(++++) LIVE AND LARGE-SCALE

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique. Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Sir Colin Davis. BR Klassik. $12.99.

Mahler: Symphony No. 3. Nathalie Stutzmann, alto; Tölzer Knabenchor, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Mariss Jansons. BR Klassik. $23.99 (2 CDs).

Elgar: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. The Hallé conducted by Sir Mark Elder. Hallé. $32.99 (2 CDs).

     There is something exhilarating about live performances that makes them often more involving (and often more impressive) than studio recordings – even though occasional missteps in the concert hall do occur. However, when absolutely top-notch orchestras are being led by their music directors rather than guest conductors, even the biggest and most-complex works can really shine when performed for a live audience. And recordings that capture those readings can accordingly become some of the best ones available for the repertoire. The Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks is one of the world’s best ensembles, and its live performances with two of its music directors showcase not only the music itself but also the intensity-cum-smoothness of collaboration between the players and the podium. Sir Colin Davis was the orchestra’s chief conductor from 1983 to 1992, and while he recorded Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique with other orchestras, the 1987 Berlin performance now available on BR Klassik is exceptional – even with a caveat or two. There is warmth and beauty throughout the first movement, the strings exceptional in massed sound and the trumpet touches very well-handled: they are just pointed enough for an appropriate level of emphasis. The pacing is excellent, too – in contrast with the second movement, where things go a bit awry. Here Davis starts the dance at quite a slow pace, robbing it of any sense of celebratory verve and bringing in a touch of gloom to the overall proceedings a bit too soon. Later in the movement, he speeds things up significantly to provide contrast, but there is perhaps too much of that. However, in the third movement, matters are on a more even keel. Here Davis extracts just the right pastoral touches, with especially fine woodwinds. The pacing is good, so this longest of the symphony’s five movements does not become disjointed, as it does in some performances. The rolling thunder of timpani toward the end is perfectly paced, the volume expertly modulated, with the result that the natural and sylvan are transformed into something just slightly sinister – a state of affairs on which the fourth movement quickly expands. The first part of this Marche au supplice is paced as a cortège, but with exclamatory brass intrusions that look ahead to the finale. The bassoon touches are particularly well-done, and when the recollection of the idée fixe of the beloved appears, the sound looks ahead to what happens when Richard Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel meets his fate. And as the finale of Symphonie Fantastique proceeds, the dissonances are very pronounced, and Davis manages to make the off-kilter dance tune sound genuinely spooky. The reverberation of the bells is stronger than in most performances, and this proves highly effective, especially when the brass enters. All the movement’s special effects are well done: the glissandi, the pizzicati, the snarls from the brass, the sudden drops to near-silence, the pounding of the timpani. The result is a rousing and deeply affecting conclusion to a symphony that still looms large in the repertoire, retaining its considerable power nearly two centuries after Berlioz composed it – especially when orchestra and conductor are so closely attuned to each other as they are here.

     The same superb orchestra successfully tackles a considerably larger symphonic opus with equal or even greater success on a new BR Klassik release of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 led by Mariss Jansons, who was chief conductor from 2003 to 2019. It is almost impossible to overstate the grandeur of this symphony, which is operatic in length (this performance runs 97 minutes) and covers every possible emotional state that Mahler could imagine and incorporate – this is the work that most thoroughly fulfills his stated objective of having a symphony contain the whole world. In fact, the uplift of the work’s finale lifts Mahler’s Third beyond the world, into heavenly realms – and it is the last movement toward which all the others strive, as is clear both in retrospect and while experiencing the massive symphony in the concert hall. Jansons took the audience on an amazingly moving philosophical and emotional journey in this 2010 performance. The horns are very impressive at the start of the first movement – no surprise with this orchestra – and there is remarkable precision within each section. The march emerges gradually and to very striking effect, but it is the chamber-music-like elements that are truly outstanding in sound, balance and blending. The gradual addition of instruments as the music swells to full-orchestra passages is beautifully handled. By the time the horns return with the opening statement, about two-thirds of the way through this huge movement, there is already a feeling of building to a climax – but then the music retraces its steps while adding new elements, before building to the actual climactic material. Jansons assembles the material with confidence throughout, controlling the monumental movement's many elements sure-handedly.

     Conductors can be so overwhelmed by the sheer scale and scope of Mahler’s Third that they neglect the extent to which the symphony requires moderate pacing after the first movement. Under Jansons, however, the gentle quiet of the second movement and its initial leisurely pace (nicht eilen: do not rush) create a very strong contrast with the first movement; sweetness dominates here. The solo violin provides clear points of emphasis, and there is great delicacy in the scoring – a greater sense of meandering than in the first movement, which is three times the length of the second. Mahler marks the third movement comodo, “comfortable,” and again the pacing must be as careful as Jansons makes it – the composer also says to play the music ohne hast. But there is a perkiness to the themes here and a brightness to the orchestration (through the use of winds and brass) of which Jansons takes full advantage. There is a kind of glossiness in the scoring – and the legato solo trumpet halfway through is especially impressive. The whole movement seems to drift until the very end, when it suddenly achieves full-orchestra coherence and emphasis. The fourth movement continues the carefully controlled speed with which this expansive work unfolds: Mahler marks it sehr langsam, “very slowly,” and durchaus (“absolutely”) ppp. The extreme quiet of the opening is highly effective, with Nathalie Stutzmann’s vocal entry gentle but still surprising and emotionally strong. And again here the solo violin is aptly highlighted for its importance, notably at the words tief ist ihr weh (“deep is her woe”). The fifth, very short movement offers the only immediate launch of brightness in the symphony. But here the words counteract the tone, as in the lament that translates, "I have broken the 10 commandments." And the music, here with strings emphasized, constantly strives toward a happiness that proves elusive. It is left to the non-vocal finale – a real surprise after two movements using voices – to consummate the symphony. Jansons fully understands what Mahler asks for here: Langsam. Ruhevoll. That is, “Slow. Calm.” The sense of warmth and soul-pervading peace comes through clearly in this reading. The music does not so much progress as unfold, building on the final word of the fifth movement: Seligkeit (“salvation” and also “bliss”). This finale seems to meander but actually builds gradually, the music flowing in waves and the waves getting larger as the movement progresses. Recollections of the first movement emerge two-thirds of the way through in a totally different context and with a totally different meaning, but the connection is both clear and germane. The last few minutes reinterpret the first movement in a wholly new manner, turning it as it were inside-out to show that Nature and Love are in fact two aspects of the same thing. The swelling to full-orchestral splendor of the last few minutes is all the more overwhelming because the instrumental totality has been heard so rarely in the previous hour and a half. D major has never been so resplendent, and Jansons allows the movement its full scope and completely involving expressiveness. The result is a deeply meaningful performance on every level.

     Sir Mark Elder’s quarter-century tenure with The Hallé, 1999-2024, is about the length of Davis’ and Jansons’ in Berlin combined. And Elgar was a major symphonic figure for Elder’s orchestra throughout – and, indeed, for many years prior. Elgar’s two symphonies were both written while Mahler was alive (completed in 1908 and early 1911; Mahler died in May) and are both large-scale but scarcely as expansive as Mahler’s, each running about an hour. Elgar’s tonal language also differs significantly from Mahler’s, although late-Romantic elements are apparent in both composers’ symphonies. A new recording on The Hallé’s own label showcases the expansiveness of both Elgar symphonies and the skill with which Elder was able to present them to concert-hall audiences. Elder grasps the similarities and differences between the two woks clearly, understanding the importance to Elgar of the designation nobilmente, which appears in the first movement of each symphony. Those first movements are the longest in each case, but the slow movements (placed third in Symphony No. 1 and second in Symphony No. 2) are also quite weighty. Elgar said his Symphony No. 1 in A-flat reflected “a wide experience of human life,” and if the totality is not quite as wide as in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, it is nevertheless impressive in scope. Elgar, who was and is known for his marches, includes marchlike elements and episodes several times in this symphony, but his focus is more on the march’s rhythm than on its martial elements, as becomes clear at the work’s very end, when the march rhythm is used to enhance a recurring motto that has appeared in various guises throughout. Symphony No. 2 also shares some underlying elements with Mahler’s Third, with Elgar saying that his work deals with “the passionate pilgrimage of a soul” – although, again, without the extraordinary length and intensity of the fourth through sixth movements of Mahler’s symphony. Elgar’s Second is distinguished by a Larghetto slow movement that movingly recounts the composer’s grief at the death of a friend and, at least by reflection (and by audience assumption), sadness at the passing in 1910 of King Edward VII. A march is prominent in this movement, unsurprisingly, but what is surprising is a finale marked Moderato e maestoso and attempting, to some extent like Mahler’s conclusion of his Symphony No. 3, to raise the musical experience to a higher level. This is done in Elgar’s own way, however, including the recurrence of the word nobilmente as the marking of the secondary main theme of the movement – and with a subdued and thoughtful ending that is as different as possible from the brilliant D major with which Mahler’s concluding movement eventually resounds. Elgar’s Second is in E-flat, the key of Beethoven’s “Eroica,” but here the heroic recedes before the pensive and thought-provoking – characteristics that Elder brings forth with great clarity and to very fine effect in a performance that, like that of Elgar’s First, showcases this conductor’s and this orchestra’s expertise with this composer’s music, presenting it to concert-hall audiences with great subtlety and complete understanding.