While
the angst is still present in Mahler’s Third,
to my ears it seems to be filled with slightly
more sunlight than some of the other symphonies,
and that was certainly the case in the intense,
tender performance that Christoph Eschenbach
coaxed from the Philadelphia Orchestra on
Monday night. The final movement subtitled
What love tells me felt as comforting
as being in the company of an old friend or
a beloved grandmother. After hearing Eschenbach’s
performance I might even recommend this work
as a starting point to someone unfamiliar
with the composer (extreme length aside for
a moment, and this performance came in at
just under two hours), since the abundance
of sheer beauty is very persuasive.
This
was a pretty inspiring performance, even if
tempered here and there with some intonation
problems and what appeared to be scattered
fatigue among the players. In the first movement,
Summer marches in, the horn section
made my ears stand at attention with a strong
entrance, helped by some equally decisive
percussion work. If later I wasn’t always
convinced by some of Eschenbach’s tempi, not
to mention his use of rubato, others in the
audience didn’t seem to mind, and I doubt
anyone was bored. Any conductor thinking
about the music generally has my respect.
The
woodwinds introduced the second movement sounding
as bucolic as they come, but the real stars
of the evening were in the brass. Nitzan Haroz,
principal trombone, simply astonished me (and
everyone with whom I spoke), combining accuracy
and nobility in what is, as usual with Mahler,
a parade of threatening high wire acts. Great
artists make these stunts look ridiculously
easy, and at the end of the night, Haroz received
an ovation consummate with his achievement.
But he wasn’t the only one. Concertmaster
David Kim, whose artistry continues to make
a larger and larger impression, made the most
of the divine solos – and here the composer
seems to dole out more than usual for the
violin. And in contrast to reports I heard
about his offstage "posthorn" solos
in Philadelphia, David Bilger on trumpet was
pretty much flawless here. Every time that
far left stage door opened, his sound suffused
the hall with a dreamlike nostalgia that was
completely transporting. This is one of the
characteristics I love about Mahler: the rapid-fire
contrast between gigantic walls of sound,
constructed in a way that no one else had
imagined, alternating with those winsome moments
that make stars out of everyone in the ensemble.
When Bilger finally returned to his chair,
his colleagues grinned, quietly tapping their
hands against their legs in appreciation.
This was some of the most beautiful trumpet
playing I’ve heard in a long time.
You
could not have asked for a better soloist
than Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, here in majestic
form. Poised in the center of the very back
row of the choirs, she was able to flood the
hall with Joy is deeper than heartache!
– and made me believe every word, with Richard
Woodhams’ oboe adding a sensual accompaniment.
Sometimes this vocal part can sound faint
or timid, but not here, where her focus made
a relatively brief movement persist much longer
in the memory. And the two choirs, huge in
number but used oh-so-sparingly, created a
smiling interlude between the imposing half-hour
pillars that begin and end this piece.
The
sublime final movement can sound frightfully
sentimental and redundant in the wrong hands,
but Eschenbach’s deliberate pace – yes, too
slow for some – worked for me, and despite
some intonation problems, the emotion came
through piercingly clear. This movement seems
like a devil to keep in tune, and I don’t
like reporting that even the Philadelphia
musicians seemed stymied from being able to
deliver a "perfect" performance
(if there even is such an animal). But nevertheless
my mind often departed from the physical production
of the music onstage and began to wander to
more spiritual plateaus, and from the silence
of those around me, I could sense the same
happening elsewhere. It is a tribute to Eschenbach’s
intelligence and magnetism that most of the
glitches seemed unimportant and faded into
the background, with his unflagging intensity
as the compass.
Bruce Hodges
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