Classical CDs Weekly: Bruckner, Mahler, Roger Woodward

Bruckner: Symphony no 7 BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Donald Runnicles (Hyperion)

Few symphonies start so promisingly. Against tremolando strings, horn and cello sing out a glorious, upwardly mobile melody. The first three movements of Bruckner’s Seventh approach perfection, though I sometimes end up listening to the Adagio and Scherzo in reverse order, having heard Colin Davis perform them that way in a 1980s Prom. The symphony can feel less lop-sided as a result. But it’s hard not to conclude that the Finale is a bit of a damp squib, coming after 50 minutes of pure sublimity. Donald Runnicles’s proven Wagnerian credentials serve this performance handsomely, and he achieves wonders with an underrated BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra who hadn’t played the piece for decades. This is world class playing - the first movement’s coda, radiant and rapturous, is stunning. Brass are forceful but never overwhelming. Strings never sound stretched. The quartet of Wagner tubas are magnificent in the extended Adagio, especially in the mournful, funereal closing minutes.

Bruckner’s naïve, rustic Scherzo bounces and swaggers, and the Trio has oodles of delectable charm – this is music which it’s impossible not to love. After which we reach the Finale. Bruckner’s recycling of earlier material provides some unity, but the endless stops and starts are so, so frustrating to listen to. It’s also insufficiently tuneful, over-stuffed with stodgy sequential writing and too many relentless dotted rhythms. It's as if you’re locked in a cathedral with a drunken organist who’s running out of material. I’ve yet to encounter a performance of this movement which has left me feeling satisfied, but this is my problem and probably isn’t yours. Hyperion’s sound and documentation are flawless.

Mahler: Symphony no 1 Wiener Symphoniker/Fabio Luisi (Solo Musica)

This most precocious of first symphonies can easily lose its power to surprise. Happily, Fabio Luisi’s Vienna Symphony Orchestra performance is pretty special. Unusually for an orchestral own-label release, it’s not a recording of a live performance, taped instead under studio conditions in May 2012. There’s refreshingly little of the routine here – the strangeness, the quirkiness of Mahler’s vision are gently highlighted, the whole aided by gorgeously idiomatic orchestral playing full of refreshingly old-world sonorities. There’s a fruity warmth to the spooky clarinet fanfares heard against the opening string harmonics. Trumpets too are alert and perky, though their offstage calls don’t sound distant enough. Mahler’s lolloping main theme trots out in sublimely laid back fashion, and Luisi’s players manage to project the necessary eerie stillness at the movement’s heart.

As one would expect, the Vienna SO pitch the second movement’s gallumphing dance neatly. Luisi is also impressive in the subsequent "Frère Jacques" parody, though the klezmer band music which follows needs more Bernstein-style vulgarity. Mahler’s extended finale can easily descend into a series of melodramatic episodes. It does hang together well here – the schmaltzy violin theme sings in ripe, Tchaikovskian fashion. And the triumphant close isn’t overblown or bombastic; how refreshing to be able to hear the strings scurrying under the brass peroration. There are flashier, noisier, more flamboyant Mahler 1s around. But this one is excellent, and won’t give you tinnitus.