Music lovers in Cleveland, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia will have
a chance later this month to judge for themselves what Michael Tilson
Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony can do with Mahler's Fifth Symphony.
(For the itinerary, see http://tinyurl.com/3d92n.)

At tonight's performance in Davies Hall - my third but many more for the
orchestra after rehearsals and two series of subscription concerts - it
was a vital, exciting, all-of-one-piece Fifth.

MTT and the orchestra gave a self-confident, straightforward, honest
performance, tinged with grandeur, clearly articulated, with sweeping
climaxes, smooth transitions, passages of feigned calm both convincing
and indicative of the layers of subtext underneath the surface.

The performance began with Glenn Fischthal's fearless and flawless trumpet
call, MTT holding back the orchestra response almost imperceptibly, the
slightly delayed and well-controlled explosion that followed all the
more effective.  The last note of the first movement drifted into silence,
uncannily.

When the score asked for "grosster Vehemenz," the music's fury was all
there, but in its power, not loudness.

What Henry-Louis de La Grange once called the essential part of Mahler's
greatness - "his provocations, his excesses and paradoxes" - become
"understandable," and no longer provocative or excessive in a performance
such as this.

The ghostly Scherzo danced with eerie restraint and just a hint of menace;
the principal strings' pizzicato passages impressed with their precision
and power.

The Adagietto was astonishing.  The music appeared motionless and yet
it swept the listener along.  The Finale, which often appears "problematic,"
made perfect sense here.

Problems?  A few instances of uncertainty in the back of the viola section
(perhaps in contrast with the nonpareil playing by Geraldine Walther and
Jun Jie Liu up front) and the "American seating" of the celli up front.
Almost certainly, the balance would be even better with the second violins
on MTT's right.

The quality of the MTT/SFS partnership's Mahler may come as a surprise
elsewhere, but in San Francisco, audiences have experienced first-hand
a 10-year stretch of inexorable progress.  Although he has done all
Mahler symphonies by now, MTT's first major achievement with the composer
locally was the Fifth, the last time around, in 1998.

Then came the most unforgettable concert of them all, a gut-wrenching
Mahler Sixth just days after 9/11, leaving the audience in tears, feeling
both numb and assuaged.

The Mahler symphony recordings released since have been winning awards
and new fans.  The latest in the series, the Fourth, is an important
accomplishment, even in comparison with more than a dozen outstanding
recording already available.  To appreciate MTT's Mahler, just listen
to the first few bars of the Fourth.  Right up front, where most
interpretations have a little "burp" in the release after the introductory
phrase, the San Francisco performance is smooth as silk, firmly, logically
connected, instead of consisting of two disparate elements.  Multiply
that tiny bit thousandfold, and you have great Mahler.

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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