concert report: M2 @ Stanford's new Bing Concert Hall

[barry guerrero]

Hi folks,

I went with a friend to his very first Mahler concert, M2 at Stanford University's new Bing Concert Hall. This is a person who goes to lots of rock and blues shows. Afterwards, he said to me, "wow, that was really loud!". I had warned him that because of the configuration of the new Bing hall, it was going to be a real, 'in your face' experience. Bing Hall looks similar, in some respects, to Disney Hall in L.A. Yasuhisa Toyota was the acoustic designer for both halls. But Bing has a much, much smaller seating capacity than Disney. No matter where you're seated in Bing, you're not far from the stage. That stage itself had ample room for a large string section, along with all the extra winds and percussion that M2 requires. Nobody was cramped on stage. Only two harps were used - I like to see four. There was plenty of space behind the orchestra for the 170 member chorale (combined choruses from San Jose and Berkeley). The offstage brass sounded excellent, as though Bing might have special chambers for that purpose (I really don't know). An electronic organ was used, but it sounded really good, and had ample bass on the lowest tones too.

Unlike many community orchestras, the Stanford Symphony actually has better strings than winds or percussion. By and large, the brass section was fine - particularly the horns (who were great!). The guy covering the bass drum was excellent, and wasn't at all shy about making huge crescendos on his numerous rolls (where the music calls for that). The weakest players were the fellow who covered the cymbals (who even got momentarily lost near the end of the finale), and the young woman covering the large tam-tam (she simply underplayed the gong at the end of the symphony, as so often happens). The two timpanists were pretty good, and were separated antiphonally. The conductor did an excellent job (Jindong Cai). He pegged the climax of the first movement's development section, and did a beautiful job on the second movement, but without dragging it in any way. The scherzo was a tad fast for my liking, but he did a fine job of pegging the climax in this movement as well. All of the offstage sections in the finale came off really well. The two vocalists were quite good, but were a tad difficult to hear clearly in softer passages.

The ending to the symphony had tremendous volume and visceral impact. As is so often the case though, more could have been done with the final chord of the symphony (Mahler wrote that only the second timpanist has a crescendo on the final chord, and it almost never makes enough of an impact). I really think that if I were to conduct M2, I would do what Ravel does with Mussorgsky's "Pictures": I would continue to have the large tam-tam make ever louder salvos all the way the end. Next time you listen to "Pictures", pay attention to the end and think about how it might be applied to M2. I think a crescendo on a second bass drum might be appropriate as well. Regardless, this was a very powerful and satisfying M2. Because of the fine acoustics and relatively small size of the hall, even the quietest passages registered with great clarity (except for the vocal soloists, at times).

http://events.stanford.edu/events/389/38917/