Perhaps it is just that I have still in the ears the autopsy of Mahler's Fifth performed by the pathologist Vaenska with his equipe from Minnesota, but I have enjoyed the latest Jansons's Fifth with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk (his third, the second with this Munich-based orchestra).
Here the details:
I Mov. 12.50
II Mov. 15.49
III Mov. 19.26
IV Mov. 8.52
V Mov. 16.33 (it is not long as it seems because the timing is comprehensive of the applause)
(recorded live in Munich on 10 & 11 March 2016)
Janons's rather controlled literalism at least does not suffocate the music, and anyway he takes his liberties, for example slowing down (sometimes a bit too much, like at rehearsal number 32 of the Finale) in order to emphasize certain passages (somebody will find this tendency a "mannerism").
The Funeral march is funereal without being the corpse dissected by Vaenska and the Trio is not a mild affair.
The second movement is taken more or less at the same tempo of Vaenska but it has character and the orchestra is not a bit faceless ("just the notes" style) like the Minnesota one. It shows that saying that the "stuermisch bewegt" is built into the work and needs any highlighting or underlining is nonsense. If the vertiginous moods swings had not needed underlining, Mahler would have just written "Allegro", like Beethoven did at the beginning of his Fifths Finale and as Mahler did at the beginning of the Allegro sonata of his Seventh-but he wrote Stuermisch Bewegt! And comparing Jansons and Vaenska shows that following Mahler's requests is important to bring out the character of the music.
Jansons's Scherzo is a bit slow. He takes the horn solo section like a moderate Laendler, and in this way there is little difference between it and the slow waltz that many consider the first Trio. Anyway the orchestra keeps playing with character, rhythms are sharply etched and the reprise of the Scherzo is just a reprise of the Scherzo, there is no mysterious/nonsensical change of tempo like in Vaenska.
The Adagietto is truly lovely. Like I said, the problem of the Vaenska's is not the slow tempo, the problem is that it is flat, I'd say catatonic. Jansons's Adagietto is not so fast as it seems, because he succeeds in phrasing it with some rubato: for example, rehearsal number 2 is full of Schwung and passion, but after that it relaxes again to make you enjoy the tender heart of the central section.
The Finale is perhaps a little bit slower than Vaenska, but it has the same transparency and the same clarity/sharpness of rhythms (like the Scherzo). In the end it wins over Vaenska in terms of human warmness and expression (there are statements of the refrain that seem done by the strings with heartfelt participation, while the woodwinds sing with much gusto the apparitions in various guises of the chorale). Alas, the coda is the usual pompous affair (sob! Again...), but at least it is powerful/not repressed.
I do not know why, but Jansons did not use the latest critical edition of the score (I heard some doublings that had been deleted by Mahler in his 1910/1911 revisions).
Generally speaking the live recording is nice, but woodwinds are rather prominent, trombones less so, and when I heard it in Vienna (two days after this Munich performances) the strings seemed more present (perhaps it was the acoustic of the Musikverein Saal). Bass instruments has a certain prominence (I like it), and lovers (like me) of tam tams sounding big, dark, profound, I'd say fat, will have much to enjoy in this Fifth.
Jansons's best Fifth remains his second one, with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, but this latest one is still enjoyable and not irritating as other late Mahler recordings of his in which he seems not caring very much about the proceedings.
Topic: Jansons did the Fifth right (or anyway better than Vaenska) (Read 2911 times)