If Gretchen's tender personification of The Eternal Feminine ultimately triumphs over the forces of evil, then I suppose one shouldn't complain when Sir Simon Rattle follows suit and takes her side. For although there is plenty to admire elsewhere in this fine performance, ''Gretchen'' is unquestionably the star act, a compassionate, thoughtful and comely maiden (slender string portamentos help suggest a curvaceous profile), infinitely perceptive and rather more knowing than the paragon of youthful innocence that the composer (not to mention Goethe himself) had in mind.
The solo string octet that Liszt employs in support of Gretchen's more intimate confessions is balanced fairly close to hand, while Rattle draws some ravishing sounds from the BPO (at 4'13'', for example) underlining each expressive modulation with his usual mastery. Both here and elsewhere telling detail is legion: the seraphic flutes just after fig. M (at 9'10''), for example, really are dolcissimo e tranquillo molto, whereas the dialogue between cellos and violins that sings beneath them (shades of Tristan und Isolde) is beautifully sustained. Most transitions are handled with a notable facility (the journey into Faust's meno mosso at 6'07'' on track 1 is particularly haunting), and the 'take up' between instruments (such as that which occurs between oboe and second violins at 0'29'' in the same movement) is exemplary.
Faust himself sounds at his most convincing when lost in reverie, although elsewhere his anguish emerges as more excitable than profound. Just occasionally I felt that the more ferocious aspects of the score were being tamed, possibly to counter any potential charges of vulgarity. Yet Liszt's penchant for such significant dynamic markings as furioso or molto rinforzando (a sudden crescendo made on a short phrase) suggests rather more in the way of animal aggression than Rattle achieves here—although by the time we reach 6'33'' into ''Mephistopheles'', the flames are leaping high and the strings in particular are at full cry. It is however, in this particular movement that I would have welcomed a more pronounced staccato from the winds (their opening chatter sounds a mite under-characterized); and if the closing Andante mistoso makes a comparatively blatant entrance Peter Seiffert and the men of the Prague Philharmonic Chorus compensate with some ardent singing: the crowning fff climax is truly overwhelming.
Throughout this performance, phrase dovetailing, inflexion (some of it unmarked), rubato and balancing between instrumental choirs make for a distinctive encounter with Liszt's orchestral masterpiece, while the Berlin soloists 'play out' to winning effect—the brass, most especially. Tempos are generally swifter than those favoured by rival conductors (Bernstein in Boston is slower by ten minutes), and yet nothing sounds rushed. Minor reservations notwithstanding (most of which are inevitable in a score that makes such exacting and varied demands on its interpreters) Rattle's Faust Symphony can confidently hold its own in any company, and David Murray's team has, in recording the BPO live at the Philharmonie, achieved a warm dynamic and nicely blended spread of sound. This is certainly an auspicious recorded debut for a relationship that has already earned many critical accolades, not least for a memorable broadcast of Suk's Asrael Symphony. Let's hope that that too will reach us before long.'