Early in his international career, Valery Gergiev professed himself a Mahler enthusiast and conducted the symphonies with great engagement whenever he got the opportunity.
For the past three years, as a Putin collaborator, he has been an international pariah and a Russian emperor, in charge of the country’s two greatest music institutions.
So how’s his Mahler doing? On the evidence of this fifth symphony last week, sneaked somehow onto Youtube, not terribly well.
The opening movement is robotic and (to my ears) triumphalist, the scherzo perfunctory, the adagietto unfeeling. The Mariinsky orchestra is is pretty good form, though, and the audience is much younger than those in the West.
The symphony starts at 1:31. Judge for yourselves.
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