The orchestra may come from Amsterdam, but the Royal Concertgebouw's performance of Mahler's First Symphony on this recording evokes Vienna more acutely than any of the other ten recordings of the work with which I am familiar.
Indeed, the brilliance of Mariss Jansons' reading is its fusion of the light touch of the pastiche-First Viennese School style with the world-weariness of fin-de-siècle Viennese society and the emerging artistic avant-garde of the Second Viennese School. All of these qualities are inherent in the composition, but rare are the performances that capture them all quite as successfully as Jansons does here.
The performance is a journey through darkness and light. In the massive sixteen-minute first movement, entitled 'Langsam, schleppend (Wie ein Naturlaut) - Im Anfang sehr gemächlich', Jansons presents with the utmost clarity the dichotomy between the deep ethereal sounds of the lower strings in the opening and the high, deliberately trivial music of the main exposition. In this respect, it connects most successfully with the composer's engagement with the idea of nature in music, not just from the perspective of the pastoral but embracing themes of life and death as well.
In the famous second movement, Jansons exploits the RCO's virtuosity to the full, allowing him dramatic changes of tempi that make what can be a polite, conventional dance movement into a spree of wit and vivacity. The final flourish of the Ländler theme, considerably speeded up, is hugely thrilling in consequence; the unusually secure tone of the trumpets and horns is also brilliant.
By way of contrast, the heavy funeral march of the third movement is chilling. The Frère Jacques theme emerges in the double bass and is gradually taken up by the other strings, but the wind interjections are what induce such melancholy. Slightly discordant statements of simple, noble melodies in the brass and strings seem to evoke the soul of old Vienna lamenting its headlong descent into decadence, and in Jansons' genuinely dignified reading the performance is almost upsettingly poignant.
Yet it's the finale that really excites. The opening truly is decadent, a hugely discordant mass of sounds (that Richard Strauss must surely have borne in mind when writing the final scene of Salome, despite the antipathy between the two composers). The RCO unleashes all its energy on the stirring exposition, with throbbing timpani, strings playing angular chromatic tremolos and brass fanfares spelling doom. Yet Mahler, still the romantic, provides respite from the tension with a plaintive violin melody, and eventually ends his symphonic journey with a rousing major key coda.
Jansons and the RCO save the biggest punch until the end and leave us elated. The audience that was present at this live recording says it all: bravo!