San Antonio Symphony
Lang-Lessing opens his tenure with a masterful Mahler
First
October 3, 2010An incandescent, high-definition retelling of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 formed the apex of Sebastian Lang-Lessing’s triumphant inaugural concert as music director of the San Antonio Symphony.
The one-off, non-subscription concert drew a capacity crowd to the Majestic Theater on Oct. 2.
Like all of Mahler’s symphonies, the First is about -- well, everything. The beauty of nature and exuberant youth dominate the first movement. In the second, a bumptious Laendler (a type of country dance) frames a wheedling, sighing trio suggestive of young lovers at play, The third is a funeral march (based on the folk song “Frere Jacques”) with a wistful middle section drawn from the last of Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer.” The finale opens in blazing turmoil and ends giddily.
The spirit of folk song and dance is never far away in this symphony, and Lang-Lessing brought it into unusually high relief with rhythms that often breathed a distinctly agrarian air. Although the First Symphony is anything but a light work, there was in this performance a lightness of foot, an agility, that made it less reverential, more populist and viscerally exciting than other performances I have heard -- and, I think, more Mahlerian. Lang-Lessing has conducted quite a lot of opera around the world, and this performance had an opera conductor’s sense of theater and character.
Lang-Lessing seemed to be a stickler for heeding Mahler’s notoriously detailed demands regarding articulation, and that was one reason for the very sharp focus of this performance. Another was his ability to glean from the notes on the page what the music wanted to be, and to let it express itself without reserve.
The augmented orchestra was near the top of its game and played the demanding score with considerable precision and confidence. Special notice goes to principal bass Tom Huckaby, principal clarinet Ilya Shterenberg and principal oboe Mark Ackerman, but first-class solos and section playing came from all corners.
The Children’s Chorus of San Antonio joined the orchestra to open the concert with a crisp, clean rendition of the familiar children’s chorus from Georges Bizet’s “Carmen.” The music approached nearer to Mahler’s thematic territory with three autumnal a capella choral songs by Johannes Brahms, very beautifully sung by the Mastersingers chorus and given voluptuous shape by Lang-Lessing.
After the Mahler, Lang-Lessing and the orchestra delivered a delirious, raucous, hyper-hyper account of Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” overture. What fun!
Mike
Greenberg
