SA Symphony with Campestrini
An elegant Mahler Fifth
from the center of the tradition
October 18, 2008As the political pundits tell us, these times call for steady, clear-eyed, intelligent leadership -- calm, cool and collected, though not, of course, without feeling.
And that is what we got from guest conductor Christoph Campestrini in an elegant account of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 with the San Antonio Symphony, Oct. 17 in the Majestic Theater.
A candidate to succeed former music director Larry Rachleff, Campestrini has conducted this orchestra twice before, most recently last spring in a feverish, unsettled, sometimes garish but altogether compelling performance of Tchaikovsky’s feverish, unsettled, sometimes garish Symphony No. 6.
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is about ... well, everything. It’s rather like an epic novel, structurally a grand arch that rises from grief to fury, looks down somewhat wistfully from its apex, discovers love -- in the tender caress of the famous Adagietto -- and lands at last with giddy triumph.
Campestrini’s account of this muic was a far cry from Enrique Diemecke’s provocative, idiosyncratic, erratic -- mavericky? -- view of the same work in a 2001 performance that was widely (though not quite justly) pilloried by listeners and musicians.
A native of Linz, Austria, Campestrini hewed to the center of the Mahler tradition and, indeed, the Austrian tradition: In Campestrini’s lyrical line, his sense of destination and his poise, he reminded us that Mahler breathed the same air as Mozart before him.
At times this performance might have been a shade too cool. The second movement wanted more ferocity in certain passages. Campestrini conveyed the unearthly beauty of the Adagietto, but not (to my ears) its poignant undercurrent, the sense that loss is an inevitable consequence of love.
In the big picture, however, this was an exceptionally well-made and emotionally effectve performance. Campestrini’s sense of line and his native comfort with Mahler’s rhythmic universe enabled him to weave a coherent, seamless narrative even as he honored the score’s overdetermined dynamics and other expression indications.
The orchestra was in great shape. Principal horn Jeff Garza and principal trumpet John Carroll had a stellar night. Indeed, the whole brass contingent played very nearly without flaw. As always in the large-orchestra repertoire, the understaffing of the strings was a problem -- this orchestra couldn’t field enough strings to balance the big brass and woodwinds in Mahler’s loud tutti passages, or to produce a substantial enough sound in exposed pianissimos. Happily, Campestrini didn’t push the strings excessively, and they maintained a generally silken quality of sound, even if there wasn’t enough of it.
The Mastersingers chorus, prepared by John Silantien, joined the orchestra in the opening work, Johannes Brahms’s “Shicksalslied.” Chorus and orchestra delivered ethereal, transparent balances in the first section and restless fury in the second.
Mike
Greenberg
