Mahler knew what he was about when he suppressed Part 1, “Waldmarchen”, of this early work, but our generation, ever knowing better than the composer, has unearthed this movement, lasting half-an-hour, and it is now included in most performances, as it is again here. Indifferent Mahler, it uses music more gainfully employed in the later movements. Those two make a succinct, highly original concept; with Part 1 restored, the work becomes diffuse.
That view may be underlined by Tilson Thomas’s slow, slightly laboured reading of “Waldmarchen”. Playing and recording are splendidly vivid but the pace is too slow for the good of this prentice music. Once we get to the charged drama of the two later movements, the work as Mahler wanted it to be heard, the conductor catches the excitement and horror of the nasty tale, though because we already know of the murder in Part 1, the allusions to the dark deed are somewhat diminished in impact. Chailly, on his superb version, places less emphasis on Part 1 so that the tremendous start to Part 2 is the more telling. Besides, excellent though the RCA recording may be, the Decca is even better, having more presence and therefore immediacy. The urgency of utterance of the Berlin Radio Symphony Chorus on Decca is also that much more vital than that of the well-trained but slightly anonymous San Francisco chorus.
With the soloists the tale is similar. Michelle DeYoung is a real discovery, yet another impressive mezzo to add to those already enhancing the current scene. She sings with Wagnerian tone and generous breadth of phrase, but, inevitably, Fassbaender for Chailly makes us shudder at the awfulness of the story through her more telling diction. By a small margin, Dunn is the more communicative soprano. Try the two female soloists in the phrase “Und weisst du’s nicht warum die Freud?” near the start of Part 3 in both versions and you’ll hear the superiority of Chailly’s pair. In the smaller, men’s roles, Schmidt on Decca is more idiomatic than Leiferkus, but RCA’s Moser is more sensitive than Hollweg.'