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SEEN
AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL CONCERT REVIEW
Mahler, Symphony No. 3:
Birgit Remmert (contralto), National Symphony Orchestra, Iván
Fischer, Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington DC 17.10 2008 (RRR)
Thursday night, Iván Fischer embarked on his official duties as the
principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra (for a
two-year stint until
Christoph Eschenbach
takes over) with a performance of the Mahler Third Symphony. Anyone
who had heard
his performance last April
of the Mahler Second with the NSO would not have been surprised at
his interpretive choices – with their respective merits and
demerits.
At that time, I described him as the master of pianissimo, and so he
remains (in case anyone did not know that the NSO can play like
this, they can!) I also said that his perspective was the polar
opposite of Bernstein’s hyper-angst tendencies. Fischer’s Mahler is
solidly sane, and that is how he plays the music. This works
particularly well in the Third because it is one of Mahler’s
symphonies with the least amount of underlying anxiety.
However, as dreamy as the Third may be in places, Pan is supposed to
awaken from his dream in the first movement and Fischer captured the
somnolence of Pan in a very special way, or what Mahler called
“Nature’s inertia.” I am not being sarcastic; I mean it. Others,
like Klaus Tennstedt in his LPO recording, caught a minatory and
threatening aspect to the music at the beginning of the first
movement. Fischer actually shows us someone waking up and slowly
throwing off slumber, but, perhaps, too slowly.
Yet, I recalled that Fischer likes to take his time laying in each
musical strand with care and attention. He does not rush; he takes a
chamber music–like approach to the delicate textures of Mahler’s
quieter moments. But Fischer also knows how to build a climax, and
he delivered the full punch of the first big climax.
The first movement – with 35 minutes on the broad side – was neither
emotionally indulgent, nor was it given to any sense of wild
Dionysian abandon. One gets the sense from Fischer that he is not
only conducting the music, but listening to it at the same time. In
other, words, he is in it and seeing it from the outside
which gives his approach an ‘objective’ character.
Fischer’s approach came into its own in the remaining movements in
which objectivity surrendered to beauty. The playing here was
gorgeous, the charm of “what the flowers in the meadow tell me”
exquisite. In the middle of the third movement, Mahler called for
playing “in the manner of a posthorn,” with a background of soft
strings played “as if listening”. The NSO caught this magic to
perfection. Special plaudits must go to posthorn player Steven
Hendrickson.
Contralto Birgit Remmert, in her NSO debut, gave as moving a
performance of the Nietzsche text in the fourth movement as I have
ever heard live. There is a kind of smoky richness to her voice that
is perfect for this, especially when matched with the expressivity
she conveyed. The University of Maryland Concert Choir and the
Children’s Choir of Washington were admirable in the fifth
movement’s expression of a kind of Christmas joy in the Wunderhorn
text.
The strings of the NSO shone throughout, as did the timpani (playing
true pianissimo when required) and winds. The brass, aside from a
few fluffs, came through in the big moments.
In sum: Seldom did one feel in the grip of anything inexorable, and
one might have wished for a stronger interpretive stance, but so
what? One could surrender to the sheer beauty of it. Which, if that
is what Fischer wanted, he achieved.
Robert R. Reilly