This is a fine account of Mahler’s Second Symphony from Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra, led by their newly appointed Principal Conductor, Kahchun Wong. Taken from a live performance in January 2025, it reveals an ensemble in fine fettle and a conductor with a clear understanding of the score’s complex structure and emotional depths.

You sense Wong’s hand at the tiller from the opening bars. The first movement is given an incisive, taut reading – the strings are beautifully lyrical, the brass clean and tapping into the ominous mood.  There’s a nice sense of propulsion throughout, but what is often a refreshing directness can be a little faceless on occasion. The players, whose warm, full-bodied sound can be deeply stirring, are perhaps too noble and burnished here to capture the deep neuroticism of Mahler’s music, its cosmic gravity.

This sense of poise continues in the following movements. In fact, the orchestra seems to be most at home in the dance rhythms of the second movement, imbuing this music with a fitting pastoral loveliness. While even the most distinguished accounts of Mahler’s work tend to schmaltz here, Wong’s sense of forward momentum is most welcome, and there are some brilliant, bracing passages.

The final movement – perhaps the work’s trickiest balancing act – brings forth lucid textures and some exquisite orchestral details. The Halle strings in particular have a remarkable sense of cohesion here, while the winds have a sprightly, conversational quality. Wong also draws out the chamber-like transparency of Mahler’s writing, and there’s a serene grandness, even space, to much of the playing that that engineering captures beautifully. However, I miss the sharper, more acerbic qualities that Leonard Bernstein or Vladimir

Jurowski highlight in their readings. Wong’s account remains graceful, even when the music teeters on the edge of the grotesque. When the finale arrives, you do get a thrill, but you don’t get a sense of the truly reckless.

The vocal soloists give similarly polished accounts. Sarah Connolly is characteristically nuanced in her approach to the text, shaping each phrase with warmth and dignity, but the sound of her instrument is not shown off to best effect here. Soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha is an appealing vocal presence, but less able to get her hands around the text. The choir acquit themselves nicely, well balanced and singing with real conviction.

Technically, this is a very nicely produced recording. The sound engineers achieve an ideal balance between orchestra, chorus and brass. The live atmosphere is preserved without intrusive audience noise – in fact you only really hear them when they burst into applause at the end. Still, for all this recording’s virtues, this remains more of an expertly executed reading than a revelatory account. If you favour precision and beautifully proportioned playing, this might be the thing. It isn’t quite daring or characterful enough for my taste, but I find much to admire.

Listen on Apple Music

Composer: Mahler
Work: Symphony No. 2
Performers: Sarah Connolly ms, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha s, Hallé Choir, Hallé Youth Choir, Hallé Orchestra/Kahchun Wong
Label: Hallé CDHLD7568 (2CD)