DEMYSTIFYING
MAHLER
Shifting the
Theme in Midstream, & Spotting a Wall-E
By Paul Hertelendy
artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
and dance
Week of Sept. 24-30, 2009
Vol. 12, No. 15
Finally, klieg lights shining on
that complex genius of bigger-than-life composition (and suffering),
Gustav Mahler!
The teach-in
to top all teach-ins has been launched by the
S.F. Symphony in a dual assault, both musical and verbal, with the
whole
orchestra chiming in. The lecture-concerts that were billed as concerts
in
Davies Hall were also a video shoot for the latest “Keeping
Score” TV hour, with a scatter-shot
hodge-podge of focal themes suggesting that the project had been
rethought and
revised numerous times, until not even the SFS web site could keep up
with it.
Michael Tilson
Thomas was in his most Bernsteinian mode,
narrating myriad details without notes, conducting over a dozen
symphonic
excerpts in a engaging, entertaining way. The focus in the first of
four intertwined
taping-concerts Sept. 23 was on the composer as the outsider, the
misfit, the
intensely emotional individual weaving even childhood influences into
very
adult works written four decades later.
Its impact
mitigated the mammoth distractions of a
half-dozen cameramen and of 25-foot camera booms shooting out
precariously over
the players as if on a Hollywood set or in “Jurassic Park.”
Finally, there was the zooming about on
tracks of robotic video cameras that even nodded in response to
narrators’
queries, just like Wall-E of animated-film fame.
The trick to
educating a larger PBS TV audience about music
is an astute mix of listening, watching and playing musical games.
Doing Mahler
(1860-1911) is a super challenge, as he doesn’t provide the ready
handles of a
dozen far more accessible composers. His symphonies average about 75
minutes in
length, requiring gargantuan forces, heavily infused with the Weltschmerz of a rejected outsider (a
Jew from Bohemia)
composing and conducting in the most established Viennese circles prior
to the
collapse of the Austrian empire.
The great
surprise here was MTT’s
interpretation of the rondo-burlesk from the Ninth
Symphony:
Initially parodying Mahler himself and his jerky walk, it eventually
gives way
to a noble musical statement which, MTT contends, was Mahler portraying
his
real self. Along the way musicians have
to produce raw, uncouth sounds that they have spent their whole lives
trying to
avoid.
The Mahler scherzo, mostly the Symphony No. 3 example, and other references
explored other recurrent themes from the composer’s youth: Reactions to
the
military music and funerals down the block, to raging arguments of his
parents
juxtaposed with simple street-musician sounds, to sounds of Czech-Bohemian
polkas and
marches. For this, obscure earlier music was searched
out and
played, from Fucik’s “Florentine March” to the funeral march from
Donizetti’s
last opera “Dom Sébastien.” Followed by the clear line of
inspiration into
Mahler’s music.
Almost lost in
the shuffle were five Mahler lieder sung by
the honey-voiced baritone Thomas Hampson in impeccable German. The
theme of
lieder tunes leading to symphonic quotes was perhaps the initial intent
of all
this, but MTT veered away from it with other discussions that clearly
fascinated him more, above all the “parodistic world view” of this
unique giant
in musical creativity.
(Ironically,
Mahler’s symphonies were largely forgotten for
a half-century after his death, emerging in America
in the 1950s through the
crusading of Leonard Bernstein and ensuing recordings. In its first 50
years
starting with Mahler’s death, the S.F.
Symphony had never played the Symphonies Nos. 2-10.)
So the broken-field running of MTT through the
Mahler canon
was a bit like ordering the poached salmon, but getting the filet
mignon
instead.
The orchestra
fortunately was in excellent form, particularly
the brass and the percussion so vital to these works. Some attractive
solos
came from Mark Inouye on both trumpet and flugelhorn (with a sweeter,
more
cornet-like sound), and from the new viola principal Jonathan Vinocour.
As of press
time, the all-Mahler programs for the rest of
the week are changing nightly. And so, too, perhaps, the overall theme
of this elaborate
and expensive Mahler-on-video project, going around a lot of curves and
having
a hell of a good time doing it.
These
San Francisco Symphony concerts continue through Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. For
info: (415) 864-6000, or go online.
Broadcasts on KDFC-FM (102.1) at 8 p.m. on the second Tuesday following.
©Paul Hertelendy 2009
#
Paul Hertelendy has been
covering
the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with
relish
-- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never
weakly)
will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with
forays
into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local
artists as well.
#
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