From the moment that Mahler hurls down that massive E flat major chord on the organ, one thing must be clear: that we join him in the full flush of inspiration, that the great choral invocation which follows is even now an unstoppable force. Allegro impetuoso is his emphatic marking: but you would never guess as much listening to Robert Shaw. From first to last this is sober, civilized, reverential music-making, closer to sacred Verdi than cosmic Mahler. Where, I ask, are the opening pages, indeed the whole of this first part, without the euphoria? As tenors and basses forge on overdriving strings at fig. 3, the likes of Tennstedt (EMI) and Bernstein (Sony and DG) are already airborne; Shaw remains resolutely earthbound. I hear only the accomplished chorus master, never the seasoned Mahlerian. After the soloists (an eloquent team) have sweetly graced the second theme, the insidious little orchestral interlude provides the first of many tell-tale passages. Mahler's nervy, tentative, yet impatient march is built almost entirely on spiky pizzicatos: but Shaw is too shy by half of the accents which animate them; the dynamic contrasts, too, are apologetically narrow.
The recording doesn't exactly help in this respect: though impressively full and accommodating, the colours and contours are rather on the soft side—a plummy, 'covered' quality: we don't, for instance, catch the reedy timbre of four bassoons in their crucial solo at 11'13'' (2 bars after fig. 36); indeed inner parts in general are not nearly as well focused as they might be. And that proves crucial in Mahler's strenuous development where rhythm and the massive counterpoint of choral lines is all. The boys' choir carries a big responsibility here but Shaw's genteel, well-behaved lads would cut through nothing. The momentous recapitulation goes for very little—hardly surprising given the low level of energy and impetus generated in the development (both Tennstedt and Bernstein have something to pull back from: I do so miss their grandly rhetorical—albeit unmarked—ritardandos at this point). But full marks to the choral singing per se (majestic and highly disciplined) and to the two sopranos (Deborah Voigt and Margaret Jane Wray) who bravely illuminate things above the stave.
It's much the same story in Part 2. In Mahler's long and atmospheric Prelude, passions do not ignite with the wild fortissimo pizzicato (cellos and basses) in the bar before fig. 8. The cragginess of these uncharted terrains simply eludes Shaw; the level of intensity is way down on the Mahlerian Richter scale with leaping string figurations and those inimitably strident woodwinds sounding far too well groomed, too comfortable. Nor does Shaw capitalize on the variations in pace and texture for Mahler's scherzando passages: there must be an appreciable sense of this music coming from and belonging to an altogether different world. It's that child's view of heaven again (all cherubic sweetness and light) but Shaw fails to shake off his earthly inhibitions. Things do suddenly rarify with the arrival of Doctor Marianus, thanks to tenor Michael Sylvester who makes so much of a daunting task. He's a new name to me, but I foresee a big future for him in Heldentenor country. The burnished top of the voice is exceptional; no one in my experience has managed the impossibly high tessitura quite so impressively. The rapture in his delivery as he invokes the divine presence of the Mater Gloriosa is indeed memorable. Shaw and his orchestra duly respond as she floats serenely into view; and Heidi Grant has a lovely high B flat up her sleeve. The other women all have their moments, too, the aforementioned sopranos in particular—although Margaret Jane Wray is clearly at the limit of her present possibilities (a little short of phrase) in the Poenitentium's last and most testing solo.
It almost goes without saying that the opening of the Chorus Mysticus is too loud, but far more mystifying to me is Shaw's curiously eccentric reading of the approach to the great concerted choral entry at ''Alles Vergangliche'' (that thrilling a capella, buttressed only by organ). Between this entry and the enormous crescendo of the preceeding bar Mahler inserts a double-barline suggesting some sort of cut-off or luftpause. But then he ties the sopranos and altos of his second chorus over that double-barline with a sustained crescendo on the first syllable of the word ''Alles''. Most conductors either ignore the tie-over and make a clean break (Bernstein) or ignore the double-barline and honour the tie-over (Tennstedt). Shaw pedantically takes Mahler at his word and stretches a point on both counts, leaving his sopranos and altos suspended for a moment or two in glorious isolation—or limbo, depending on your viewpoint. To me it sounds weak and indecisive and surely not the effect that Mahler had in mind. The Tennstedt option seems to me the most rational and musical. His, to be sure, is the version to have at present (of ongoing cycles, the Abbado and Sinopoli are still to come). Alas, Bernstein's Eighth is not well represented on disc: his Sony CBS version is marred by indifferent sound, the recent DG alternative is a flawed and compromising (though often exciting) live account from Salzburg. But even that has a dynamism and fervour that Shaw barely hints at.'