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Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 8 PM MAHLER | Symphony No. 2, ‘Resurrection’<\/em><\/p>\n For me, as for many Mahler devotees I\u2019ve known or known of (and not only the fabled Gilbert Kaplan<\/a>, for whom it was a veritable id\u00e9e fixe), the Second Symphony [\u2018Resurrection\u2019] was the most decisive portal into this composer\u2019s oeuvre. During my high school years, after an English teacher lent me a recording of Abbado\u2019s 1976 recording with the Chicago SO on Deutsche Grammophone\u2014which I listened to probably some twenty times before buying my own copy\u2014I went to the local library and checked out every recording of this work I could get my hands on (Bernstein, Solti, Haitink, Kaplan, Mehta, Maazel, et al., some of which were incredibly forgettable). Gradual listening to the other symphonies, then the Lieder\u2014helped along the way by brief lurk-time on MAHLER-L<\/a> and a Mahler seminar in college\u2014sealed Mahler as the composer closest to my heart. My two go-to recordings of this symphony are now Klemperer\u2019s with the Philharmonia on EMI and, after all these years, that old Abbado disc; occasionally, in less impatient moods, I turn to Rattle\u2019s attentive 1986 rendition. (Many of these just mentioned are discussed in Tony Duggan’s fine omnibus review<\/a> of Second Symphony recordings.) None of the others I\u2019ve come across has really managed to bore itself into the soul. Soul-gripping and soul-assailing and soul-transporting\u2014that is the power of this symphony when done right.<\/p>\n Puzzlingly, despairingly, last night\u2019s Staatskapelle Berlin performance, led by Pierre Boulez, felt at times almost procedural, and although the orchestra and chorus lacked no power when it mattered, not until Urlicht<\/i> and the final movement did the execution begin truly to rise to the score. The opening was, it must be said, extremely promising. I\u2019ve always thought that the cellos in the opening section should have a shade of brutality, of raw and earthy rumble: it is something like the sound of existence\u2019s grappling with earthliness, and this grappling requires a lot of textured traction. The Staatskapelle\u2019s cellists were superb in digging into their strings here, and curiously this effect was even augmented by Boulez\u2019s directions stipulating an unusual slowness, protracting the push and pull of strokes. As the movement went on, however, the sense of musical as well as emotional continuity became tenuous. What did those hearing (or truly listening to) this for the first time last night make, say, of some superficial abruptnesses in the music? Why a seeming biding of time one minute, and a minute later a clashing of cymbals startling everybody who\u2019s nodded off? Mahler\u2019s symphonies are never mere stories, but each amounts to far more than any Eliotian \u2018heap of broken images.\u2019 Each Mahlerian fragment bears within it the longing for wholeness, the wishful memory of wholeness; often longing is the story. At best, Mr. Boulez seemed interested in excavating the sonic textures of certain segments rather than in unfolding for us the whole. Indeed, in the second and third movements especially, perhaps wary of too-easy drama, he seemed to hold back a bit too much, resulting in an inscrutable plainness. One ached for a more vigilant treatment of the transitions\u2014a more responsible communication, even, of the ebbs and flows, the whims and the throes, of feeling.<\/p>\n The Staatskapelle players sounded terrific overall, for their part, as did the Westminster Symphonic Choir<\/a> (which sang this work with the NYPhil directed by Kaplan last December, and will appear again this cycle for Mahler’s Third and Eighth). Moments of vulnerability among the brass were more audible this time, unfortunately, and I found myself wishing\u2014for this symphony at least\u2014for a more glistening, gauzy sound from the violin section. Apart from the ever lovely cellos, the true star of the evening was the lush and capacious voice of Michelle DeYoung<\/a>. (I saw her last as Venus in a wonderful Tannh\u00e4user<\/em> at the Met in December 2004<\/a>, which also starred Deborah Voight, Thomas Hampson, and Peter Seiffert.) Pending her vibrato\u2014which needs just a slight diminution for this music\u2014I dare say she has the potential to become one of the great Mahlerian mezzos of our time.<\/p>\n
\nSTAATSKAPELLE BERLIN, cond. Pierre Boulez<\/a>
\nWestminster Symphonic Choir, dir. Eberhard Friedrich
\nSoloists: Michelle DeYoung (mezzo-soprano), Dorothea R\u00f6schmann (soprano)<\/p>\n