Recording of the Week,
Simon Rattle conducts Mahler's Seventh Symphony
I always feel that when it comes to the Seventh, the first movement can be a tricky one to judge in terms of making the tempo relationships seem natural and unforced, and as far as I'm concerned Rattle gets all of them just right. The central section of this movement, with its collection of gentle trumpet fanfares, is nicely atmospheric and also neatly highlights what for me is one of the most successful aspects of this performance, namely the consistently characterful woodwind playing. Mahler asks multiple times for these evocative trumpet calls to be rudely interrupted by a mockingly impertinent clarinet, and it's little touches like this to which Rattle pays great attention.
This is further evident in the central Scherzo: marked "shadowy", it's full of grotesque, nightmarish gestures, from the ghoulish glissandos of the clarinets and violins, to the plaintive wails of the oboes and ligneous grunts and wheezes from bassoons. This movement also shows off the level of detail that the recording engineers were able to capture, not least the vivid presence of the violin and viola solos, whilst the diabolically whirling triplets and spiky, brittle pizzicatos from the strings all come across with great clarity. Speaking of pizzicatos, I knew it was coming but I still jumped at the skeletal thwack of the "snap" pizzicato from cellos and basses (whereby the string is plucked so hard that it hits the wood of the instrument - more commonly referred to as a "Bartók pizzicato" after that composer's extensive use of the technique, even though Mahler used it here first!).
Any caveats? Well, in contrast to my comment regarding the performance highlighting many of the small facets of instrumentation in the Scherzo, in the subsequent second Nachtmusik Rattle prefers to integrate the mandolin and guitar into a more blended overall texture rather than opting to emphasise them as a feature of Mahler's orchestration. They are still audible, of course, but given their brief contributions (they only appear in this movement), I did wonder whether they could have had the spotlight thrown upon them to an increased extent.
Similarly, there were occasional moments where the brass were placed curiously conservatively in the balance, most notably ten bars from the end where I would have hoped for the horns' final jubilant exhortation to ring out more (to be fair this is compensated for by the enthusiastically euphoric peals from bells and cowbells!). I could also perhaps have done with an enhanced sense of macabre gruesomeness from the tuba in the Scherzo, although that's my own instrument so maybe I'm just being greedy...
The opening tenor horn solo is pleasingly portentous and full-bodied (complying with Mahler's instruction for "grosser Ton!"), even if some of its ensuing entries are not quite as prominent as I might have expected, especially given another of Mahler's requests that it should be "hervortretend" (i.e. coming to the fore), but I have no such reservations about the bass trombone solo later in the first movement, which resonates with a lofty, commanding sonority.
All of these very minor quibbles aside, the undoubted stars of the show are the magnificent trumpet section, who are stunning and faultless throughout, from their aforementioned soft playing in the first movement to the enormous input they provide towards the thrill and excitement of the fifth movement, all three of them fearlessly leaping up to their top Cs one after another with pinpoint precision.
It's fascinating to observe how a conductor's reading of a piece can grow and mature through the decades, and certainly relative to his earlier accounts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Berliner Philharmoniker, I would say this is easily the most impressive of Rattle's thoughts on this enigmatic symphony. It's also interesting to compare it with Bernard Haitink's recording with the same orchestra, particularly in terms of tempo where Rattle shaves six minutes off Haitink's time (his final movement clocks in at over two minutes faster). While it may be argued that this urgency causes both Nachtmusik movements to err on the swift side, I feel that this driven, purposeful approach enables Rattle to elucidate and make sense of the symphony's long structures, culminating in a satisfying conclusion.
Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Sir Simon Rattle
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Sir Simon Rattle
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Sir Simon Rattle
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV