Some may find this an odd choice of project to launch the Vienna Symphony Orchestra’s own label. The tenure of chief conductor Fabio Luisi is drawing to a close, a relationship which may or may not have been strained by the frequency with which he has been called upon to stand in for the ailing James Levine at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. And one is bound to ask whether we really need another Mahler First, even in a rendition as musically inflected and decently recorded as this. Surprisingly perhaps it was made in the studio, the clarity of inner voices and the bold projection of percussion seemingly prioritised over any attempt to evoke the glow of the ensemble’s live music-making in the fabled Musikverein. An audiophile vinyl edition is promised. There perhaps the accompanying annotations can be printed in a more appropriately sized type. The present booklet design is elegant and the illustrations welcome but I had to sit under a bright light to make any sense of the text.

Luisi is no stranger to Mahler’s idiom, having set down several key works for Querstand during his association with the Leipzig MDR Symphony Orchestra; there is also a concert performance of this very piece with the Dresden Staatskapelle on a Medici Arts DVD. It would be unrealistic to expect the kind of pioneering interpretative thrust associated with Rafael Kubelík or Leonard Bernstein but how to compete otherwise? Luisi is not among those who warm to the inclusion of the abandoned ‘Blumine’. His first movement, while fresh and genial, is a little short on mystery, less squeaky-clean than the recent offering from Iván Fischer’s timbrally distinctive Budapest Festival Orchestra (Channel Classics, 9/12). Subjective inflections loom larger in the Scherzo and Trio, the latter encouraged to take its time overmuch. We have modern scholarship to thank for the fact that Luisi, like several recent exponents, launches the slow movement with massed double basses rather than that vulnerable-sounding solo instrument of old. This invariably feels ‘wrong’ to experienced hands. Ditto the conductor’s breathless treatment of the eruptive village band music later on. Much more convincing is his super-articulate launch of the finale, the whole movement splendidly vivid, if less freighted with emotional significance and tonal weight than the classic rivals listed below. The sound is a little shallow. Partisans will note that a Sixth is imminent from the same source.