement that positively glows. What I enjoyed was its sense of majesty rather than its despair. This is much more Mahler the unrivalled conductor of both Wagner and Mozart as much as the Mahler who influenced Schoenberg and Berg. If you want this movement to leave you spent after it puts you through the psychological and emotional mangle then this will not be the version for you!
The version of this symphony I keep coming back to after all these years of listening to it is the one Bruno Walter set down with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra right at the end of his life – heretically I have never much cared for the famous mono VPO version for all the unique circumstances of its creation. Walter – another great interpreter of Wagner and Mozart – somehow managed to square the circle of classicism and modernism, above all in this finale which in his hands is devastating precisely because of its traditional musical virtues. As for Vänskä, if ultimately I do want to be shattered by the climax of this final movement, the playing of its last pages is done with a rare and otherworldly tenderness.
If, like me, you have harboured doubts about Rattle’s Berlin 9 but, unlike me, you have felt the need to keep those doubts to yourself, then this may be a version to hear. Vänskä lacks the calm, almost Buddhist wisdom of Walter in his Columbia Symphony recording or the dogged, flinty endurance of Horenstein but at the end of listening to this recording I had a sense of having experienced this remarkable score in its fullness, not just its drama. That alone makes this worth listening to.
David McDade
Previous review: David Phipps (April 2023)
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