This performance is dubbed “world premiere recording” on the grounds that it enshrines all Mahler’s original thoughts on the work. In brief the scholars behind the account maintain that if you play “Waldmarchen”, then you ought to return to the original version of the final two movements, all we used to know of this amazing product of the 19-year-old composer. That’s all very well in theory: in practice Mahler knew what he was doing when making his later revisions, his first thoughts sounding more diffuse in ways I haven’t really space to specify except to say that the division of solo roles in the first version is confusing, Mahler sensibly simplifying things in his revision.
Even putting my reservations on these textual matters aside, I find little here to challenge the hegemony of the Chailly, surely one of the classic readings on disc of the decade. Nagano’s Halle players cover themselves in glory under his almost demonic direction, but his hell-for-leather approach yields place in all three movements to Chailly’s superb pacing and precise attack: where he clarifies texture with very exact rhythm and balancing of the massive orchestration, Nagano goes for a more subjective and in the end exhausting approach.
But the most serious criticism of the new disc is the backward placing of chorus and soloists, and the poor diction on all sides. Chailly, with his fine, native-born, professional choir and mainly German soloists, scores on every count in this department. So, unless you must have the composer’s first thoughts, my advice is stick with Chailly and Decca’s unrivalled recording.'