As with an earlier Oslo coupling of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony and Joachim’s Overture Henry IV (11/00), the process of hearing the First Symphony wedded to Hamlet usefully highlights the difference between genius and accomplishment. Hamlet was the first of Joachim’s overtures and it makes effective play between – and here I paraphrase annotator Malcolm MacDonald – ‘brooding D minor’ and ‘soaring F major’. Cross-rhythms, tremolandos and harmonics help spice a creative recipe that is otherwise fairly conservative, though Mariss Jansons’ hugely spontaneous performance (intensified further by audible vocal interjections) is about as compelling as you’re likely to hear. For me, it’s rather a case of ‘once heard easily forgotten’ (I did try a second and third time), largely because the thematic material is, in comparison with Brahms, so unmemorable. But repertory scouts should certainly give the piece a hearing.
The Symphony performance works best in the third movement, especially near the opening where the strings sing an arched response to the woodwinds. The Andante sostenuto is again memorably shaped: note in particular how the clarinet leads in from the oboe at 2'54'', and how beautifully it is played. The Symphony’s opening is big, flexible and sonorous with pulsing basses, and the finale is vigorous without sounding excessively driven. It’s a fine, generally well-played performance, live both in spirit and circumstance (there’s a healthy bout of applause at the end) but I’d hesitate to recommend it above a host of more appropriately coupled rivals, many of which are at least as good, and some rather better. The sound quality is rich, resonant and just occasionally short on woodwind detail.
If you’ve been collecting the cycle – which is completed with the present release – then I doubt you’ll be disappointed. But if you want just one representative CD of Jansons’ Brahms, then I would suggest the generous (and musically refreshing) coupling of Symphonies Nos 2 and 3 (Simax) in preference to this, good though it is.
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