That sound you hear must be Leonard Bernstein rattling in his grave.

It was Bernstein, after all, who trained New York to regard Gustav Mahler as a hyper-passionate super-romantic omni-tragic genius. For better or worse, Bernstein bathed the composer’s sprawling rhetoric in sentimental goo, the expressive indulgences always grandiose and the sonic fabric always plush.

In its consecutive survey of Mahler’s symphonies, the Staatskapelle Berlin is offering counter-perspectives. Daniel Barenboim has been doing his imposing best to make Mahler tough and taut, borderline brutal. And on Friday, Pierre Boulez tried to turn the mammoth Symphony No 8 into something lean, clean and cool.

Boulez has long been noted (or derided) for his objectivity. An aesthetic iconoclast, he always was a thinking person’s conductor. Ignoring emotional excess in quest of analytical clarity, he refused to gild interpretive lilies. At 84, however, his focus may be blurring.

Confronting the spiritual bombast and theatrical convolutions of the “Symphony of a Thousand”, Boulez settled for a metronomic performance, a reading deficient in both affect and nuance. Tempos remained brisk and unvaried. Balances went askew. Melodic details got buried in textural muddles. The Staatskapelle often seemed left to its own devices.

The weaknesses proved doubly frustrating because the Berliners had assembled an extraordinarily lavish set of soloists. Christine Brewer (the Met’s Brünnhilde not-to-be) soared dramatically through the elegies of Magna Peccatrix. Adrianne Pieczonka sounded luminous in the lyrical contrasts of Una Poenitentium. Michelle DeYoung’s mezzo-soprano traced the long lines of Mulier Samaritana with poignant grace, opulently seconded by Jane Henschel as Maria Aegyptiaca. Stephen Gould confirmed rare Heldentenor promise as Doctor Marianus. Hanno Müller-Brachmann braved the baritonal rapture of Pater Ecstaticus nobly, and Robert Holl recited the prayers of Pater Profundus with sonorous gravitas. Hidden amid the choral masses, Sylvia Schwartz intoned the brief bliss of Mater Gloriosa exquisitely.

The Westminster Symphonic Choir and American Boychoir sang with angelic purity and majestic power, as needed. The followers, alas, proved more impressive than their leader. ★★★☆☆

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