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Orchestra's "Symphony of a Thousand' (1st review)
Steve Cohen
Can we get real, please,
about Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand?
STEVE COHEN
It’s time for someone to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Mahler’s massive Symphony of a Thousand is no masterpiece.
The marshaling of diverse choruses and unusual instruments is interesting, but the music it ultimately generates really is unsatisfying compared to other Mahler symphonies and other choral/orchestral compositions.
I’m glad that Christoph Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra performed this logistically challenging work this weekend, just as I’m happy that Leopold Stokowski’s 1916 American premiere established the reputation of that conductor and this orchestra. But I will not jump on any bandwagon that confuses magnitude with beauty.
OK, I’m exaggerating for dramatic effect– a trait I picked up from Mahler.
Shades of Alfred Hitchcock
A listener will indeed encounter moments of great beauty in Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand (his Eighth Symphony in E-flat major), especially the orchestral introduction to the second half. And I love the unusual instrumental combinations as Mahler uses four harps, organ, cor anglais, glockenspiel, mandolin and harmonium. But one must also endure long, dull sections. And the final section, with its upwardly-yearning choral writing, sounds painfully close to the climax of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much–the concert scene where an assassin plans to shoot a diplomat at the chorus’s high C. Notwithstanding the wonderful singing Thursday night, I kept waiting for Doris Day to scream at the penultimate moment.
The shorter first "half" is the more interesting of the symphony’s two parts. Mahler’s text, Veni Creator Spiritus ("Come, Creator spirit”) reflects the composer’s obsession with the creative process. The connection with Mahler’s personal story is affecting, and so is his use of Baroque conventions like double fugues. But the long second part, based on the conclusion of Goethe’s Faust, is a tedious and bromidic paean to the Virgin Mother that rings false when we consider that Mahler never practiced any religion; he converted from Judaism to Catholicism only to get the job of music director in Vienna. The sentiment is manipulative and the music sounds repetitious.
"Imagine that the Universe bursts into song,” Mahler wrote about this work in a letter to the conductor Willem Mengelberg. “We hear no longer human voices, but those of planets and suns which revolve." This is another way of saying that one sometimes can hear what one wants to hear. Undoubtedly that’s what’s happening with each listener this weekend.
Eschenbach’s triumph
The text is divided among five female solo singers and three males, plus several choirs, including one for boys only. Eschenbach’s lineup of talent was superb. Christine Bewer’s soprano soared over the choruses and her high notes were thrilling. Stephanie Blythe’s rich mezzo is stunning, and the other female parts were sung with ethereal beauty by Marisol Montalvo, Michaela Kaune and Charlotte Hellekant.
Anthony Dean Griffey, the Metropolitan Opera tenor (Peter Grimes) who stepped in at the last moment, sang his important part with lyric innocence. James Morris rolled out his solid bass to good effect but seemed less comfortable singing about God than when he appeared as a god in Die Walkure this season in New York. Franco Pomponi was the stalwart baritone.
The choruses sang well while the Philadelphia Orchestra added its rich timbre. Eschenbach stationed a brass section in the second balcony to add antiphonal drama to the conclusion of each half of the symphony. The conductor kept a relatively steady pace to score one of his most impressive accomplishments here.
One question: Eschenbach used fewer than 500 singers and players for this Symphony of a Thousand, explaining that’s the most that can fit in Verizon Hall. Did he mean physically or acoustically? How did Stokowski successfully fit 1,068 performers into the less-spacious Academy of Music in 1916? The Academy stage was extended outward and the choristers were crammed close together on bleachers. But that’s only a partial explanation. I don’t know the entire answer.
To read another review by Tom Purdom, click here.
To read a response, click here.
about Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand?
STEVE COHEN
It’s time for someone to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Mahler’s massive Symphony of a Thousand is no masterpiece.
The marshaling of diverse choruses and unusual instruments is interesting, but the music it ultimately generates really is unsatisfying compared to other Mahler symphonies and other choral/orchestral compositions.
I’m glad that Christoph Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra performed this logistically challenging work this weekend, just as I’m happy that Leopold Stokowski’s 1916 American premiere established the reputation of that conductor and this orchestra. But I will not jump on any bandwagon that confuses magnitude with beauty.
OK, I’m exaggerating for dramatic effect– a trait I picked up from Mahler.
Shades of Alfred Hitchcock
A listener will indeed encounter moments of great beauty in Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand (his Eighth Symphony in E-flat major), especially the orchestral introduction to the second half. And I love the unusual instrumental combinations as Mahler uses four harps, organ, cor anglais, glockenspiel, mandolin and harmonium. But one must also endure long, dull sections. And the final section, with its upwardly-yearning choral writing, sounds painfully close to the climax of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much–the concert scene where an assassin plans to shoot a diplomat at the chorus’s high C. Notwithstanding the wonderful singing Thursday night, I kept waiting for Doris Day to scream at the penultimate moment.
The shorter first "half" is the more interesting of the symphony’s two parts. Mahler’s text, Veni Creator Spiritus ("Come, Creator spirit”) reflects the composer’s obsession with the creative process. The connection with Mahler’s personal story is affecting, and so is his use of Baroque conventions like double fugues. But the long second part, based on the conclusion of Goethe’s Faust, is a tedious and bromidic paean to the Virgin Mother that rings false when we consider that Mahler never practiced any religion; he converted from Judaism to Catholicism only to get the job of music director in Vienna. The sentiment is manipulative and the music sounds repetitious.
"Imagine that the Universe bursts into song,” Mahler wrote about this work in a letter to the conductor Willem Mengelberg. “We hear no longer human voices, but those of planets and suns which revolve." This is another way of saying that one sometimes can hear what one wants to hear. Undoubtedly that’s what’s happening with each listener this weekend.
Eschenbach’s triumph
The text is divided among five female solo singers and three males, plus several choirs, including one for boys only. Eschenbach’s lineup of talent was superb. Christine Bewer’s soprano soared over the choruses and her high notes were thrilling. Stephanie Blythe’s rich mezzo is stunning, and the other female parts were sung with ethereal beauty by Marisol Montalvo, Michaela Kaune and Charlotte Hellekant.
Anthony Dean Griffey, the Metropolitan Opera tenor (Peter Grimes) who stepped in at the last moment, sang his important part with lyric innocence. James Morris rolled out his solid bass to good effect but seemed less comfortable singing about God than when he appeared as a god in Die Walkure this season in New York. Franco Pomponi was the stalwart baritone.
The choruses sang well while the Philadelphia Orchestra added its rich timbre. Eschenbach stationed a brass section in the second balcony to add antiphonal drama to the conclusion of each half of the symphony. The conductor kept a relatively steady pace to score one of his most impressive accomplishments here.
One question: Eschenbach used fewer than 500 singers and players for this Symphony of a Thousand, explaining that’s the most that can fit in Verizon Hall. Did he mean physically or acoustically? How did Stokowski successfully fit 1,068 performers into the less-spacious Academy of Music in 1916? The Academy stage was extended outward and the choristers were crammed close together on bleachers. But that’s only a partial explanation. I don’t know the entire answer.
To read another review by Tom Purdom, click here.
To read a response, click here.
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