GRAMOPHONE Review: Mahler Symphony No. 7 – Minnesota Orchestra/Vänskä

I might have predicted that this of all the Mahler symphonies would chime with Osmo Vänskä’s very particularly gifts as a conductor. The brilliance and clarity of this performance (and recording – BIS technical prowess much in evidence), to say nothing of Vänskä’s way with rhythm and articulation, is in itself the source of much pleasure – and it almost goes without saying that he relishes to the full Mahler’s flabbergasting gifts as an orchestral colourist in the inner movements: the two intoxicating nachtmusiks and scherzo. The rarely used subtitle ‘Song of the Night’ seems especially appropriate here despite the intensity of the illumination.

But it is the extraordinary first movement that totally drew me in and won me over. The weary tread of it, the ungainly and yet strangely poetic tenor tuba surveying what might easily be mistaken for a Sibelian landscape – the tone of it is right from the start. It’s quite expansive (though not Klemperer expansive!) in even the galloping allegro sections (a kind of slow motion) but it has great reach and Vänskä achieves a transformative stillness in the glorious central elaboration of the second subject. The pagan processional at the close (tambourines and glockenspiel brilliantly to the fore, trombones and horns in thrilling alternation) is terrifically exciting.

In those heady inner movements Vänskä really appreciates how the dance elements offset the spookiness (the things that slither and go bump in the night – vividly chronicled) and convey a kind of innocence. Like the gorgeously sentimental fourth movement Nachtmusik with its guitar and mandolin tinklings.

And those dance elements, of course, reach their apotheosis in the oft-maligned finale where Vänkä’s Minnesota Orchestra are boisterous and muscular. It’s funny how the rather clumsy return of the first movement’s allegro theme nonetheless brings with it an exciting sense of coming home. The coda with its skyrocketing may be thought by some to be vulgar but it never fails to thrill.

There is, of course, super-hot competition in this piece (Bernstein and both the Fischers) but Vänskä’s beautifully engineered version more than merits attention.