Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Symphony No. 8 in E flat major [81:19]
Angela Meade (soprano I) – Magna Peccatrix; Erin Wall (soprano II) – Una Poenitentium; Lisette Oropesa (soprano III) Mater Gloriosa –; Elizabeth Bishop (alto I) – Mulier Samaritana; Mihoko Fujimura (alto II) – Maria Aegyptiaca; Anthony Dean Griffey (tenor) – Doctor Marianus; Markus Werba (baritone) – Pater Ecstaticus; John Relyea (bass) – Pater Profundus
Westminster Symphonic Choir; The Choral Arts Society of Washington; The American Boychoir; Michael Stairs (organ)
The Philadelphia Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
rec. live March 2016, Verizon Hall, Philadelphia
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4837871 [82:54]
On 12 September 1910, Mahler conducted the first performance of his Eighth Symphony. The performance in Munich, which was a triumph, was attended by a host of musical luminaries. In the audience, though he had yet to establish his reputation fully, was the young Leopold Stokowski. Less than six years later, in March 1916, Stokowski, ever ambitious and enterprising and by then at the head of the Philadelphia Orchestra, led his orchestra in the US premiere of the work. We learn from the booklet that those performances involved 1068 performers, plus the conductor. Never one to do things by halves, ‘Stoki’ gave the work in a series of no less than nine concerts, first in Philadelphia’s Academy of Music and then in the (old) Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
A hundred years later, almost to the day, a series of performances was mounted in Philadelphia to celebrate that occasion. These performances were given in the orchestra’s current home, Verizon Hall. From them, DG has edited this live recording, conducted by the Philadelphia’s current Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
There’s a photograph in the booklet which shows one of the performances in full flow. It’s worth describing that picture, I think, since I believe that what it shows is germane to what we hear, particularly in two respects. Filling the very wide and deep stage is the augmented orchestra and immediately behind them, centre stage, are the members of The American Boychoir. Though they are tiny figures on this panoramic picture, I reckon there are at most 30 boys. Behind them in the elevated choir seats are the massed ranks of the chorus and the seven principal vocal soloists appear to be placed in the centre of the front row of the choir. Behind everyone else sits Michael Stairs at the console of the organ. This appears to be a pretty mighty instrument, though I don’t recall that I’ve previously heard it in action. The organ was made by Dobson Pipe Organ Builders Ltd and I learned from their website that the instrument was installed between 2001 and 2005. It is the largest mechanical organ in a US concert hall. Of course, the organ has an important part in Mahler’s symphony.
I mention all this because I think it may explain some of the issues I have with this recording. The soloists are well captured on the recording – I expect they had their own microphones. However, there were a number of times during the performance when I thought they were trying too hard and I wonder if this is because they were endeavouring to project out across the large expanse of the orchestra to reach the audience. If so, then their singing could seem rather loud as captured by the microphones. Just recently, I attended a performance of this work in Symphony Hall, Birmingham. There, the soloists were positioned at the front of the stage and I think that’s much more satisfactory (review). I fear that The American Boychoir was too small in size for this assignment. Their contributions can be heard but there are times, especially in Part I, where their line should cut right through the texture and that really doesn’t happen here. As for the organ, I don’t feel it makes sufficiently weighty a contribution. I don’t know if this is a question of the recording per se or whether the organist was reining in the instrument (if so, presumably under orders from the rostrum). I’ll be making some comparisons with Klaus Tennstedt’s live recording, made in London’s Royal Festival Hall back in 1991, and there the organ most certainly makes its presence felt.
I thought long and hard about a comparative version. It seemed only fair to compare Nézet-Séguin’s performance with another live reading rather than one set down under studio conditions. The Tennstedt performance was given in a smaller, drier acoustic which means that the sound, engineered by the BBC originally for a television broadcast, is more immediate than the sound DG obtain in the larger space that is Verizon Hall. That immediacy probably accounts for a little of the impact of Tennstedt’s performance but, in truth, most of the impact comes from the music-making itself. Incidentally, I’ve seen his performance on DVD and the seven soloists are placed to the conductor’s left, immediately behind the first violins.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin launches Part I, the ‘Veni, Creator spiritus’, well. I had the impression that he keeps the music under control rather than impelling it forward impetuously. That’s not a bad thing; fences mustn’t be rushed. On the other hand, Tennstedt, at a not dissimilar pace, imparts a greater sense of urgency, I think. The Philadelphia soloists are clearly heard in the ‘Imple superna gratia’ section – the top soprano line particularly in evidence – but I would like to have heard a little more of what the chorus is up to in this section. Nézet-Séguin launches ‘Accende’ at a cracking pace. The performance has no little electricity but, thinking back to the performance I heard recently in Birmingham, I didn’t feel there was as much internal clarity in this Philadelphia account, at least not as recorded. Tennstedt takes no prisoners here and, indeed, at ‘Hostem repellas longius’ you do wonder if the trombones and chorus will stay in synch, but the performance hangs together. This section leads to a reprise of the opening ‘Veni, Creator Spiritus’ and when it arrives, I don’t feel that Nézet-Séguin quite makes it the rhetorical big moment that I expect. It’s impressive, but if you turn to Tennstedt, the moment isn’t big, it’s huge. One reason for that is that whereas Nézet-Séguin plays the preceding pages up to tempo, Tennstedt is really expansive in his treatment of the same pages and, my goodness, it’s all thrilling. The very end of Part I is impressive in its own terms in Nézet-Séguin’s hands but Tennstedt really sweeps the listener off his or her feet. As I listened to the very end of Part I, Tennstedt caused my eyes to prickle, so stirring was the performance; I admired Nézet-Séguin’s performance but it left me dry-eyed.
On to the longer span of Part II. Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphians make a very good showing in the long orchestral introduction and the sound of the orchestra in the impassioned passages is marvellous to hear. When the choir enters, their strange, almost staccato music is much more smoothly delivered than I can previously recall hearing – no doubt at the conductor’s behest. Tennstedt’s choir makes the music less legato, as I’d expect. We now get a chance to hear the soloists in individual solos. I’ve heard one or two of them before. John Relyea, for instance, is on the 2004 Rattle recording (review) while Mihoko Fujimura sings Alto II on the 2011 Jansons Concertgebouw recording (review). Erin Wall, who here takes the second soprano part, sang the first soprano role in the recent aforementioned CBSO performance; then I thought she seemed under pressure at times but that’s not so evident here.
Markus Werba sings the Pater Ecstaticus solo. I must say that I prefer the more focussed sound of Eike Wilm Schulte, who sings for Tennstedt. The Pater Profundus solo must be a brute to sing. John Relyea does well but I think that Hans Sotin (Tennstedt) invests the music with more character. The third male soloist is Anthony Dean Griffey. He also featured on David Zinman’s 2009 recording. I’ve not heard that but it doesn’t look as if Dan Morgan was too impressed by him (review). I heard Griffey in Jaap van Zweeden’s 2010 recording of Britten’s War Requiem and, looking back, I see that I was disappointed with his contribution (review). I’m afraid I’m similarly disappointed here. The ‘Höchste Herrscherin der Welt!’ solo confronts the tenor with an unenviable tessitura. Even allowing for that, Griffey is too forthright in his delivery and sounds under pressure. The same is true of Kenneth Riegel on the Tennstedt set; indeed, having returned to the performance for comparative purposes I think that in my review I was a bit too charitable about Riegel’s singing. Frankly, neither of these tenors comes anywhere near the achievement of René Kollo who sings – admittedly under studio conditions - on Solti’s famous recording (review). That judgement is even more true when we get to ‘Blicket auf!’, where Kollo is, by some distance, superior to either Griffey or Riegel.
When it comes to the ladies, Angela Meade, in her solo ‘Bei die Liebe’, seems to me to offer an example of what I meant earlier when I referred to my suspicion of some soloists trying too hard. Julia Várady (Tennstedt) is blessed with a richer tone and is more to my taste. Erin Wall is very expressive as Una Poenitentium, a role which Jane Eaglen sings very well indeed for Tennstedt. I wouldn’t care to choose between the respective pairs of altos. The short but crucial Mater Gloriosa solo is cruelly exposed. Lisette Oropesa is ideally distanced and she sings the music with gentle radiance for Nézet-Séguin. Susan Bullock also does a fine job for Tennstedt but she’s not quite as magically distanced,
Nézet-Séguin’s choirs do well in the lengthy episode where they’re required to sing as angels; in this episode their fresh tone is ideally suited to the music. In the ‘Blicket auf!’ section, once the choir takes over from the tenor the music begins to soar, as it should, for which Nézet-Séguin as well as his singers must take the credit. He achieves the orchestral wind-down to the ‘Chorus Mysticus’ magically. Then when the choir murmurs ‘Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis’ they achieve a wondrous hush; my only slight cavil is that the words aren’t as distinct as I’ve heard in some equally hushed performances (the recent Birmingham performance offered a case in point). Nézet-Séguin manages the build-up to the ringing proclamation of ‘Alles Vergängliche’ superbly but then the choral entry at that point isn’t as hair-raisingly thrilling as it should be: it just marginally misses the mark. If you turn to Tennstedt you’ll hear what I miss in Philadelphia: ‘Alles Vergängliche’ is shatteringly fervent and that flings wide the doors for a performance of the last few minutes of Mahler’s symphony that should leave you shaken to the core. One factor in Tennstedt’s favour is that in these closing pages the Royal Festival Hall organ is a thundering but not excessive presence, adding just the right frisson to the textures: you don’t get the same contribution from the organ in Philadelphia. Heard in isolation, though, this Philadelphia performance has genuine grandeur at the end and I’m not surprised that the audience greets it with whoops of enthusiasm. The ovation runs on for a while, which is why there are two different timings at the head of this review.
I strongly suspect that Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s performance would have made a significantly greater impact on me had I been present in the Verizon Hall. There’s much about it that is good but I’m not entirely convinced that the DG engineers have successfully captured it for disc: in fairness, it’s a daunting challenge for engineers. During the course of preparing this review I and some colleagues auditioned part of this disc in the
MusicWeb International Listening Studio. My comments in this review relate to the listening I did on my own equipment but I have to say that the recording didn’t impress me to a greater degree on the Studio’s high-end equipment.
I think that the trouble with this release is that when you hear a performance in the concert hall, you’re caught up in the moment whereas when you hear the same performance as a recording you are bound to listen to it in a different way, not least because comparisons are readily available. Referring back to that Birmingham performance, I was most impressed on the night but whether it was of sufficient stature to warrant preservation on a recording I’m less sure. I believe that is true of this Philadelphia performance too.
So, let me try to sum up this new recording. I’d hoped for great things from it, not least because Yannick Nézet-Séguin is responsible for one of the finest recorded performances of Mahler’s First Symphony that I have ever heard (review). This account of the Eighth, a much greater challenge for a conductor, if only in terms of scale, doesn’t hit the mark for me in the same way. He conducts the piece well – and in some places very well – but he didn’t engage my emotions and grab my attention in the way that Tennstedt, Solti and several others have done. His soloists are, for the most part, good without being outstanding. I think overall that Tennstedt has a stronger set of singers while the roster of soloists that Decca assembled for Solti back in 1971 was truly a dream team. The boys’ choir doesn’t make quite the impact I’d like but this is no reflection on the boys themselves, who sing well; it’s just that there aren’t quite enough of them and/or the engineers haven’t brought them up sufficiently in the balance. The adult choirs make a good showing in most of Part II but I don’t think that they provide sufficient heft in the big moments of Part I; that may well be a question of the engineering, of course.
This, then, is a good souvenir of a notable centenary celebration in Philadelphia. However, if you’re looking for a library choice for the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ then there are other versions which will provide you with a more electrifying experience. As such, I think that recordings such as those by Tennstedt and Solti come much closer to realising Mahler’s audacious vision.
John Quinn
Previous review: Lee Denham
