|
EDITORIAL
The Passion for Mahler, the SF Symphony Adds the Fourth
March 2, 2004
|
By Robert Commanday
Evidently there is still desire, perhaps even craving for Mahler, and room on the shelves. The differences between the MTT-SFS performances and the available earlier recordings? A specialist with a lot of time on his hands will have to answer that one. What a hearing of the brand new MTT-SFS Mahler Fourth establishes is that it is musically very impressive and that the sound values are superior, certainly surpassing older recordings in fidelity, and the balance is splendid. This was recorded in Davies Hall using the Sony Direct Stream Digital technology, with the SACD ("Super Audio CD") hybrid format, that is playable in conventional CD as well as SACD stereo and surround formats. It is not a Sony release however but is produced by the Symphony itself (as most orchestras are now doing) on its own SFS Media label, and was underwritten significantly by Gordon Getty. Mahler's Fourth, the most appealing and emotionally balanced of his symphonies (the tearing anguish and Mahlerdrama would begin with the next one), finds the rich quality of its personality in this performance. Here are all the reasons the Fourth is the usual entré, and first work of Mahler's to love, the magnet. As with MTT's performance of the Third, the detail is meticulous and polished. He and his players took exquisite pains to observe Mahler's indicators, the expression marks or verbal instructions found in almost every measure. The performance captures the moments of tenderness, charm, sentiment, irony that suddenly emerge from what had seemed utter innocence and often then, dissolve suddenly into blithe and carefree humor. There are some instances of indulgence, as when Tilson Thomas holds up on a phrase, teasing a little too long before releasing the expected down beat — as at the beginning and just before the end of the first movement. Otherwise, he holds the schwärmerei to what is normal in the Mahlerian manner. The sublime Adagio is the telling heart of the matter and in it Tilson Thomas finds the distance — contemplation recalled — that speaks of maturity, the perspective and humanity found in the Bruno Walter and Krips.realizations. Just before the end there comes a startling explosion of exuberance, but it's like a sudden culminating vision of all that is good, beautiful and true emerging out of all the musing and the dreaming lyricism. Then just as suddenly, all subsides, as if into a fond memory. The final movement, centering on the idyllic innocence of the song, Das himmlische Leben, captures the charm and beguiling mood Mahler was never again to find so convincingly. The soprano soloist is Laura Claycomb whose feeling for it is gentle and genuine. For the seraphic, childhood evoking character of this music, I prefer a soprano with a purer, Elly Ameling-like tone, a milder, quieter vibrato, but that said, Claycomb was fine. The orchestra's playing is beautiful; this is a grand performance. I don't know how these independent labels work out their distribution but the Symphony announces the recording's availability in "all retail outlets, including the San Francisco Symphony Store that crowds the west end of the Davies Hall Lobby and the SFS's on-line retail store, ShopSFSymphony where the list price is given as $18.95. On quite another note, there was something like a timewarp Friday, in experiencing the splendid concert of the Augustana Choir, starting its west coast tour in Berkeley's First Congregational Church. For perhaps seven decades, this Choir has been a major and proud institution representing Augustana College, a distinguished liberal arts college of some 2200 students in Rock Island, Illinois. There is probably not a comparable choral instrument on the west coast and that is because of tradition and origins. The sonority, the discipline, unity, utterly keen intonation of these 74 young collegians hark back to the equally dedicated Augustana Choirs conducted in the 1940s and 50s by a master, the late Henry Veld who set the standards. The repertory they sang Friday was different of course, modern. The style of their young, current conductor, John Hurty, is different too; he happens to be from Oakland, but was trained in the midwest, and is very sure and musical. There were other contrasts, but in character and skill, the "Augie" Choir of 2004 is certainly comparable to what I heard 50 years ago, probably better endowed vocally. And no doubt they're still facing off in a great rivalry with the St. Olaf Choir (of Minnesota). The Swedes and the Norwegians are still at it. The origins count heavily. In bearing and appearance, these college singers looked a lot like the ones I conducted in another part of Illinois 54 years ago. Sure enough, the program roster revealed that all but a few of them came from small cities and towns in Illinois where, I can believe that public school music education likely is at least as strong as it was in 1950. And as this is a college with a continuing tie to the church that founded it (now known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church), it is reasonable to assume that most of these students grew up singing in their church choirs and home parlors. The Scandinavian singing tradition rules. With everything sung a cappella, again hewing to the tradition, Hurty skillfully led the Augustana Choir in Kirke Mechem's "Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord" and Mendelssohn's "Jauchzet dem Herrn alle Welt," the singers standing not in sections according to voice parts, but alternating man-woman. The response was exact, sonority full, tone blended, each "section" as one voice, and the feeling strong. One could hear the reserve of power, for when in subsequent pieces, more was wanted, it came out full and easy, some sopranos soaring high with no strain or coarsening, basses all of a sudden, deeper and more full than customarily heard from a college choir. There was just one major shortcoming, of which more in a moment, The choir sang an arrangement of the Adagio from Barber's Op. 11 String Quartet to the words of the Agnus Dei, keeping that extended web of long-reaching lines true, building the famous climax. These singers know how to breathe, deeply, supporting and carrying the tone. They are efficient, not moving, standing poised `and erect, professional. Then came an interesting, short, direct and tight Libera me from the Requiem, by Lajos Bárdos, and a new work, harmonic in style, with close, unresolved dissonances, Eric Whitacre's "Sleep" originally composed to Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods." Because permission to use that poem was refused by Frost's heirs, a new poem by Charles Silvestri, of moody imageries, had been "run" under Whitacre's music, and worked effectively. An emerging problem was fully exposed in "‘Suite' de Lorca," four Lorca poems by the Finnish contemporary Einojuhani Rautavaara, evocative and vivid. They might as well have been sung in Finnish as Spanish because the diction was so lax. This is the Choir's short suit. They sing on the vowels, giving little energy to the consonants. This not only impedes comprehension but dilutes the import of the words, the projection of meaning. Not a problem however for Biebl's Ave Maria made famous here by Chanticleer. It was handsomely sung by the Augustana Choir's male section. The women gave an extraordinary performance of a Bulgarian song, "Pilentze Pee" ("A Nightingale Sings") by Kyurkchiyski, in the hard-driven glass-shattering tone of that country's folk tradition. That vocalism is so outside of these students' vocal culture as to be a testament to their dedication in acquiring the technique. "Fengyang Song" from China, arranged by Chen Yi, Gustav Fröding's "Kung Liljekonvalye" and four novelty arrangements, "Alouette" plus three popular genre pieces from another time and culture than theirs, "John Saw Duh Number," "My Lord, What a Mornin'," and "Elijah Rock" completed the program, along with the college's traditional hymn, "Children of the Heavenly Father." Lovely. Great that the tradition and institution is still there, shaping these students with music-inspired dedication, singing for life, and living in song. (Robert P. Commanday, the senior editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, 1965-93, and before that a conductor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.) ©2004 Robert Commanday, all rights reserved |