EUGENE -- In the end was a beginning.

At the end of the 30th annual Oregon Bach Festival, near the the end of
the festival's final concert tonight, Susan Platts stood up on the stage
of jam-packed Silva Hall, and began singing the "Urlicht" (the light of
Creation) section of the "Resurrection" Symphony.

Out poured one of Mahler's most subtle and affecting melodies, on a wave
of dark, copper-hued liquid gold, Platts' voice filling the enormous hall
effortlessly, with feeling, grace, presence.  The voice was coming from a
great distance, an Erda-like sound from some primordial depth.  The tempo
was all wrong, funereal and much too solemn, but that wasn't Platts' fault.
What came from her was among the more memorable vocal moments in a lifetime
of concertgoing.  And, a milestone in a career that's just beginning for
the 26-year-old Canadian alto who made her U.S.  debut in Eugene at last
year's festival.

Meanwhile, a great mystery unfolded on stage.  Platts was in splendid
company:  soprano Camilla Nylund, Helmuth Rilling's peerless festival
orchestra and chorus, and yet...

With all systems in "go" condition, the great rocket kept hovering just
above the ground, and there it stayed -- except for the fool-proof rouser
of the Finale.

This, the festival's first Mahler symphony and one of Rilling's very few
excursions to Mahler's major works, did not provide a blast-off.  In fact,
no blast at all.

Mahler, of course, bears part of the reponsibility.  There is a whole lot
of threading water in the first movement, the next two movements are short
and sweet, but don't really relate to the rest of the work, "Urlicht" is
phenomenal, and the great Finale goes 'round and 'round, building and
building.  There ARE some conductors who can make all this work anyway.
Rilling, as of now, isn't one of them.

What's the problem with this great maestro of the Baroque, of the Romantic
literature (Brahms!), most anything he touches? What ain't he got? He ain't
got angst.

If you don't convey that essential quality in Mahler -- the turmoil,
fragmentation, pessimism bordering on despair -- well, then you have
the calm, confident, clear-eyed, slow, beautiful performance of today.
But not Mahler.  I am no masochist, but rightly and properly I would have
been a whole lot happier with a bit -- a lot -- more pain and suffering.

Rilling approaches the "Resurrection" from the viewpoint of its resolution:
he knows that it will all work out.  Mahler didn't.  (In fact, every time,
he came up with a resolution of sorts, he started the agony all over again
either in the next movement or the next symphony.) Rilling's first movement
was "allegro maestoso," as the score calls for, but there was nothing but
majesty and serenity in it.  No hesitation, questions, dread.

The second movement really missed the boat:  the gorgeous minuet was
virtually unclouded, those prominent, startling pauses sounded like
Prokofiev -- there for the effect -- not Mahler's darkness sucking the
light out of an innocent, sweet melody.

Next came a pleasant sound, quite without the smile from a sarcastically
grinning skull.

And then Platts and "Urlicht," painfully slow as far as Rilling's direction
was concerned, and a riproaring finale, with the fabulous chorus going from
hushed pianissimo and blasts of fortissimi.

How slow is slow? Try 26, 12, 12 and 42 minutes (combining the fourth and
fifth movements).  Such slowpokes as Stokowsky and Klemperer managed 23,
10, 10, 17, 21, and 19, 11, 11, 34 respectively.  This was not good.
Secure, sane, and slow don't add up to "Mahler" for me.

But for almost everything else, Rilling is still one of my great favorites,
and the playing tonight was exceptional -- even if at the "wrong" tempi and
without sufficient angst.

And in the end, there was that new beginning.  Long after the summer is
gone, I will still hear Platts' voice yearning for heaven even while
providing a little bit of it on earth.

Janos Gereben/SF
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