For reasons never quite clear to me, some Mahlerians tear their hair when confronted with Levine's performances. He is often a whipping-boy for the American critics, apparently, but no serious listener could deny the strength and integrity of his music-making. This is an impressive account of the Ninth Symphony, an interpretation which eschews self-pitying whining and stresses the courageous, positive elements of the symphony.
In particular there is one of the best performances and interpretations of the Rondo Burleske that I know. So often this movement fails to live up to the expectations aroused in the programme note. But here its savage irony and its bitter burlesque are expressed through the strict observance by conductor and orchestra of Mahler's accentuations. The trills have a cutting-edge, the pizzicato is taut, the muted brass rasps, the glissandos sneer. By contrast, therefore, the tender D major episode is all the more affecting in its lyrical restraint. Levine's tempo for the Adagio is not so slow as Karajan's (DG) but is passionately phrased. But the recording of this movement is in such close focus that the magic of the performance is reuined. It is too loud and too oppressive, with almost every intake of breath by the conductor audible.
In a recent review I have already made some comparison between the Haitink (Philips) and Karajan performances. On CD either is preferable to Levine on technical grounds alone. Karajan and Levine offer the symphony and nothing else, Haitink adds the Kindertotenlieder to make the Philips issue the best value for money. Where Karajan and DG score heavily is in the indexing—30 entry points, compared with nine on the Haitink and four on the Levine. At the risk of becoming a bore on the subject, I find it an abuse of the capabilities of CD as an aid to study not to provide a very full indexing system. If it can be done for operas it can be done for symphonies, as DG have shown in this case.'