Rondo, Guido Fischer, 25.10.2025
"In the first movement alone, you might feel like you're in paradise in view of the luxury class of the sound and recording technology. ... And the way the musicians alone develop the woes and aches of the third movement from the fabric of the score, taking the tempo 'solemn and measured, without dragging' to heart in the most ideal way, is one of the many strokes of luck in recent Mahler discography."
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Gramophone, Edward Seckerson, November 2025
"I do believe this is one of the best - perhaps even the best - account of Mahler's precocious First Symphony that I've heard on disc since the celebrated Bernstein/Concertgebouw version (DG, 3/89). Paavo Järvi and his Zurich orchestra really do make it feel and sound brand new. Its daring colourations are relished, its youthful audacity writ large. Everything is ripe and vivid ... the playing is really marvellous throughout. ... Put simply this account rekindles much of the excitement that I for one experienced in hearing the piece for the first time. Heartily recommended."
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Crescendo, Pierre Jean Tribot, 13.11.2025
"Le fini instrumental est de haute volée et les pupitres, qui adhèrent complètement à la vision du chef, font bloc pour imposer cette lecture qui décape le matériau comme jamais."
"The instrumental execution is of high quality, and the musicians, who fully adhere to the conductor's vision, form a unit to impose this interpretation that unprecedentedly reworks the material."
Overall rating: 10
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Music and theatre, Reinmar Wagner, 15.11.2025
"They already received rave reviews for the Fifth Symphony. Now we have the first, and it confirms some basic features of Järvi's Mahler signature. Even the natural atmospheres of the opening are played in a sparklingly clean manner, delicately sounded out. ... Not only in the dance rhythms, but also in other respects, much here seems really cheerful, is told freshly, with esprit, but not as an existential life experience, but as an exciting story with dramatic twists and turns, but always with the certainty that it will turn out well in the end."
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