There are aspects of Ozawa's Fourth that I enjoyed greatly. He would seem to be temperamentally better suited to this particular piece, to what Deryck Cooke described as its "neo-rococo" stylizations, than to any other Mahler that I've heard him conduct. Even so, by no stretch of the imagination could Ozawa be described as a natural Mahlerian. He is all too inclined to tidy up the awkwardnesses, temper the extremes, and generally somehow rationalize the music's inherent neuroses (that was especially true recently of his disappointing Second). Take the first movement of this Fourth; there is poise, charm and grace from the very outset, the lower strings tripping lightly over their staccato semi-quavers just after Tempo 1; the phrasing generally is elegant and unfussy, the rubato well-mannered. But what Ozawa fails to catch (and for this you must look to Bernstein / DG—would that he had recorded the piece as written, with a soprano, and not a treble or Maazel / CBS) is the playful, quixotic nature of this movement. One needs to point-up more the sudden and mischievous shifts in mood and movement, the excitable bursts of energy those characteristically abrupt Mahlerian 'commas'. Similarly, a higher profile is called for in the wry country dance of the second movement. Ozawa's rustic hobgoblins are rather too lovable; there must be more of 'Death, the friendly fiddler' about the movement with spikier and more acidic woodwinds for one thing.

The slow movement is very lovely, and here Ozawa has caught the equivocal nature of the music, the underlying darkness. Off-setting the warmth and luminosity of those rapt string lines is a profound sense of sadness and disquiet with baleful sounds from low-register horns exceptionally telling at each abortive climax. The climax is certainly thrilling, Ozawa throwing open 'Heaven's Gate' with a truly breath-catching luft-pause and ever-assertive Boston trumpets providing the blinding light (the recording is first rate, warm and naturally ambient with an impressive bass extension). And I have nothing but admiration for Ozawa's serene way with those hearteasing final pages: the Boston strings at their very best.