MTT conducts Mahler as if all is right in the world
OrchestrasFrom Joshua Kosman’s review of Michael Tilson Thomas’s last set of Mahler 5ths with the San Francisco Symphony:
Sometimes it seems as if the music of Gustav Mahler has been the recurrent soundtrack of our lives in the Bay Area.
With Michael Tilson Thomas leading the San Francisco Symphony, time after time and year after year, these resplendent orchestral works have informed our world with their wisdom, their pathos and their ability to make time stand still.
So it was more than fitting — it was practically preordained — that the composer’s Fifth Symphony was the music to close the book on Thomas’ galvanizing 50-year history with this orchestra, as guest conductor, music director and now music director laureate…
It had to be Mahler. It was always Mahler.
That much was clear from the symphony’s opening measures, in which the famous trumpet solo was delivered with clarion brilliance by associate principal Aaron Schuman. You could see Thomas’ entire body relax; he was home again.
What ensued over the next hour and a half was something both familiar and reliably thrilling, a performance replete with dramatic tension, poignancy and grace.
The ferocious wit and ire of the central third movement emerged as a coiled explosion.
The orchestra, with blue ribbons on their lapels as a nod to the music director’s favorite color, sounded full of fire and delicacy. Thomas, who never once looked at the score open on the podium in front of him, summoned up all the old mastery…
For an all-too-brief 90 minutes, Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony played Mahler’s music in Davies Symphony Hall, and all was right with the world.
Read full review here.
I was fortunate to see MTT conduct the CSO this past November 30.
I was quite impressed by the principal horn (but did not know who he was).
It was Michael Stevens, principal of the Rochester Philharmonic
Does anyone know what’s happening with the principal horn position? I understand David Cooper was offered the position a while back, but no announcement has been made. Did he turn it down?
He is now assoc. principal here in LA
Thank you, but he won the SF audition after that appointment. I’ve heard he is still in contract negotiations with SF, but that would have started way back in October. It seems like an awful long time to negotiate.
I was surprised to see that he is on next season’s Philadelphia Orchestra schedule.
As Mahler has so often been in the mind, soul, heart, arms and hands of Michael.
„For an all-too-brief 90 minutes, Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony played Mahler’s music in Davies Symphony Hall, and all was right with the world.“
Maybe in San Francisco, but in the lands in which Mahler was born, trained, composed, and performed, Sinfonie Nr V should take no longer than (give or take) 60 minutes. Listen to the Bruno Walter performance from Carnegie Hall in 1947 for the most authentic performance on record.
As told to me by the man who prepared the most recent edition of this symphony (2003), any performance of the adagietto longer than nine minutes would be, quite simply, „Pervers”. Mahler himself brought it in under seven minutes, as per the archives of the Concertgebouw and other sources<.
I can already feel the downward thumbs, but I was neither satisfied nor entertained by any of MTT’s Mahler. Yes, he is a magnificent conductor and has brought many hours of enlightenment and entertainment to me, but I always felt his Mahler fell short of the composer’s intents.
I was about to say the same thing. 65′ max. (But I can live with a 12′ adagietto. There are way more important issues, such as a convincing finale.) Best I ever heard of easily 30 performances over 50 years was Honeck/Pittsburg at DGH in NYC. I was astonished.
It also should never be the entire program. I particularly like the one that didn’t happen in Philadelphia in 2018: Schoenberg PC/M5.
Completely agree. Last time he played the 5th in London I found his conducting willful and indulgent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZZGZo5luzI
Far more “Pervers” than a 9+ minute adagietto is the notion that there is but one, correct way to perform a piece of music. I find such musical (or rather unmusical) fundamentalism nauseating. As Mahler himself said, a man who was not above “retouching” the symphonies of Beethoven and Schumann besides indulging in a plethora of other interpretive “liberties” with the music of other composers, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of fire.”
Bravo tutti!
Joshua Kosman writes consistently excellent reviews. He has an insight into the music.
MTT’s recording of Mahler 5 is 72 minutes, so I would doubt 90 minutes is accurate. As to the adagietto, older recordings run from 7 minutes (Mengelberg ) to 9 minutes-perhaps the slowdown began with Bernstein.
I was at the Friday night performance, and it was exactly 90 minutes. Many of the tempi were slower and heavier than in his recording – undoubtedly due in part to his medical condition, but also because he knew these were his farewell concerts with the SF Symphony and wanted to take more time in certain passages, which makes perfect sense for such a sentimental occasion. I was impressed that he stood the entire time without assistance, and only used the score for the last movement. The ovations both before and after were very moving.
For me, at least, an Adagietto lasting between 7 and 9 minutes sounds rushed and passionless. I far prefer the slower versions conducted by Bernstein, Karajan, Haitink, etc., which sound far more heartfelt and emotionally invested.
I was at Fridays Performance. The movement times were as follows.
1st movement: 14:22
2nd movement: 17:50
3rd Movement: 22:37
4th Movement: 13:42
5th Movement: 19:37
Adding up to a 1:28:16
Definitely a slow Mahler 5
I went to the public rehearsal on Thursday morning before the first evening performance. From beginning to end, MTT’s tempos were so much slower than I’d ever heard him conduct this piece with the SFSO. It was actually shocking to my ears. First I thought that his illness must be slowing him down. In the rehearsal, the Scherzo had absolutely no energy at all, especially in its final measures. And even the coda of the concluding Rondo-Finale was a letdown — which almost never happens with Mahler 5.
I found this review by Mr. Kosman earlier on Google. I am sure those who attended this concert, as well as the people writing the comments preceding mine, will recognize the intense emotional significance of witnessing this wonderful musician essentially saying his farewell to his orchestra and audience. I am a retired neuroradiologist, specializing in diseases of the brain and spine, and the awful disease that has attacked Maestro Thomas is about the worst that can be encountered. I can only admire him for his grace and courage in the face of this implacable adversary, and I am sure whatever tempo he chose came straight from his heart. Many years ago, through the kindness of my closest friend, Jules Eskin, the late principal cellist from the BSO, I got to go backstage on an extremely hot and humid night at Tanglewood to meet MTT. He was in the “green room,” still wearing his white shirt saturated with the sweat from his rendition of Mahler 2. I could not resist giving him a hug and whispered in his ear- “Only a Jew can play Mahler as you did it tonight!” He smiled broadly. I have a treasured photo of that moment taken by Jules, proudly displayed on my mantle.
I think that pretty much captures it.
MTT, a courageous gentleman and a towering musical talent. ❤️
The title here is misleading, probably unintentionally.
Norman’s title suggests that MTT and the orchestra are oblivious to all the suffering going on today in different parts of the world, and their playing of Mahler is lacking in empathy and complexity, as if they think that “all is right with the world.”
But that’s the total opposite of what the reviewer Joshua Kosman meant!
When you read the entire article, you immediately understand that Kosman
meant that the although the world is awash with massacres (over 26000 killed in Gaza mostly women and children) and violent threats (Houthis) and all kinds of strife, the music of MTT & the orchestra was so emotionally uplifting that the audience was transported to an imaginary world, and it seemed as if “all was right with the world”.
I think Norman was trying to be clever, but he turned Joshua’s words upside down. That’s unfortunate.