CD: Mahler: Symphony No 6

These days you're quite likely to find Mahler's Sixth Symphony released on a single disc, with performances often taking significantly less than 80 minutes. But Bernard Haitink's recording, taken from performances in the Chicago Symphony's home hall last October, is contained on two, with the second of them devoted to the half-hour-long finale. The reason for the lavishness is simple - Haitink's performance takes more than than 90 minutes over the work, with the finale, perhaps Mahler's greatest single symphonic movement, weighing in at just over 34. There are few conductors alive today with a more distinguished Mahler pedigree than Haitink, and it would be wonderful to report that this measured approach finally justifies itself here. But one waits in vain for the performance to get into top gear and for the structural groundwork so meticulously laid in the opening movement to be built into something truly overwhelming. The orchestral playing is as fine as you'd expect from Chicago, but the lack of bite in the scherzo and an almost total loss of momentum in the andante are hard to understand. Though the finale is as lucidly presented as anyone could want, crucially, it lacks a whole tragic dimension.