The Vienna Philharmonic never has played Mahler particularly well, or with evident enthusiasm. It needs to be forced. Bernstein could get the orchestra to do it in the middle symphonies, and judging from the videos he sometimes did it by making the players angry. There’s no question that an orchestra of this caliber can deliver the notes, but playing them as Mahler’s score clearly directs, with their full dynamic range, accent, and timbral character, is another story entirely. It’s really quite remarkable how many bad Mahler recordings Vienna has made, particularly of the early symphonies and, surprisingly, No. 9. Their best “Resurrection” remains the Mehta/Decca, and it’s all because of Mehta. This is one of the duds, a flat, tensionless non-happening that makes a mockery of the composer’s apocalyptic vision.
Neither the orchestra nor Boulez has any reputation for displaying a shred of musical humor, and they don’t here. So let’s start with the scherzo: has any clarinet section ever shown less character than in those passages where Mahler specifically says “with humor”? I doubt it. Then there’s the trio: rushed and devoid of romantic languor, and it all culminates in a “cry of despair” that sounds more like the pain inflicted by a minor paper cut. Boulez similarly turns the theoretically harrowing first movement into elevator music. The cellos and basses at the opening lack any feeling of menace. Climaxes are relentlessly underplayed. Every so often the orchestra reaches a fortissimo only to pull back immediately, as at the moment of recapitulation, which has none of the necessary crushing power. The spooky coda sounds rushed, and as usual in Vienna, the orchestra refuses to provide the necessary clarity of detail in pianissimo, and so the low harps, tam-tams, suspended cymbals, and all those typically Mahlerian funeral march accoutrements go for naught.
The andante, like the scherzo, is swift and comparatively featureless, with very pretty playing of positively glacial emotional reserve. This is the antithesis of the warm, heart-on-sleeve “Viennese” sound the music demands and for which this orchestra is supposedly renowned. But then, you’d be amazed how often people judge it by name and reputation rather than by what the musicians audibly deliver. Michelle DeYoung offers a rich, earthy “Urlicht”, perhaps a bit heavy of voice but nicely sung. The finale begins swiftly, with less than imposing brass in its instrumental first half, weak cymbals, and no progressive buildup in tension whatsoever to the (supposedly) magical entry of the chorus.
Here the performance simply dies, and you have to wonder whether Boulez believes in this music at all. The tempos drag, and the rich luminosity that Mahler builds into the interludes between choral stanzas (largely though his imaginative use of a huge brass contingent in pianissimo) is nowhere in evidence. It sounds as though you are hearing this performance from the lobby of the concert hall. The closing chorus, far from offering the heaven-storming culmination that Mahler intended, lacks weight and impact. I’m not actually a big fan of a huge organ sound here. The music shouldn’t come across as “churchy”, but there ought to be some extra presence and sheer volume, particularly in the bass registers. Nope. Nor do the final pages, rushed and matter-of-fact, close the symphony with conviction. DG omits the symphony’s title from the CD booklet cover, with good reason. Hearing this, you’d never guess that the music is about anything momentous at all.
Part of the problem undoubtedly stems from sonics that make the orchestra sound small and screechy, with plenty of brightness from the piccolo but insufficient counterbalancing body from the strings and brass. In the final analysis, though, the fault lies with Boulez, who really has no excuse for turning in a performance this unsympathetic to the opportunities provided by the symphony’s broad emotional canvas. If he can’t do it, or doesn’t want to, then he shouldn’t. It’s not as if the world needs another recording of this symphony, and making one with an orchestra that has shown such historical hostility toward, and incomprehension of, Mahler’s idiom was clearly a risk best avoided.
