Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Symphony No 3 in D minor
Nathalie Stutzmann (contralto)
Tölzer Knabenchor
Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/Mariss Jansons
rec. live 8-10 December 2010, Philharmonie im Gasteig, Munich
German text
BR Klassik 900194 [2 CDs: 98]

Here is yet more from BR Klassik’s seemingly inexhaustible back catalogue. This recording has not been issued individually on general release but was previously available to subscribers and was part of the complete Jansons Mahler box set (review). Its appearance now was presumably prompted by the continuing appetite for new performances by Mariss Jansons who died over four years ago.

There is certainly no shortage of classic versions, from the likes of Horenstein, Abbado, Bernstein, and Tennstedt, to which I could add personal favourite recordings by Wit and Sinopoli, but there is enough about this recording of one of the longest symphonies in the repertoire to attract the interest of any seasoned Mahlerian.

The very opening is by itself sufficient to mesmerise the listener: spectacularly spacious sound and some electric playing from the horns and timpani: grand, monitory and ominous. Such is the expertise of modern orchestras that we now take for granted virtually flawless live performances which would once have been the product of several takes and/or splicing, just as we are now almost blasé about rich, deep digital sound being the norm. But what about inspiration? Well, not a note here sounds lazy or routine and my attention is held throughout. Jansons pays careful attention to the gradation of dynamics and climaxes, such that he does not ask the orchestra to go all-out at the first highpoint nearly halfway through. He saves that for the true peroration, as there is a lot more mysterious and meditative music to be played before this enormous first movement of 34 minutes draws to its rousing close.

The bucolic idyll of the second movement is charmingly but very positively played, emphasising its folksy quality, with sharp, cleanly articulated rhythms except for the lazy, dragging waltz sections, to which Jansons freely applies rubato; the final soaring phrase from the lead violin is exquisitely poised.

The kinship between the third movement here and the ironic third movement of the Resurrection Symphony, Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt, is underlined by the deliberately tipsy, rollicking cadences and flatulent brass. The ideally distanced, off-stage post-horn solo, beautifully played, switches the mood to calm, wistful contemplation succeeded by the strange close, first enigmatic then riotous.

The pure, dark, disembodied sound of Nathalie Stutzmann’s contralto is the ideal vocal match to both the cryptic text of Nietsche’s Midnight Song and the instrumental soundworld of this work. Its eerily wailing oboe contrasts vividly with the swinging, fifth movement “bell song”, offering consolation; it is sweetly and strongly sung by the female and boys’ choirs.

The great Adagio finale begins discreetly and restrainedly; again, Jansons is sagely playing the long game over a span of 22:32 – somewhat tauter than the 25 and 26 minutes of Sinopoli and Abbado respectively, and more akin to Horenstein, Wit and Tennstedt. It never sounds hurried and consistently, but almost imperceptibly, increases the tension, building to a tremendous conclusion which, after a short silence, is rewarded with prolonged and vociferous applause from an audience which has remained gratifyingly silent throughout.

Ralph Moore

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