Chailly restores grace and flow to ''Gretchen'' at a pace almost qualifying as an Andante (Liszt's marking). At a definite Adagio, and taking some four minutes longer in this second movement, are both Bernstein (DG) and Muti (EMI): in the delicately scored main theme (starting with oboe and solo viola) the former is loud and expressively laboured, and the latter drifts wanly. Incidentally, Chailly, like Muti, cuts the 12 bars near the end of this movement that Liszt added in 1880, 23 years after the first complete performance. Bernstein includes them, though he makes an 11-bar cut at the centre of the first movement (in the return of the opening lento).
It is in the outer movements that, compared to his rivals, some may find Chaillly wanting. There is a laudable concern for clarity and clean execution throughout, but are Faust's strivings sufficiently agitato ed appassionato in the first movement (strings at 12'43'', for example)? In the finale, nobody could or should imitate Bernstein's hollow sul ponticello slitherings from his Boston strings in ''Mephistopheles'', but Chailly's devil isn't really in with much of a chance. Muti's, in complete contrast, is an edge of the abyss struggle for Faust's soul, with all departments of his orchestra outreaching themselves (standard superlatives will not do for the acrobatics of Muti's Philadelphia strings). Chailly's Decca engineering enthralls; Muti's entralls and intimidates; and Bernstein's begins to show its age in a relatively limited dynamic range, with adjustment of levels therein not too discreetly handled.'