Tony writes:
>I think I may be the first to have reviewed Michael Tilson Thomas's new
>recording of Mahler's Sixth Symphony.
The recording, maybe. The "real thing," no - that was me, see below.
I listened to the recording (including the corrected second disk), and
while liked it well enough, the unique intensity of the live event was
edited out in the process, just as I was afraid it may happen -
Subject: A Sixth for Our Time
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 00:03:37 -0700
More than a mere coincidence, this was a spooky conjunction - and
therefore suspect. Years ago, when Michael Tilson Thomas planned his
Mahler cycle with the San Francisco Symphony, he scheduled four
public-performance recording sessions of the Sixth Symphony, beginning
on Sept. 12, 2001, yes, "the day after."
All Mahler, of course, is appropriate for emotional, dramatic
occasions, but the Sixth is perhaps the most uniformly and
consistently tragic. It was this almost too perfect scheduling twist
of fate that made me uneasy - how do you live up to its promise and
demand?
On Tuesday, with all Civic Center buildings closed, the Symphony
couldn't rehearse. On Wednesday, the performance went on as scheduled,
but I didn't attend. Reports say that MTT said a few words and the
audience sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the performance, which
was received with rave reviews.
By tonight's third performance, appropriately enough, there were no
special observations, only a note in the program: "The world of the
Mahler Sixth is violent and tragic, and though moments of transcendent
beauty unfold at its center, this symphony offers no simple answers.
No work of art can speak to this week's events but the Mahler Sixth
offers us a focus as we gather our thoughts and emotions. With this
music, we remember the victims of September 11, 2001."
I entered Davies Hall with high expectations and lingering doubts,
feeling protective about the orchestra facing the challenge, hoping
that nothing will go wrong because any one small thing can mar such an
occasion. Getting to the seat, my heart sank when I noticed a very
young child sitting directly in front of me. Fortunately, it turned
out to be Laura Baez, the six-year-old who attends concerts where her
father - Symphony clarinetist Luis Baez - plays, and she automatically
goes to sleep in 10 minutes. Still, it was a close shave. Nothing must
go wrong.
About one minute into the Allegro, I suspended all thinking and
automatically filtered out anything not connected with the music. This
was Mahler with the inevitability, the certainty, authenticity you
experience when Simon Rattle conducts the best orchestras in the
world. That good. Tempo, balance, colors, all the details, yes, but
something more: singing from the heart, albeit a broken one.
MTT's wonderful recent performances of the Mahler Fifth and Ninth were
taking their place behind this one - as rough, visceral, merciless,
powerful a performance as I have heard (Bernstein, Solti, Karajan,
Abbado recordings included), not as beautifully or flawlessly played
as others, more in anger than sorrow, with a manic intensity that took
the breath away. Literally. This was a giant straddling Beethoven and
Shostakovich, with anguish and grief on the scale of the event it
spoke to, a century after its creation.
At the end of the movement, if I didn't feel unable to move, I would
have tried to leave. I sat limp, drained, with my mouth open. There
was no misguided attempt to applaud, not one in an audience of 2,800 -
not even whispers or noises of approval. Just silence. Laura was not
sleeping; she sat bolt upright, staring at the stage where - she
knew - something extraordinary has taken place. A few seats away,
Francis Ford Coppola looked as if something just hit him over the
head. Well, it has.
The Scherzo picked up where the first movement left off, it and the
Andante cast their still-strange spell with masterful playing. There
were other awsome moments, such as a simple forte being turned into a
volcanic, underground explosion, shaking the hall. The Finale (which
has as much "filling" as the last movement of the Seventh) was as fine
as it can be. But nothing came close to the impact of the first
movement - nothing could, more because of the nature of the work than
of the performance. MTT and the entire orchestra, every one of them,
played it all to perfection at this, their third go at it. They
brought in the work in 91 minutes (including breaks).
When the cycle comes out on CD, look for the Sixth's first movement:
it must be the entire Friday performance, un-patched, un-"corrected,"
it must be left exactly as it was. On the other hand, there is one
more performance, Saturday evening, and if you're anywhere near Davies
Hall, don't miss it. Lightning CAN strike twice.
Janos Gereben/SF
[log in to unmask]
|
