Mahler Ninth

It is difficult to believe that Mahler symphonies were, until the efforts of conductors like Mitropoulos and Bernstein in the 1950’s and 1960’s, thought to be tortuous and largely incomprehensible. Today, Mahler symphonies have become the calling cards of conductors. Even so, performances of the composer’s 9^th symphony are still special events in any orchestra’s calendar.

Gustavo Dudamel, the young and very talented music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, brought his “band” to Seattle’s Benaroya Hall for a single performance of this, the last completed symphony of Gustav Mahler. In the programme notes, writer Steven Lowe made the oft-repeated idea that Mahler’s final symphony was his farewell to the world, and that the composer was filled with thoughts of his impending death. I was taught by a musicologist not to read too much of any composer’s life into his music. In fact, according to Mahler biographer Henry-Louis de la Grange, the composer was in quite a positive frame of mind when he wrote the 9^th symphony. That said, the work is filled with a very elegiac quality, especially in the two outer movements, that made such associations tempting.

Ever since reading about this very special concert, I had been waiting for the day with much anticipation. I had so wanted to hear this great orchestra under a conductor of which so much has been written.

I must confess that I was slightly disappointed with the playing of the 1^st movement. To be sure, the orchestral playing in each section was of the very highest level, but somehow I thought Dudamel did not really penetrate the spiritual core of this movement, and the music, to me, sounded rather episodic, going from one climax to the next. Even the great climax at 15 measures after Rehearsal number 14, where Mahler marks Pesante (Höchste Kraft), seemed underplayed, and did not give the impression of the apocalyptic vision the composer (I think) had in mind. I did feel that things got much better toward the end of the movement. The French horn solo of Schon ganz langsam (52 measures after Rehearsal number 16) was played with great poignancy, and a palpable sense of regret and nostalgia.

The rest of the symphony left me with a completely different impression. In the second movement, Dudamel captured the weirdness of this corrupted Ländler in the different harmonization of the woodwind figures that first appear in measures 3 and 4. At measure 9, the second violins played with an earthiness and gutsiness in the sound that was striking. I was also captivated with the playing of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s horn section, which figures so prominently in this work. The intonation was impeccable, and the sound was always beautiful even in the biggest climax.

Dudamel’s reading of the brutal Burleske movement was truly frightening and breathtaking. There was, in the performance, a sense of weight in the string sounds of the orchestra. Special kudos to Associate Principal viola Dale Hikawa Silverman, who truly shined in the many prominent solos in the movement, playing with great power and really capturing the unique character of the movement.

The young conductor led the orchestra in the final Adagio in playing that was truly magisterial, and with a sense of totality from first note to last that I missed in the first movement. In the first statement of chorale, the Los Angeles strings played with a sound like burnished gold. In that incredible descending scale figure of C-flat, B-double flat, A-flat and G-flat (Wieder zurückhaltend), the orchestra played with a frightening and unbearable intensity that the music calls for, making those brief four measures lasting seemingly an eternity before the chorale returns. At the end of the movement, Dudamel kept his hands in the air for more than a minute, hearing the intense silence, and respecting Mahler’s marking of ersterbend, before the storm of applause broke the spell of this incredible music. The performance was such that applause seemed like such a rude intrusion.

I felt privileged to have been a witness to this very special evening of music making.

Patrick May, November 6, 2016

Schiff in Seattle

In an age where the arts celebrate the personality of the performer and the idea of performer-as-hero, rather than the music, it is reassuring to have someone like Andras Schiff who, in spite of his enormous talent, remains true to his art, and refuses to be seduced by the currents of commercialism so rampant in music today.

Last evening, Mr. Schiff graced the stage of Seattle’s Benaroya Hall at the invitation of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and performed J. S. Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations for a packed house and a very attentive audience (including one incredibly attentive seeing-eye dog in front of us.)

Like many others, I first encountered the Goldberg’s through Glenn Gould’s stunning debut recording on Columbia Records. For me, the impression that record made was so staggering that for a couple of decades, I find myself unable to listen to anyone else play the piece. But after hearing Mr. Schiff performing Book One of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier in Vancouver last year, I decided that I had to make the trek to Seattle to attend this performance.

Schiff plays the Goldberg Variations observing all the repeats. On top of the technical and musical challenges of which there are many, any artist playing the Goldberg must capture the attention of the audience for an unbroken 75 minute. From the first note of the Aria to the final notes of the reprise of the same Aria at the end, his playing certain captivated my attention. Mr. Schiff creates a beautiful sound at the piano, and he certainly employs all the resources of the modern instrument, while being faithful to Baroque performance practices, to create a colourful performance of this incredible work. As I remarked in my piece on Schiff’s performance of the Well Tempered Clavier last year, his playing is certainly markedly different from Gould’s more (deliberately) monochromatic interpretation – I cannot help associate the way Gould played with his fondness for black and white movies. Both approaches are equally valid, of course, and the contrast between the two artists – much like two equally great painters painting the same subject – is what makes Bach’s great work continually valid and moving centuries after they were written. Most importantly, Schiff, like Gould, was and is able to touch upon the spiritual dimension of these variations that is, of course, the core of the music.

At the end of Schiff’s performance, the audience (bless their hearts) remained silent until the very last sound died away and then, as one, stood up, cheering Bach, and the wonderful man who brought this great work alive for us.

After repeated curtain calls, Schiff returned and rewarded us generously, playing (“With the pedal,” he added) the entire Sonata in E Major, Op. 109 by Ludwig van Beethoven. He indicated that it is difficult to really play anything after the Goldberg’s, but thought this would be an appropriate work to play. I think I understood his thinking, that he wanted to play a work that is just as exalted and spiritually uplifting as the Goldberg Variations.

Schiff has, in recent years, been devoting his efforts to performing and recording the Beethoven sonatas. I have not heard his Beethoven interpretation before, but if last night’s performance of the Op. 109 was any indication, I believe his other Beethoven performance would be well worth our attention. It is perhaps no mere coincidence that Op. 109 ends with a set of theme and variations, with the theme returning at the end.

During the long drive home to Vancouver, I was filled with a sense of gratitude, for Bach, and for this humble and soft-spoken artist for bringing us Bach’s work that, in Glenn Gould’s words, “observes neither end nor beginning, music with neither real climax nor real resolution, music which, like Baudelaire’s lovers, ‘rests lightly on the wings of the unchecked wind.’ It has, then unity through intuitive perception, unity born of craft and scrutiny, mellowed by mastery achieved, and revealed to us here, as so rarely in art, in the vision of subconscious design exulting upon a pinnacle of potency.”

After a performance such as last evening’s, the world, with all its problems, does not seem like such a gloomy place after all.