I know that all of you are anxious to know what my impressions were of the centennial performance of M8 in the U.S. as I experienced it on Sunday, March 13, 2016. Well, let me say that it was the M8 performance of all M8's that I will remember for the rest of my life, with the possible exception of the two performances of the work in which I was a part of with the Washington National Cathedral Choral Society in 1974.
Other than having an excellent musical machine like the Philadelphia Orchestra to accompany the singers, the two choruses, the Westminster Symphonic Choir and the Choral Arts Society of Washington, DC (the latter of which served as Chorus II in these performances and as a part of my 1974 performances, plus is Chorus II in the Gergiev LSO recording), these two ensembles probably formed the battery of the two most experienced groups in the country to perform the work, with the possible exception of the CSO Chorus and Boston's Tanglewood Festival Chorus. I wasn't all that familiar with the soloists singing the work, with the exception of Angela Meade, but they certainly did a creditable job in their parts. The American Boychoir made up the children's chorus.
All performers, not to mention conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, were certainly up to their tasks. If you listened to the on-line feed of the performance via WRTI (Philadelphia's NPR affiliate) I don't know how well balances between orchestra and singers sounded to you, but everything sounded excellent to me at my seat in the second Tier. The organ was full, rounded, and sounded as loud and powerful as it needed to be (the Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ in Verizon Hall is touted as the largest concert hall organ in the U.S.). Nézet-Séguin's musical background is basically that of a choral conductor, so he certainly knew what he was doing. He marshaled his forces through an excellent Part I, and what impressed me at rehearsal numbers 42-45 of the score was how he made the legendary Philadelphia string sections show their stuff through those sections, something you rarely hear masterfully executed in any performance of the work. His tempi were slightly faster in some sections than I hear other conductors take the work, but everything came out crystal clear, and it couldn't have sounded better.
It was announced before the performance started that there would be an intermission of 15 minutes. For whatever reason that was done, which I never did hear why, I thought that was a waste, and that if there was to be a break, I would have preferred something that would last no more than five minutes, as Mahler calls for between the first and second movements of M2. What happened was that ALL of the performers exited the stage, with the exception of the nearly 30-strong American Boychoir. Which brings me to my one other complaint - there ought to have been a larger children's chorus, at least double the number that there were, but the problem was that the stage in the Verizon Hall wasn't big enough to hold any more people. In their one shining moment in Part II, they tried their best, despite being few in number, and the orchestra tended to drown them out.
Nézet-Séguin undertook Part II with liberal adjustments in tempi, taking good advantage of
rubato and
portamento at all the appropriate places. When time came for the
Chorus Mysticus, both choruses undertook the
pppp dynamic level in perfect balance, with no vibrato whatsoever, making the effect all that more impressive. As the dynamic levels increased, Nézet-Séguin took advantage of the temptation to slow the tempo down, but unlike so many other performances and recordings, the more the tempo slows down, the sound tends to weaken and lose impact. That did NOT happen! Dynamic levels were sustained, the offstage brass groups did a glorious job in their stations on either side of the organ cabinet, producing one of the most stupendous sounds I have ever heard.
Below is a link to the
Philadelphia Inquirer's review of the concert, with some accompanying photos:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/entertainment/20160312_Phila__Orchestra_delivers_a_mighty__Symphony_of_a_Thousand__at_Verizon_Hall.htmlWade
Topic: Report-Centennial Performance of M8 in the U.S.-Philadelphia, March 10-13, 2016 (Read 9466 times)