Mahler: Symphony No. 1 - Sibelius: Valse triste (Gustav Mahler - Jean Sibelius)

Chronique

If this is the sort of broadcast the area around Katowice in Silesia in Poland gets of the standard repertoire on a regular basis, the listeners are receiving superlative technical quality from the state radio service. This January 2003 recording of a performance by Gabriel Chmura leading the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra of Katowice of Mahler's First Symphony coupled with Sibelius' Valse Triste has superb sound: full and round from top to bottom, with enormous immediacy and immense presence. The performances themselves are more problematic. While the playing is first-rate with warm winds, strong strings, blameless brass, a poised balance, a supple ensemble, and, except at occasionally raw climaxes, an exemplary blend, the conducting, although technically expert, is only occasionally inspired. Thus the pastoral opening movements of Mahler's First are wonderfully exuberant and enchantingly rustic, but the central funeral march lacks bite and the heroic finale loses its way after the second theme and doesn't find it again until the coda. Despite the orchestra's suave playing, Chmura's interpretation of Sibelius' Valse Triste is straight-off-the-rack late-Romantic morbidity. For a radio broadcast from Katowice, this is a terrific recording. For a disc distributed in the international market place, it can't compete with Abbado, Bertini, Boulez, Davis, de Waart, Dohnányi, Eschenbach, Haitink, Horenstein, Inbal, Kempe, Kubelík, Mitropoulos, Neumann, Segerstam, Sinopoli, Solti, Tennstedt, or Walter.
© TiVo