Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Symphony No. 1 in D major (Titan)
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York/Bruno Walter
rec. 25 January 1954, New York
Reviewed as Ambient Stereo 24-bit FLAC download
Pristine Audio PASC 735 [49]

This was one of two studio mono recordings that Lee Denham recommended in his survey of Mahler’s First Symphony in 2022; now that Pristine has remastered it into Ambient Stereo I imagine that it is even worthier to stand alongside Walter’s 1961 recording with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, one of his top recommendations in the stereo studio section.

While I might not be able to emulate Lee’s degree of thoroughness – obsession? – with this work, and despite the fact that I love all Mahler’s symphonies, I would cite the First above all as the one which gives me the simplest, most direct and uncomplicated pleasure, in that it is the easiest to appreciate and the work I would use to introduce his oeuvre to any Mahler novice. As a result, although like most collectors I regularly clear out from shelves any recordings I consider to be substandard or surplus to my requirements, I find that I am currently left with nineteen recordings of it, none of which I would willingly jettison and any of which could serve as that introduction to the tyro. They are, physical CDs featuring Barbirolli, Bernstein X 2, Boult, Hengelbrock, Horenstein, Jansons, Joó, Jurowski, Kubelik, Levine, Maazel, Mehta, Nézet-Séguin, Solti, Tennstedt and Urbanek; in addition I also have access via downloads to Walter’s two recordings from 1954 and 1961; it is the former under review here. It is perhaps the luckiest on record and the most widely recorded of Mahler’s symphonies – Lee lists well over two hundred and its closest rival is probably No. 5 – hence the excellence of all those which remain in my comparatively modest collection, as I have winnowed out any which are less than superb. As the findings of Lee’s survey demonstrates, Walter has three major recordings that will always feature prominently in any recommendations; even his live, mono performance from 1939 with the NBC orchestra gets a top billing, giving Walter a triple crown – and this is in addition to half a dozen notable live performances of historical significance.

All of which somewhat pre-empts my attempt to assess this new release from Pristine except in terms of any sonic improvement or enhancement; artistically and aesthetically it is obviously first class. In his note, Andrew Rose suggests that now it has been given the standard Pristine XR Remaster makeover, this 1954 account might even prove to be superior to the later version, once the drop-off of sound quality in the third and final movements – which the original 1955 Gramophone review complained about – has been remedied and the mono sound has been transformed by “a subtle Ambient Stereo treatment that brings a sense of acoustic space around with orchestra, without attempting to create a fake stereo image.”

The first thing to say is that for all that Pristine has effected an admirable improvement, from the papery sound of the first, held A chord, this is still immediately identifiable as an old recording and could never be confused with one of modern digital provenance. As such, it cannot serve as a reference recording; we have far too many sonically superior options for that and its harshness is quite wearing on the ear, militating somewhat against the requisite magical, dreamy ambience summoned up by Mahler’s “deep forest” scoring. That is no reflection on Walter’s masterly pacing or affectionate shaping, and one can still hear subtly he phrases and ensures that balances between orchestral sections are ideal. The great climax towards the end at 10:23 with snarling trumpet fanfare and whooping horns is magnificently prepared and executed but the sound is still a bit cramped and compromised. As LD correctly observes, “if the whole thing lacks the honeyed warmth of Walter’s later studio recording from Los Angeles, it is compensated by a tautness of interpretation and this orchestra’s power-house brass section in blazing form throughout” – and I agree, except I would add the words “to some extent” before “compensated”. The Scherzo could not be more colourful or characterful – again, the brass is just riotous – and I love the affectionate swoon and lilt Walter applies to the Trio section. I also like the way he injects a note of menace into the ‘Bruder Martin’ funeral march in the outer sections of the third movement and ensures that the klezmer music has a raw, hysterical edge, yet makes the warm, central melody over strumming harps an antidote or contrast to that grotesquery. But of course it is in the screaming opening of the finale where he really lets fly and shocks the listener – and it here where the newly refreshed sound by Pristine’s pays greatest dividends, lending more spaciousness and impact to this frenzied, volatile music, interspersed by gentler backward glances to the themes of previous movements and the Lied, Ging heut’ Morgen übers Feld. Walter is again so good at making all these disparate elements cohere and that cohesion is sufficiently absorbing to allow the listener overlook any inadequacy in the recorded sound. The coda, in particular, is stupendously weighty and brilliant.

It has to be said that the later stereo studio recording still falls more gratefully on the ear, but missing there, perhaps, is the element of release heard in the earlier live performances, so this recording under review might be said to represent a kind of compromise between sacrificing wildness for better sound – or indeed, vice versa.

Ralph Moore