Mahler from the hills of Wyoming might sound like an unlikely proposition, yet the collaboration between the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra and Sir Donald Runnicles proves not only convincing but genuinely distinguished. Their account of Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor lasting 72’57” demonstrates that thoughtful musicianship and a clear interpretative vision can bring fresh insight to one of the most frequently recorded works in the symphonic repertoire.

Each summer the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming gathers together more than 250 musicians drawn from dozens of orchestras and institutions across North America and Europe. Runnicles has built a distinguished career over more than four decades in both the opera house and the concert hall, particularly renowned for his interpretations of Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire. Under Runnicles’s long-standing musical leadership, the festival orchestra performs during five weeks of the eight-week season set against the dramatic landscape of Grand Teton National Park. This recording suggests that the ensemble is far more than a seasonal gathering of players: Runnicles has clearly forged a cohesive orchestra capable of responding sensitively to his interpretative ideas.

Mahler’s Fifth – often described as a journey “from darkness to light” or “from death to life” – has received countless fine performances on disc, so any new entrant into the catalogue must offer something distinctive. Runnicles’s interpretation stands apart through its refusal to court excess. From the measured trumpet fanfare that opens the work, immaculately played by Thomas Hooten, it becomes clear that this will not be a performance of overwrought emotional hysteria. Instead, the conductor establishes a stern, purposeful ‘Trauermarsch’, spacious but never slack, and carefully grounded in Mahler’s underlying rhythmic pulse.

Runnicles’s approach throughout is unfussy and deliberately unsensational. Mahler’s music can easily be cheapened when driven too hard – turned into a parade of loud climaxes and emotional exhibitionism. Runnicles is the antithesis of that tendency. Tempos tend toward the moderate side, and the emotional trajectory is allowed to develop naturally. Some listeners may feel the first movement’s climactic eruptions lack a certain tempestuous edge, or that the second movement marked ‘Stürmisch bewegt’ occasionally feels deliberate rather than volatile. Yet others will feel that the conductor’s refusal to rush or exaggerate ultimately strengthens the work’s symphonic logic.

At the centre of the symphony stands the vast Scherzo, and here Runnicles proves especially persuasive. Mahler famously warned that the movement was “the very devil of a movement,” adding that conductors tend to take it too fast and make nonsense of it. Runnicles avoids that trap and the ländler dances with genuine charm and rhythmic buoyancy. The prominent horn writing is superbly realised by the orchestra’s principal horn Gail Williams, whose commanding tone lends the movement both brilliance and character and the conductor finds both lilt and suavity while maintaining tension. When the music erupts in its sudden flare-ups, they feel earned rather than merely spectacular.

The famous ‘Adagietto’, scored for strings and harp alone, steals in almost imperceptibly. Runnicles shapes it as a flowing lyrical interlude rather than a vehicle for indulgent sentimentality. At roughly ten minutes it sits perfectly within the broader architecture of the performance, maintaining poise and warmth without ever lapsing into languor.

The finale, one of the most intricate movements in Mahler’s output, is a tour de force of contrapuntal writing. Runnicles unfolds its complexities with admirable clarity, allowing the interweaving lines to emerge without undue haste. Mahler develops several themes from the movement’s opening fragments while recalling material from earlier movements, and Runnicles shapes these relationships with impressive lucidity. The result is an exuberant Rondo-Finale whose triumphant chorale anticipated earlier in the symphony crowns the work in hard- won exultation.

As I have already indicated, the playing throughout is of a very high standard, remarkable for an ensemble that assembles only during the summer season. Woodwinds are incisive, brass confident percussion brilliant, and the orchestra responds faultlessly to the conductor’s direction. Under Runnicles the 96 musicians clearly have been moulded into a cohesive force capable of realising his carefully considered vision of the symphony.

The sound quality on this hybrid 5.1 multi-channel SACD is excellent, as we have come to expect from Reference Recordings. The recording, made at Walk Festival Hall during the Grand Teton Music Festival concerts of July 26 and 27, 2024, beautifully captures both the performances and the acoustic of the hall. In the liner notes, producer and recording engineer Vic Muenzer provides interesting technical observations on the 192kHz/24-bit production. As always with Reference Recordings, the presentation of the disc is exemplary, including detailed and informative notes on the work by Scott Foglesong, together with photographs from the concerts and a list of the orchestral complement.

In this Mahler Fifth, Runnicles confirms the depth of his understanding of the composer’s style. His reading may not satisfy those who prefer their Mahler hyperactive and emotionally demonstrative, but for listeners who value structural clarity, scrupulous attention to dynamics, and a sense that every passage belongs organically within the whole, this performance offers something special.

Copyright © 2026 Graham Williams and HRAudio.net

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