Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 7-9.
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel. Signum Classics. $38.99 (6
CDs).
The All-Star Orchestra conducted
by Gerard Schwarz. Programs 9 & 10; 11 & 12. Naxos DVDs. $19.99
each.
The last and best of the
three Signum Classics releases featuring live recordings of Mahler symphonies
conducted by Lorin Maazel stands as a genuine legacy to the conductor, who died
in 2014 at age 84 after a remarkable 75 years of involvement in classical
music. Known when he initially conducted as a preteen as “little Loren” – a nickname
he came to despise as his reputation grew – Maazel became a towering figure in
the music world, internationally acclaimed and respected for his performances
of orchestral and operatic repertoire with a multitude of orchestras. His
late-in-life (2009) founding of the Castleton Festival in Virginia is but one
of the monuments to him. His Mahler cycle, using performances from 2011, is
another, but it is only in this final release that Maazel’s abilities with this
composer’s music significantly outweigh his interpretative limitations. At the
heart of his success here is a gorgeously sung, splendidly played,
interpretatively sure-handed Symphony No. 8, which emerges under Maazel’s
leadership as essentially a full-scale, full-length opera (it runs 98 minutes).
Maazel expertly brings out Mahler’s marvelous interweaving of the themes from
the work’s first part with their reuse at different tempos and in different
contexts in the second part. He makes the opening Veni, creator spiritus a strong, almost heavy half-hour, the
initial words coming across as an invocation (not, as in some other,
more-assertive performances, a demand); and the individual sections receive
plenty of time to wend their way through the musical motifs that pervade the
whole symphony. Then the extended orchestral opening to the final scene from Faust is presented as transformative,
pulling together the heaven-imploring elements of the first part with the very
different heavenly ones to come. Maazel does not shrink from having his singers
approach the music operatically, especially Stefan Vinke as Doctor Marianus
(the soul of Faust) and Ailish Tynan as Una Pœnitentium (the soul of Gretchen). The pacing here is deliberate
almost but not quite to the point of ponderousness: Maazel lets the music swell
again and again, enlarging the universe portrayed by Goethe and Mahler and thus
expanding the experience of the audience, until the final chorus is truly
overwhelming in its impact. This is a remarkable performance that fully explores
the emotional heights and depths of the symphony.
Maazel’s reading of Mahler’s
Ninth is also highly impressive in the first and final movements, but some of
the weaknesses of this cycle show through in the middle. The first movement
here is so well done that it seems to grow organically, from the thematic
fragments with which it opens through the long-spun melodies and increasingly
odd harmonies with which Mahler builds it. The pacing is quite slow – almost 36
minutes – but the music never drags. Instead, it feels as if it is coalescing
bit by bit into something very big and very wonderful. As for the finale, most
of it is comparatively straightforward, although very well played and very
sensitively handled. But the very last part is amazing: it is a transcendent
experience to hear the way the music evanesces here, evaporating in a mixture
of resignation and acceptance as it returns, the same yet utterly changed, to
the mood of the symphony’s beginning. This would have been a great performance
if the two middle movements were at this level, but here Maazel’s limitations
as a Mahlerian come into play. The bizarre, self-contradictory extremes of
Mahler’s music seem to make Maazel uncomfortable: when it comes to showing the
unifying elements of a work, as in the Eighth, he delivers splendidly, but when
it is necessary to change the mood abruptly and with apparently illogic, as the
middle of the Ninth does, he falls short. Neither of the middle movements here
has the intensity and punch needed to provide relief from and a strong contrast
to the opening and closing ones. The Rondo-Burleske
in particular is a disappointment: one waits in vain for Maazel to cut loose,
to let this frantic and frenetic piece blossom in its own distinctly peculiar
way. It never happens. The two middle movements of this Ninth are simply too
well-mannered to serve their purpose as interludes between the beauties of the
work’s start and finish. As for the Seventh, it never really takes off at all.
Here Maazel’s propensity for unification of these sprawling symphonies serves
him (and listeners) poorly. This is a strange symphony, so much so that British
musicologist Deryck Cooke famously christened it the “Mad,” and while that is
an exaggeration, it captures some of the sense of unease and constant change,
unending refusal to be pinned down to any one direction or mood, that pervades
this work. Here Maazel’s reading does drag: the first movement seems to go on
interminably, its sudden shifts of harmony and rhythm unduly smoothed by tempo
choices that make the whole thing ponderous rather than portentous. The two Nachtmusik movements and the central
(and decidedly peculiar) Schattenhaft
scherzo seem to meander directionlessly: instead of being encapsulations of
individual moods, they are for Maazel parts of a larger whole whose shape,
unfortunately, is never clear. The finale, so similar to that of the Fifth
while at the same time so different, so deliberately straightforward in its C
major tonality and Allegro ordinario
tempo designation, plods and struggles ahead here, lacking in exuberance,
irony, conclusiveness, assertiveness, or any other emotion that it possesses in
other conductors’ readings. It loses its way or, more accurately, never finds
one – a statement that, unfortunately, applies to this performance as a whole.
Nevertheless, for its superb Eighth and the many excellent elements of its
Ninth, this is a release in which to rejoice, and a very fine monument, one of
many, to one of the great conductors of modern times.
Although not an interpreter
of Maazel’s stature, Gerard Schwarz also succeeds in exploring the intensity of
musical communication in some of his performances – and the six volumes of his All-Star Orchestra TV series are,
collectively, a particularly fine example. Using an orchestra whose members are
drawn from the ranks of multiple U.S. ensembles – and who play efficiently, if
not always passionately – Schwarz with these shows offers a modernized update
of the famous Leonard Bernstein Young
People’s Concerts that ran from 1958 to 1972. There are, though, many
differences. Commentary in the Schwarz series is by composers, performers and
various experts rather than – as in Bernstein’s material – by the conductor
himself. Unlike Bernstein, Schwarz offers programs designed for listeners of
all ages, not just young people – and, more intriguingly, often mixes
well-known works from the standard concert repertoire with new pieces that even
people steeped in classical music may never have heard before. Bernstein’s
programs reached across age lines by virtue of the strength of Bernstein’s
personality and the excellence of his conducting. Schwarz is a lesser conductor
and by no means a raconteur; his shows reach across generational lines because
of the choice of music and form of commentary. The Schwarz shows are much
better produced – they were done in HD with 19 cameras – although the extensive
technical capabilities are not always fully utilized to explore elements of the
music.
These are nevertheless
excellent ways for people unfamiliar with classical music to learn about it in
an enjoyable rather than strictly educational way. The Naxos DVD containing the
ninth and 10th programs is a particularly good example of the
series’ strengths. The ninth program, “Visions of New York,” includes a fine if
not tremendously jazzy performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with pianist Lola Astanova; Copland’s Music for the Theatre; and a very recent
piece that attempts to take a musical measure of New York after the terrorist
murders of 9/11/2001, Ground “0” by
Robert Beaser. The rhythmic and harmonic language of the three works may be
different (although there are many similarities between the Gershwin and Copland
pieces, which both date from the 1920s), but the differing ways in which they
attempt to showcase life in the United States’ largest city results in some
fascinating insights. The 10th program is a different matter. It is
wholly devoted to a single work, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, featuring violinist David Kim – and while it is
commendable that Schwarz performs the complete symphonic suite (a real plus of
this series: Bernstein’s offered only excerpts of works, sometimes taking
things out of context to make a point), it is never quite clear why an entire
program is being used to showcase this particular work. Part of the problem
here is the performance itself: Kim plays the solo part well, but the overall
sweep and grandeur of the music do not come through as well with this cobbled-together
orchestra as they do with the Russian and other European ensembles whose richly
burnished strings are so well complemented by brass sections at once warm and
biting. Viewers who follow all the Schwarz programs may find, by the time of
this 10th one, that they enjoy its exploration of a single extended
work, but neither the performance nor the handling of the explanatory elements
is as well-done as is the material in some of the other shows.
The 11th program
has similar pluses and minuses. This one also features a single piece, Richard
Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, which is an
even tougher nut to crack interpretatively than is Scheherazade. Again, the solo playing here is fine – Kim is again
the violin soloist and Erik Ralske is featured on French horn – but the
orchestra never really digs into this music. Strauss had an idiomatically
personal approach to his orchestra music: this is the composer who later wrote Symphonia Domestica as a view of the
next part of his family life. Ein
Heldenleben, like Scheherazade,
is a sonic spectacular requiring a large orchestra, and both works are
certainly programmatic. But full comprehension of Strauss’ music requires
considerable knowledge of his biography and his views, both musical and
philosophical; and this is beyond the scope of Schwarz’ program, although
certainly an attempt is made to explain what is going on. It nevertheless seems
a trifle odd to build this entire episode around this piece. The 12th
program comes across better, returning to the notion of juxtaposing a famous
repertoire piece (Mozart’s Serenade No. 9, “Posthorn,” featuring David Bilger)
with a contemporary one (Samuel Jones’ Violin Concerto, with Anne Akiko
Meyers). In fact, this program attempts to do a great deal: the Jones work is a
world première, Meyers plays it
on the Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù
violin, and the overall idea here is to explain the ways in which composer,
soloist and conductor are all involved in bringing a work to the audience. This
is an admirable and ambitious plan, but whether the pairing of these particular
works furthers it is another matter. The Jones concerto is well-made, with
interesting elements both for listeners and for the soloist, but it is
difficult to see why it should be juxtaposed with Mozart – and this particular
Mozart work contrasts rather oddly with this one by Jones, in any case.
Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4 or 5 would have made a more intriguing pairing;
or perhaps, to avoid what would surely be something of an invidious comparison,
a Mozart piano concerto (say, No. 9 or No. 15) could have been offered. This 12th
program is worthwhile more for what it tries to do than for what it actually
does; and indeed, that is often the case in The
All-Star Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz. On balance, these are fine
made-for-TV programs that will be of most value to people with some interest in
classical music but little understanding of it – although the issues raised in
certain shows will resonate with longtime classical-music lovers as well.
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