It’s been a while since I I heard the opening trumpet solo of Mahler Five, let alone what follows it. Such breaks are beneficial in order to return to a piece refreshed, keen to hear it, rather than sated. This start to Paavo Järvi and the Tonhalle’s Mahler Cycle for Alpha could not have gone better. It starts with a commanding trumpet introduction and the first full-orchestra fortissimo reports impressive impactful sound, vivid yet natural throughout, with percussion especially well-caught with no need to spotlight. The balances, including always-clear strings (whatever else is happening), are of course Järvi’s, and he has done a forensic examination of the score (try the significance afforded a pizzicato in the right-positioned second violins during the third movement, at 11:30, which also sports ripe horn solos) while leaving a living and breathing edifice that is shown in a new light – such as military-band associations in the first movement, a rapt and radiant (ten-minute) Adagietto, and a Finale that traces to triumph organically and thrillingly following Järvi’s absorbed, returned and persuasive flexibility across the whole that brings out the music’s volatility yet which successfully hangs together over (here) seventy minutes. Alpha Classics ALPHA1127. The First Symphony is recently released.
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich & Paavo Järvi record Mahler’s Fifth Symphony for Alpha Classics.
