Mahler No. 2, Cleveland Orchestra

Here's a review I wrote a few weeks ago about the Cleveland Orchestra performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 at Carnegie Hall...commentary regarding the Plain Dealer's treatment of Welser-Most to follow:

There’s no better place to hear Mahler’s immense and magisterial “Resurrection” Symphony than Carnegie Hall.

It was at Carnegie that the Symphony No. 2, named “Resurrection” because of its musically explicit movement from funereal grief into transcendent radiance, had its American premiere in 1908, with Mahler on the podium.

The hall’s creamy white walls and gilded ornament must vibrate in a special way whenever the thunderous music of 300-some orchestral players and choral voices is heard there.

It was heard again Thursday night, with the Cleveland Orchestra ending a three-night residency led by music director Franz Welser-Most, and the vibe was indeed special. Many of Mahler’s deepest ideas about music – the instrumental and sensual intensity, the admixture of deeply conflicted musical ideas, the contrasts of volume and color – are sampled in the Second, and the Clevelanders conveyed them in full glory.

Despite the orchestra’s gargantuan size, the score calls for innumerable solo and ensemble moments, where musicians such as concertmaster William Preucil and contra-bassoonist Jonathan Sherwin shined. The “Resurrrection” generates a “tornado of sound,” as a Carnegie Hall employee described it this week after rehearsals, but it also calls for some almost impossibly quiet music – moments of barely audible string playing, for example. Carnegie’s remarkable acoustics allow every texture of those gossamer-thin sounds to be heard, assuming the audience can control its coughing, feet-shuffling and program-dropping. (They could, last night.)

Welser-Most, who’s in his sixth season with the orchestra and will add the top job at the Vienna State Opera to his resume in 2010, conducted with more attention to dynamics and massing of sounds than to tempos and phrasing. In the opening movement, he seemed gunshy about unleashing the orchestra’s full power, reserving it for the truly explosive moments later. Tempos were generally kept in check, as were expressive glissandos, and it seemed at times as if some emotion was lost in the process. But Welser-Most clearly has a strong interpretation in mind, one that builds consistently through the movements and leads to a truly splendid sound in the finale.

Mahler began work on what became the first movement, which often is described as a funeral march but is more subtle and anxiety-ridden than that, in the late 1880s. The second and third movements, both gentler post-mortem reflections on a fallen hero’s life, according to some versions of the composer’s notes, were added in 1893; the third also has one of the most hair-raising key changes ever written – it feels as if the whole tonal fabric of the piece has been torn apart. The fourth movement is a short, compelling piece for contralto and greatly reduced orchestral forces.

Mahler struggled to complete the massive work after that, however, and it wasn’t until he attended the funeral of a close friend and heard a church hymn about resurrection that he had the key to finish the score.

Contralto Bernarda Fink sang with great poignance and conviction in the “Urlicht” (“Primeval Light”) lyrics that comprise the fourth movement and tell of man’s eternal search for meaning. Her singing was gorgeously phrased and with a passionate yearning that her entire body seemed to convey.

Fink was joined by soprano Malin Hartelius in the final movement, with text about resurrection and redemption that Mahler adapted and expanded. Hartelius’ German diction and phrasing was much less impressive than Fink’s and, judging from where I was sitting on the main floor, her sound was badly overwhelmed by the orchestra and chorus. The Westminster Symphonic Choir, based at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., was well-prepared by director Joe Miller.

Other musicians deserving special applause were harpist Trina Struble, the flute section led by Joshua Smith, and the horns and percussionists who comprised the off-stage band that was audible through the barely open stage door, one of Mahler’s more inspired artistic ideas – one of amazingly many.