Search - Gustav Mahler, Pavel Urbanek, Prague Festival Orchestra :: Mahler: Symphony No. 1 "Titan"

A super-bargain which captures the true Mahlerian spirit

Ralph Moore | Bishop's Stortford, UK | 05/22/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I know that there are starrier, slighty better played, even more characterful versions of this ground-breaking symphony out there - particularly those by Bernstein with the Concertgebouw and Kubelik on Audite - but this was the recording whereby I got to know Mahler's First Symphony and given that it is still available for pennies, I can thoroughly recommend it as being wholly infused with the true Mahlerian spirit. The opening is magical: sunlight filters through dense foliage to diffuse the mist and a primeval mystery breathes through the forest air; the horns sound magically in the distance "from faery lands forlorn" and then suddenly Urbanek relaxes into bucolic contentment. He never puts a foot wrong in the pacing; the orchestra play with typical Czech brio, vigour and sensitivity and seem wholly at home in Mahler's sound-world. I realise that my affection for this disc is coloured by my sentimental attachment to it - but I still think it's good in its own right and should not be sniffed at just because it's by second-rank artists on a super-bargain label."