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Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 8 PM MAHLER | Kindertotenlieder<\/i><\/em> & Symphony No. 1<\/em><\/p>\n Last night began the Staatskapelle Berlin\u2019s much-anticipated, ten-part Mahler symphonic and song cycle at Carnegie Hall. Three Maestros \u2018B\u2019 are here involved or invoked: conducted alternatingly by Boulez and Barenboim (the Staatskapelle\u2019s General Music Director, and in 2000 honored as its \u2018Conductor for Life\u2019), these concerts coincide with a new all-Mahler boxed set from Bernstein<\/a>, that greatest American champion of Mahler whom Carnegie Hall<\/a> (and indeed all New York<\/a>) celebrated last fall, on the 50th anniversary of his appointment to directorship of the NY Philharmonic. (A full Bernstein-Mahler set already exists on Deutsche Grammophon<\/a>\u2014as does, incidentally, a full NY Philharmonic Mahler set wholly sans Lenny<\/a>\u2014whereas the new issue comes from Sony Masterworks. One will need some thirty uninterrupted hours of listening time to work out comparisons, so that will be for a separate post. But for now let it be said that one feature of the new set is particularly welcome: the radio documentary \u2018I Remember Mahler,\u2019 produced by William Malloch in the 1960s, which had been available only and only in part on Mahler Plays Mahler<\/a>. The addict craves more, however: say, Malloch\u2019s eight-hour \u2018Mahlerthon\u2019 from 1975.)<\/p>\n Barenboim had the baton for this opening concert. The heartbreakingly sparse Kindertotenlieder<\/em> of 1901-1904\u2014its delicate life borne through the years by the likes of contralto Kathleen Ferrier, mezzos Janet Baker and Christa Ludwig, and baritones Fischer-Dieskau and Thomas Hampson\u2014could scarcely have found a more tender custodian than Thomas Quasthoff. Amid the fragile, meandering harmonies of the first song, \u2018Nun will die Sonn\u2019 so hell aufgeh\u2019n,\u2019 he wove softly about the instrumental lines, with no presumption of greater prominence, and when the orchestration expanded\u2014there\u2019s nothing like Mahler\u2019s use of harp and strings to delicately unfurl a world\u2014his voice melted into the soundscape. It was in the second song, \u2018Nun seh\u2019 ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen,\u2019 however, that Quasthoff’s voice blossomed, warm yet vulnerable, carrying us farther into the depths of sorrow. The next two songs proved slightly more challenging: the purity of Quasthoff\u2019s voice hardened a bit amid the top notes, and between him and the orchestra there were moments of strained clamor, as if each vied to back off from vying. Still, with \u2018In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus,’ the songs came to an imperturbably luminous close. In this R\u00fcckert poem, a father repeats he would never have let his children out in such tempestuous weather, but is gradually forced to realize their demise. His resoluteness would be regret if only he could bring himself to face the actual rather than the \u2018would have\u2019\u2014and thus amounts to denial. Quasthoff and Barenboim grasped this with rare exactitude: no mere declarative emoting, they evoked sorrow as trance, as necessary and even self-annihilating dream, during which the slow, pained movement toward truth can still take place only in the realm of grammar. Occasional imperfections aside, this performance feelingly captured the desolation and inconsolable melancholy of these Lieder. Bare of familiarly lyrical flourishes or default aggrandizing of the soloist, it ushered us with care into Mahler\u2019s world\u2014which, after all, is a world subtending the expressible, however exuberantly or eloquently expressed.<\/p>\n Quashoff\u2019s rendition here was long-anticipated; two winters ago, his Carnegie Hall appearance for these Lieder with the Philadelphia Orchestra was cancelled due to illness. Ovations abound, the audience last night did not hold back its gratitude.<\/p>\n Hopes were surely high after intermission, and the Staatskapelle\u2019s rendition of the First Symphony brought hope closer to faith. The first movement began with a deliberateness that bordered on tenuous, but in the process let some details surface afresh for the ear, and then burst into fulgent fullness after the cymbals midway through. Thenceforth the experience seized us and would not let go, from the swooping, swooning dance of the second movement\u2014Maestro Barenboim\u2019s own arms scooping up swathes of air\u2014through the hair-raising finale.<\/p>\n Particular stars that emerged for me last night were the cellos\u2014which had seemed subdued until one realized that their amazingly sensitive volume control pretty much underwrote the success of the entire performance\u2014and principal timpanist Torsten Sch\u00f6nfeld, whose beautifully fluid yet weighted movements were mesmerizing to watch. The woodwinds blessed us with color and audacity aplenty, though occasionally the clarinets risked too much brightness. (Jury’s out on the brass; how will they do tomorrow?) Interestingly, the ensemble seemed precisest when momentum was fiercest. Barenboim\u2019s realization of the score was at once thoughtful and driven\u2014sustaining a sense of contemplative reverie throughout even the most excitable stretches.<\/p>\n One could not help but marvel at the energy, empathy and collective devotion it took for these musicians to bring Mahler\u2019s world to life for us\u2014with all its detailed plenitude, its wistful play at languor, its embrace of everything that is life, however dejecting or calamitous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 8 PM STAATSKAPELLE BERLIN, cond. Daniel Barenboim Thomas Quasthoff, Bass-Baritone MAHLER | Kindertotenlieder & Symphony No. 1 Last night began the Staatskapelle Berlin\u2019s much-anticipated, ten-part Mahler symphonic and song cycle at Carnegie Hall. Three Maestros \u2018B\u2019 are here involved or invoked: conducted alternatingly by Boulez and Barenboim (the Staatskapelle\u2019s General […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":241,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,2328],"tags":[5841,1793,13268,5842,5830,13267,5840,5838,13269,13270,5839,5877,13266],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-nyc","tag-barenboim","tag-berlin","tag-bernstein","tag-boulez","tag-carnegie-hall","tag-kindertotenlieder","tag-lieder","tag-mahler","tag-mahler-1st","tag-mahler-first","tag-quasthoff","tag-staatskapelle-berlin","tag-torsten-schonfeld"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dingansich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSTAATSKAPELLE BERLIN<\/strong>, cond. Daniel Barenboim<\/a>
\nThomas Quasthoff, Bass-Baritone<\/p>\n