Drowning Ghosts

San Francisco Symphony: Mahler '09 Festival
Michael Tilson Thomas: conductor
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA

Hymnos (1963) Giacinto Scelsi
Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor (1901) Gustav Mahler

The restricted note content of Hymnos - enriched by microtonal variation and overtone spectrum scattered through two "mirrored" orchestras and organ - is composed in a manner that produces an unearthly phantom "choir" sound of difference tones that hovers in the invisible ether beyond the performers on stage. A psycho acoustic effect referenced by the title of the piece. A fleeting glimpse into the transcendent sonic spaces Scelsi explored through meditation and his singular fixation on tone. It's one of the qualities that makes Hymnos such a compelling work.

This phantom choir did not appear at Saturday night's performance. Subdued - or scared off - by the multitude of mortal humans in the concert hall. But mostly drowned out by volume. The unearthly choir of difference tones is easily dissipated by performing too loudly. Which is understandable given the extreme courage it takes to operate at low volume levels in a room full of restless souls squirming and coughing throughout the concert hall. This particular performance was prefaced by a long introduction and explanation of Giacinto Scelsi's aesthetic from Michael Tilson Thomas. Downplaying the intensity of spirituality, meditation and insanity and the roles each respectively plays within Scelsi's music at the expense of over emphasizing his eccentricities is perhaps the correct manner for introducing the uninitiated to this incredible sonic universe. Though I think some of this earnest desire to make the music more broadly appealing may have played a role in softening - in this case "loudening" - a performance more closely attuned to its origins. Meditation as ritual and exotic recourse as opposed to looking unflinchingly within.

Even with these compromises, Hymnos took on brilliant qualities as various details of the composition emerged from the stage. It is an amazing piece that prismatically allows different sonic elements to emerge given any range interpretive liberties. I suspect the phantom choir is absent more often than not.

The second "half" (splitting a program into an 11-minute "half" and a 70-minute "half" making for an oddly unnecessary intermission) featured the workhorse Mahler Symphony No. 5 that most in the hall were there to hear. No introduction. No explanation. Just the sprawling, late-Romantic score unfolding within a language co-opted for nearly a century of Hollywood film scores written in its wake. Moments of exquisite orchestration and arranging glued together with legato string lines. And devilishly well crafted crescendos into crowd pleasing codas. A pleasant piece that draws upon the pathos of Gustav Mahler that not-so-subtly evokes the ghosts of another era. A work that is loud by design, and the symphony played it that way.

Symphony in Orbit

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Sunday, September 21, 2008 & Sunday, September 28, 2008 @ Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
Baltimore, MD

-The Planets-
Marin Alsop: conductor
Evelyn Glennie: percussion
Women of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society
Tom Hall: Music Director
Leo Wanechak: Assistant Conductor

Brunnhilde's Immolation Scene from Gotterdammerung by Richard Wagner
UFO by Michael Daugherty
The Planets by Gustav Holst

-Mahler's Titan-
Marin Alsop: Conductor
Kelly O'Connor: Mezzo-soprano

Symphony No. 1 "Jeremiah" by Leonard Bernstein
Symphony No. 1 "Titan" by Gustav Mahler

The opening two concerts of the 2008-9 season of the Baltimore Symphony proved to be generous to composers named "Gustav." Launching with a subject of celestial bodies; an excerpt from Wagner's Ring Cycle and Daugherty's Project Blue Book inspired UFO as a warm up to The Planets transformed the Meyerhoff into the symphonic equivalent of Area 51. The exquisite orchestration throughout Gustav Holst's famous orchestral work had these ears craving to perform an autopsy on the score. The journey through the Zodiac of Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune took on a warm radiance under the baton of Marin Alsop that allowed surprising detail to emerge from this warhorse.

Compared to the incredible orchestration of The Planets, the contemporary percussion concerto - written specifically for Evelyn Glennie - felt transparent. It is a fantastic percussion piece that miraculously avoids the novelty of its "other worldly" sounds of amplified waterphone, mechanical siren and invented instruments. The orchestration felt like an afterthought when juxtaposed against the inventiveness of the solo part. The large assemblage of instruments went largely underused for much of this composition as it was mostly limited to coloration and accompaniment. I had hoped for an "abduction" movement where the symphonic players might overwhelm the soloist for a spell.

The following week presented a program of First Symphonies by composers focused upon the spiritual realm. Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 tells the story of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah through orchestral and voice. The weighty subject felt surprisingly light given the wealth of lyrical themes and the brevity of the work as a whole. A pleasant, well orchestrated and well performed work that effervescently dissolved into the early afternoon.

As an undergraduate student I once spent a Sunday determined to develop an understanding of the music of Gustav Mahler. Armed with a score for the Symphony No. 1 I followed along with a recording completely unprepared for the magnitude of this sprawling masterpiece. The spiritual struggle that drives this - and much of Mahler's other works - was lost on me at the time as a young student struggling to digest the language of late-Romanticism. But what did impress me was the arrangement and the way Mahler weaves his thematic layers throughout this music.

Hearing this piece in the concert hall makes the gravity and staying power of the "Titan" much clearer. With ears more open to the nineteenth century the thematic layers were even more impressive - and hauntingly familiar - this time through. There were some intonation problems in the brass section toward the end of an otherwise brilliant reading. This was a performance to melt ears once hostile to the sound wold of Gustav Mahler.

Of Alsop, Adams and Mahler

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Marin Alsop, conductor
Sunday, September 30, 2007 @ The Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Baltimore, MD

John Adams: Fearful Symmetries
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5

Separated by nearly a century and composing within two completely different eras there is a surprising balance of contrasts and similarities between John Adams and Gustav Mahler. And as an opening salvo for Marin Alsop's first program of the season as the conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, this concert held the promise a bright future filled with spirited interpretations of exciting new works mixed in with several war horses.

Alsop proved to be light on her feet through the churning minimalist textures of Fearful Symmetries. Awash with resonant consonance, simple arranging and transparent sequential logic, Fearful Symmetries had the feel of a MIDI sequencer file arranged for orchestra and synthesizer. Composed in 1988, the percussive synthesizer timbres that start off this work felt dated and were well balanced even if somewhat removed from the overall orchestral soundscape. It is a light work that splashes pleasantly against the ears.

Under Alsop's baton, Mahler's Symphony No. 5 takes on a level of clarity and lightness I don't normally associate with the dark plodding of quality of Mahler's orchestral writing. The detailed, long winded unfolding of this music was a welcome contrast of weight and density that was exquisitely rendered. The sequence from the funeral march of the first movement toward the lighter expressions of joy in the final movements passed over the Meyerhoff like a sunrise, leaving a sense of optimism in its wake.

The combination of Adams and Mahler is an interesting one. Several bloggers and music aficionados I respect have expressed enormous enthusiasm for both composers that seems way out of proportion to anything I've heard so far.

I haven't yet heard Adams' more recent works, but I have attended several performances of his early pieces and they've stuck me as paradoxical in his willingness to sacrifice concept in favor of orchestration. The bouncing octaves in the bass section of Fearful Symmetries being a perfect example in their non-ironic (and unintentional) allusion to a disco cliche. The former serialist composer within me wants to critique the lack of harmonic content (knowing that I'm applying an unfair standard in this case). And the jazz arranger within me questions the banality of such a line. Either way, there's plenty of Adams scheduled over this season and I'll keep listening until I figure out what the fuss is about.

With Mahler it has taken time to penetrate the excesses of his late Romantic style. And lately I've started to warm up to the dense, expressive chromaticism of his music. Continued exposure to performances like this one could make a Mahler fan out of me yet. Like Adams, I will continue to seek this music out with open ears.