Jansons can usually be relied upon to present a sound musical case for anything he turns his hand to. He rarely disappoints in matters of balance, order or textural lucidity. However, Mahler performances are born and bred in their characterization, and this sober, controlled reading of the Second falls well short in its ability to unsettle and to astound, to draw one into the unfolding drama beyond the notes. Jansons delivers the shocking cello and bass declamations at the outset with military precision. But there you have it: they don't shock, they don't immediately bring one to the edge of one's seat in anticipation. When oboes and cor anglais fall into the processional there is precious little tension between the notes, and the Walkure-like tremolandos fail to ignite with each hairpin crescendo. The bass line is strikingly omnipresent but hardly instills menace. Then again, when Mahler's nostalgic second subject transports us far, far away from the home-key of C minor (E major), the ppp marking coupled with his instruction to 'hold back' should ensure a dream-like transformation in colour, mood and atmosphere. Jansons doesn't even begin to secure the rapt ppp, let alone any real sense of wonder as we steal tentatively into higher regions. Later in the movement, as Mahler hurls us unceremoniously back to the opening, with tam-tams, this time offsetting the cello and bass protestations, there follows one of the score's most sinister apparitions with lower strings once more setting off on the grisly processional. Jansons again gives us little or nothing of the subtext; and where, I ask, is the horror of that brutal chord sequence at the climax of the development? Compare Rattle (EMI—a Gramophone Record of the Year), bearing down upon each cruel dissonance.
Essentially, then, it's not enough that all the musical elements are in place and that the surface is, as ever with Jansons' immaculate. He is if nothing else a thoroughly sensitive musician. But even his elegantly nuanced second movement (fluently turned with no frills in the way of flavoursome rubato) sounds curiously sanitized alongside the likes of Bernstein (DG), Tennstedt (EMI—nla) or other more experienced, 'authenticated' Mahlerians. The scherzo, too, is inappropriately light on its feet: a good tempo, but reticent in terms of accenting and nowhere near russet enough in its colouring. I'd like, for instance, to hear a fatter sound from the close-harmony trumpets in the trio, beautifully though Jansons relaxes into it. In the ''Urlicht'' Jansons becalms the scene with magical trumpets at the start (so intense is the pianissimo that they sound almost off-stage). Julia Hamari sings tenderly with affecting portamento in the opening phrases, just momentarily losing pitch once or twice and not quite making the penultimate E flat on the word ''leben''.
The finale can never entirely fail—and Jansons is no exception, pulling off one or two quite stunning moments. From beautifully distanced off-stage effects (perhaps Chandos could even have afforded a shade more remoteness) and striking definition of the bass lines (the grunting contra- bassoon is especially vivid) he builds his Dies irae to a fine gothic blaze: horns, trumpets and trilling woodwinds are all splendid. It's a pity then that the two seismic percussion upheavals are so tame as to engender little or no panic in the ensuing march. A ringing first trumpet, and later pulsating horns urge it on, though, and all the thematic lines are clear and resilient. Jansons is again all too shy of (indeed virtually ignores) Mahler's molto ritardando at the momentous point of release, but he does make amends in the subsequent collision between orchestra and advancing off-stage band—the clinching bars of that climax are very exciting indeed, and again you can hear precisely what is happening in amongst the hysterical welter of brass and percussion. For the rest, Jansons makes his way serenely through to our long-awaited glimpse of the hereafter, Felicity Lott lending lustre: the first choral entry can never be quiet enough, and his isn't; nor are the closing pages truly heaven-storming. It takes a Bernstein or a Tennstedt to know that in the chorus's ultimate crescendo Mahler means them to reach beyond what is realistically possible.
Jansons, then, inspires respect rather than awe in this most visionary of scores and consequently his place is not among the current frontrunners. Rattle probably constitutes the safest all-round recommendation at this time (and the most spectacular engineering), though I still have one or two minor reservations about a reading that had yet, I think, to settle fully. Benstein should also be heard, as should Klemperer (a single-disc EMI Studio release).'