June 5, 2016 In his review of the Oct. 3, 2010  concert that launched Sebastian Lang-Lessing’s tenure as music director of the San Antonio Symphony, my colleague Mike Greenberg declared the account of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 to be “an incandescent and high definition retelling.” It was that and more in its stirring encore performance June 3 at the Tobin Center, conducted by maestro Lang-Lessing to close the season. Having missed the 2010 concert, I have no basis for comparison, but I can recall none that was more perceptive, masterfully paced or vividly detailed than this one (including one led by Zubin Mehta at the Grand Teton Music Festival). Six years of growing synchronicity between Mr. Lang-Lessing and his forces is a likely reason, as is the concert’s having taken place in the new hall with its laudable acoustics. This is the score that opens like the dawn with bucolic sounds, including the unmistakable call of the cuckoo, and moves to a cheerfully galumphing Ländler folk dance interspersed with quotations from the composer’s Songs of a Wayfarer. The third movement is a funeral march featuring a haunting fugue built on a minor-key statement of “Frère Jacques,” spiced with klezmer music and sprinkled with numerous solo passages from virtually all sections. The finale opens with a thunderous crash (which Alma Schindler is said to have described as an “ear-shattering din”) before turning to a sumptuously melodic mid-section and concluding with a glorious brass fanfare. With all that in less than an hour, it is still the shortest of Mahler’s nine symphonies. As is his custom, Mr. Lang-Lessing paid careful attention to the composer’s many instructions while putting his own mark on them. The opening phrases were gossamer quiet, octave A’s from lowest strings to topmost, overlaid with themes that gracefully ping-ponged among sections and soloists. The second movement dance with its clattering bows on strings and fleeting dissonances was enchanting, especially when it evolved into the rather sappy little trio section. Mr. Lang-Lessing expertly guided the complex third movement as it lurched from that odd fugue to the curious klezmer music and pop tunes of the time. Its final phrases are stranger still – all that quirkiness shifts to a rich, lyrical section built on the plaintive last of the Wayfarer songs.The finale was carefully shaped, but – because it was what the maestro knew it was supposed to be – never felt contrived. It opened with thunder, sang with luxurience as the earliest themes were reiterated, and as Mahler instructs, closed with a glorious fanfare involving all eight horns standing and playing with “bells up.” The concert opened with an especially elegant view of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D, featuring Augustin Hadelich, 32, winner of the 2016 Grammy for “best classical instrumental solo” (Dutilleux's L’Arbre des Songes concerto with the Seattle Symphony). Born to German parents but reared in Italy, he is now an American citizen who makes his home in New York City. The piece is notoriously difficult, not so much because of its technicality, but because of its unyielding transparency and delicacy. Any misstep is painfully obvious. That was not a problem for Mr. Hadelich, whose warm, flexible performance was offered with gleaming tone and adept musicianship. His bright-voiced 1723 Stradivarius was ideal for this unusually exposed score.The virtuosic Fritz Kreisler cadenza was delivered with especially agile technique and incisive articulation. Mr. Lang-lessing, et al, provided expressive, warmly balanced support. The noisily appreciative audience was rewarded with a glittering Paganini Caprice.Interesting that both works on this concert were roundly faulted at their first performances. Those audiences might have reacted differently if they could have heard these…. Principal flute Martha Long was among the many excellent section soloists in both works. Alas, she and her golden (really!) instrument will be moving to Portland to join the Oregon Symphony. Additionally, it was announced that assistant principal trumpet Jan Roller is retiring after a whopping 43 years as a member of this orchestra. Diane Windeler

incident light

respond

Mahler 1 revisited, six years on

music

SA Symphony, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Augustin Hadelich

Augustin Hadelich