As Seiji Ozawa and the Saito Kinen orchestra began playing the Mahler
Ninth tonight in Davies Hall, for well over half of the first movement,
I couldn't figure out how it is possible to hear an interpretation for
the first time and yet listen to something very familiar.  This was not
Bernstein's all-of-one-piece performance nor just about everybody else's
confident, secure opening.

The Andante was as hesitating, "imprecise" as I have heard, meaning
that it lacked in crisp, clean lines, Ozawa giving the impression of
improvising, of inventing the music as it is performed.  There was
something slow and measured, uncertain, and falling-apart about the music
- the interpretation, that is, not the orchestra's performance.  Saito
Kinen has a glorious sound, a bit uneven in the brass, but spectacular
everywhere else - with such notables as concertmaster Aki Erie Syoko,
principal cellist Ole Akahoshi, with wonderful solos from flutist Kazuhiro
Iwasa and oboist Reinhard Holch.

So, the uncertainty, the hesitation was not a matter of orchestral playing
- not at all.  It was the interpretation.  But how can an unfamiliar way of
playing the first movement sound, at the same time, so.  known? And then,
there came the flash of recognition:  I am listening to the last movement!
Yes, the score is the Andante, but the sound, the feeling, the "message" -
that's all from the Adagio, as we know it.

As so it came to pass, in the fullness of this great work in a gripping
interpretation -after an "authentically" Viennese Landler from the next
director of the Staatsoper, and a spooky and unfunny Rondo Burleske - that
the Adagio arrived with none of the nervous, fluttery, despairing quality
of other interpretations.  That was all taken care at the beginning, we
have arrived to a familiar place for the first time.  No pathos, certainly
nothing freaky - Ozawa's Adagio was matter-of-fact, accepting, and in the
end, delivering a stunning finality just as deadly as in any "normal"
interpretation.

Thanks to Ozawa, the performance, and a superb audience (about equally
divided between usual Symphony patrons and Japanese-American newcomers to
Davies), that vital part of the Ninth - the silence that must follow the
disappearance of the music to complete this "death without transfiguration"
- was as complete and great as I have ever witnessed.  With Ozawa frozen in
mid-motion, the silence lasted about 30 seconds and it came willingly and
sincerely, the perfect conclusion to a rare Mahler performance, a memorable
experience.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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