Mahler - Symphony No 7; Mozart - Symphony No 41 [CD]

If you have the (very cheap) set of Tennstedt doing the complete Mahler symphonies you might think that this present issue will be of little or no interest to you. WRONG. The 7 Symphony in the set gives you a sort of blueprint of the general shape of Tennstedt's conception of the symphony, but this live performance from 1980 Edinburgh Festival is three-dimensional, passionate and committed in an utterly spell-binding way. This is a document that reproduces the intensity of Tennstedt and the LPO working live and taking risks moment by moment. At about 82 minutes the performance puts the Allegro ordinario 5th movement Rondo onto a second disc (with the Mozart Jupiter Symphony from a Prom five years later: quite interesting but NOT really in issue when considering buying this set). Almost every phrase of the symphony's five movements is deeply thought-out, producing a climb from darkness to light that still has "uncomfortable" elements to it. The emotional world of this symphony is unforgettably revealed in this performance, and this is all the more fascinating because of the ambivalent nature of the emotions: the first movement is jaunty but the "moonlight" sections (at about 9.07 minutes) are breathtaking in their contemplation of something very big and awesome - and not a little sinister! This underlying "sinister" element is that of the Dionysian element in nature: the ecstasy that tears apart, destroys and remodels human life. Great Pan is not a domestic god and the romantic elements of the music are full of the awful fascination of the "otherness" of nature. I know of no other performance that exceeds this one in bringing this to the fore - except possibly, and only in parts, the long-deleted and extremely slow Klemperer.

It's all so satisfyingly done! The quality of the playing throughout shows the LPO on that night to have been a crack orchestra of virtuosos, responding to the unique and spellbinding vision of a great conductor at the height of his powers. The first movement moves through its different moods with great assurance and the contemplative section at 9.07 minutes is like no other I have heard. The vision opens onto hugely distant horizons here. The ending of the movement is tightly controlled with snare drum very tellingly recorded and the brass superbly "spooky".

The three inner movements keep up the momentum. Nachtmusik I despite having an overall slow timing, has wonderfully "sprung" march rhythms and alarmingly pungent woodwind writing. The aural spectrum is filled with the flutterings and calls of sinister night-time birds whilst the horns seem to represent the aspirations of the humans involved in the nocturnal scene. The Scherzo is wonderfully played, with all sorts of telling phrasing and an almost "voiced" quality to the themes that is hard to describe, is unique to this recording and which lives in the memory long after having been heard. This movement has the full range of the bizarre in Mahler, wonderfully picked out and displayed for the listener. Nachtmusik II is, again, quite slow, but is warm and full, the mandoline and guitar being recorded rather forwardly, thus giving the impression that one is listening to a serenade given outside the window of a loved one. This is really charming music, beautifully played.

The long Rondo-Finale is superbly paced and thought out. There is spiky fantasy underlying the celebrations at the end and indeed this fantastical element undermining the fun is an essential part of this symphony, brought into the clearest focus by Tennstedt. Or perhaps it would by more true to say that the bizarre and the joyful, the sinister and the happy co-exist in life and that Mahler's 7 Symphony is a celebration of all these aspects of living as well as being as much a piece of "nature music" as is the great 3 Symphony. Tennstedt's clear understanding of this is what underpins the changes of tempo, the phrasings and the orchestral balances that go to make this last movement a wonderfully fulfilling whole.

The audience throughout is very quiet (there are a very few extraneous noises on the left hand channel - I checked by listening to the discs on headphones at a high level) until the end, when they erupt into cheers and applause. All this is thoroughly deserved. I believe this to be one of the greatest Mahler 7 Symphonies available now: the recorded ADD sound is in good air-check stereo and at a reasonable level; but the interpretation and the quality of playing is second to none. Wonderful!