Mahler: Symphony No 8 album review – Vänskä’s interpretation feels still a work in progress

Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra began their Mahler symphony cycle for BIS in 2017 with the Fifth Symphony, and it’s now nearing completion; only the Third remains to be released. This penultimate disc of the majestic Eighth has extra significance in its own right, for it’s based upon the performance that Vänskä conducted in Minnesota in 2022, as his final concert after 19 years as the Minnesota’s music director.

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Yet the unevenness that has characterised some earlier instalments of the cycle is in evidence here: the 300-plus performers involved are captured vividly enough by the recording, but there is something rather brash about the results. In the first part of the symphony especially, Vänskä’s approach sometimes seems a little superficial, too. The Faust setting of part two is more convincing, and there are some fine contributions from the seven soloists. But it’s hard to escape the feeling overall that this interpretation is still a work in progress, and that some aspects of this symphony are left unexplored.