Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä adds an important stone to his integral Mahler at BIS with an impressive Ninth.
It is above all with his two chiselled integrals of the Sibelius symphonies (in Lahti, then in Minnesota) that the 70-year-old conductor made himself known to the musical world. But his ongoing Mahler integral with his former Minneapolis orchestra (he conducted it from 2003 to 2022) is positioning the conductor, who incidentally conducted the Orchester symphonique de Montréal last September, as the one of the great Mahlerians of our time.
Her Fourthvoted hands down the best version among six others (including none less than Bernstein/Concertgebouw, Haitink and Abbado/Vienne) in a blind listening at the Tribune of record reviews by France Musique last fall, had greatly impressed us with its polyphonic clarity and the art of atmosphere distilled by the performer and the orchestra. Only the Third and the Eighth remain to be published.
In the meantime, his Ninth de Mahler gives us plenty to eat and drink. The precise, not too reverberant acoustics of the Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis allow us to appreciate all the instrumental qualities — the strings and the horns in particular — of the former orchestra of Ormandy, Mitropoulos and Dorati.
What differentiates Vänskä from its main “competitors” are its rather lively slow movements. If it can be defended with the first, marked “andante comodo” (going and comfortable), we remain more skeptical for the last, called “molto adagio” (very slow).
The two central movements are more “classic” in interpretation, energetic but still with a beautiful orchestral fullness. The Finnish chef animates the complex Mahler fresco with skill and enthusiasm.
Classical music
Mahler 9
Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä
BIS