Mahler: Symphony No. 1, "Titan." Yoel Levi, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Telarc DSD CD-80545.(Review)

Mahler: Symphony No. 1, "Titan." Yoel Levi, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Telarc DSD CD-80545.

I love Mahler, but I'm not convinced there is as much to him as is generally ascribed. He has been the darling of the stereo age with his up-and-down surges of passion and eccentricity, but I think maybe the initial reviews of his Symphony No. I were right when they called it "... an accumulation of extravagances." That doesn't make it any the less enjoyable, however, because what we all need from time to time is a little extravagance.

Anyway, Levi's Mahler First is typical of much of the conductor's work: smooth, polished, refined, nonchalant, and a little detached. It's also not a little sluggish, marmoreal, perhaps even lethargic. And by including the Blumine Andante as a second of five movements he doesn't help matters. Mahler dropped the Andante shortly after the symphony's premiere, reinstated it briefly, and then dropped it again in his final revision. It is certainly a sweet piece of music, but it doesn't really fit in with the other slow movement, the next-to-last one with its quirky parody of "Frere Jacques" in the funeral march; nor does it fit in with the turbulent opening of the finale. If, as Bruno Walter said, the First Symphony is ...