I think what Dave says about having supertitles during an M8 performance is interesting, and surely "right on the money". That's in the last paragraph. He also complains about the choral forces - particularly the childrens chorus - being too small. But it's my impression that Carnegie Hall would be very challenged to fit extremely large choral forces. I have a feeling that the Verizon Hall performances will probably work much better (the Carnegie Hall performance was actually before, not after the Verizon Hall ones). I'm afraid I wouldn't care for Vinson Cole's tenor performance either, though (reviewed in the fourth paragraph}.
ESCHENBACH AND PHILLY IN DISAPPOINTING MAHLER 8TH
Carnegie Hall, New York; May 7, 2008
Everyone knows that Mahler's Eighth Symphony can be played by much fewer than the 1000 performers of its nickname, "Symphony of a Thousand," which the composer himself decried. However, no matter how many musicians actually take part, the work has to sound as it's so often billed--as an epic, an overwhelming aural experience. So the problem with Eschenbach's Mahler at Carnegie Hall didn't stem solely from the fact that his forces were too meager, but rather because under his baton the work sounded so casual, so unspecial, so much like the "Symphony of a Coupla Hundred." This was particularly true of the first movement (or Part One), even though Eschenbach opened with an aptly impulsive basic tempo and never let the quieter passages for the soloists bog down. All of this was admirable, but the great central fugue revealed his unwillingness to indulge the music's grandeur. The children's choir was woefully understaffed, and consequently largely inaudible, and why not use Mahler's requested three sets of cymbals at the climax? Noisy? Excessive? For sure, but if you don't like excess, then stay away from this symphony.
So size, or the illusion of size, does matter. Eschenbach's failure to embrace the music's grandiosity was compounded by a shockingly casual indulgence of slack rhythm and poor ensemble. This was simply inexcusable, particularly given the by-no-means unwieldy forces involved. There were four strikingly embarrassing moments where the music threatened to escape Eschenbach's control: the first movement's coda, the second passionate outburst (largely for strings) in Part Two's adagio introduction, the scherzando episode at the first entrance of the children's choir (conducted far too quickly and without a shred of playfulness), and the orchestral interlude after "Blicket auf!" where the harps, celesta, and percussion were entirely out of step. Add to these lapses some self-indulgent touches, most notably the huge retard just before the final reprise of the closing chorus, which actually added a couple of extra beats to the linking choral line for the women, and the result was an interpretation that truly lost site of basic musical values in a quest for a few unconvincing effects.
Indeed, it's very difficult to dismiss the notion that Eschenbach doesn't particularly like this music, or if he does like it, doesn't understand it. How else can we explain his habit, in Part Two, of taking Mahler's "flowing" and "don't drag" instructions invariably as license to slow down? This turned the entire final third of the movement, from the arias and trio for the female soloists onward, into a lugubrious trudge. In Gretchen's solo, just before the appearance of the Mater Gloriosa, Eschenbach became steadily slower bars before Mahler asked for an actual ritard. Not only did this make the vocal part much more difficult to sing, it considerably dimmed the triumphant, glowing reappearance of the "Veni Creator" theme in the brass. Time and again Eschenbach pushed and pulled at the music with impulses that were almost always at variance with what Mahler either clearly wrote, or with what the music itself seemed to want to do. Yes, there were some lovely sounds, helped in no small measure by the presence of four harps (at least in this respect Mahler got what he wanted), but in an effort to avoid stressing Part Two’s populist, folksy style, one that at times deliberately flirts with kitsch, Eschenbach's distortions wound up throwing out not just sentimentality, but sentiment.
This leaves us with the eight soloists. The Eighth is really two very different works: a polyphonic extravaganza in Part One, and an oratorio-like sequence of choruses and solo numbers in Part Two. In the former, the vocal soloists cooperated very well and blended nicely, while sopranos Christine Brewer and Michaela Kaune tossed off their innumerable high Cs with aplomb. In Part Two, the women again provided the evening’s highlights, led off by Brewer who survived an excruciatingly slow tempo for her solo as Magna Peccatrix, and with alto Stephanie Blythe simply sensational as Mulier samaritana and in her earlier solo with chorus. The one disappointment on the female side was Marisol Montalvo’s harsh and wobbly Mater gloriosa, sung from the Hall’s balcony. Why they used her was a mystery, as her voice was completely lacking the purity this single line of exquisite melody demands. As for the men, the less said the better. Baritone Franco Pomponi wasn’t bad given Eschenbach’s crawl through “Ewiger Wonnebrand.” Bass James Morris sounded worn and unsteady in pitch, though his high notes were impressive. Tenor Vinson Cole crooned his way through Doctor Marianus’ music in a manner little short of disgusting. His light, thin voice stands about as far away from the Heldentenor timbre Mahler requires as it’s possible to be.
In the end, all of the singers were audibly hampered by Eschenbach’s inability to conduct the music with the simplicity and naturalness that makes Mahler’s most potentially mawkish moments sound compelling. Even the supertitles, a nice touch you might suspect, added to the performance’s aura of strangeness. You looked up to see odd bits of text such as, “Thou of the sevenfold gifts, Finger upon the right hand of the father,” and “Cudgels, O shatter me, And lightening, storm through me” flash by seemingly at random. Thus rendered out of context, two lines at a time, they made the words appear more disjointed and incomprehensible than necessary. Overall the weaknesses in the performance were magnified by the knowledge that these forces had already given the work in Philadelphia the prior week, and so should have been comfortable with the music and Eschenbach’s view of it. Of course, everyone has a bad night now and then, but in this case the problems went far deeper than can be chalked up to mere happenstance. These were sins of commission, not just omission, and many of them were unforgivable.
David Hurwitz
Topic: D.H. on Eschenbach/Philly M8 @ Carnegie Hall (Read 8139 times)