A valedictory Mahler 9 opens the New Year in Cleveland

Thursday night saw The Cleveland Orchestra’s opening concert of the new year, Franz Welser-Möst’s first Cleveland appearance since the fall, and the return of a resident composer. How best to mark such an occasion? Apparently, with a farewell, in Mahler’s autumnal Ninth Symphony, which was – or which became – the composer’s farewell to life. While an evening’s worth of music in its own right, the symphony was prefaced with a recent work of Johannes Maria Staud, TCO’s Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow from 2007-09.

Staud has a penchant for finding inspiration in literature and philosophy, and Stromab (“Downstream”) was no exception, the source material being the short story The Willows by horror writer Algernon Blackwood, a tale of an ill-fated canoe trip down the Danube. Stromab is a co-commission of the Royal Danish Orchestra, Wiener Konzerthaus, Cleveland Orchestra, and Carnegie Hall; it was first heard at the European venues last fall and Thursday counted as the American première. New Yorkers will have a chance to hear the work during TCO’s Carnegie Hall appearances later this month.

Scored for a massive orchestra inclusive of a vast percussion battery, one was immediately captivated by the striking timbre of the opening which gave way to a phantasmagoric dreamscape in evocation of the Blackwood novella, though by Staud’s own admission, Stromab favored suggestion over direct narrative. Much of the work was characterized by sustained notes often in the upper register, seemingly presaging the final minutes of the Mahler symphony that would follow – this was an inspired coupling to be sure. The ensuing texture evoked a ghostly, disembodied gliding along the river, later burgeoning into eerie – and rather Mahlerian – grotesqueries, as both composers used dance rhythms as a point of departure. The scoring grew even denser in the closing moments, harsh, unrelenting and utterly manic, before an unexpected cadenza-like passage scored for basset horn, and matters quietly faded into oblivion.

Following the 15-minute Staud work, the bulk of the program was left to Mahler’s Symphony no. 9 in D major, as pensive and reflective a way as any to open the New Year. Welser-Möst imbued the opening gesture with a gentle unease, answered by arching strings and the calming warmth of the horns. The first movement at several points surged to anticlimax, dropping off before any heroics could be had, falling just short of victory – such a departure from the ethos of the composer’s earlier symphonies. Still, with Welser-Möst’s razor sharp conception of the movement’s sprawling structure, a clear sense of direction and purpose was never obscured. Also worthy of mention were the forlorn flute passages of Joshua Smith, adding to the movement’s wistfulness and a guiding light towards its eventual tranquil end, there grounded by the pair of harps and a long-breathed note in the oboe.

The following movement occupied an altogether different world, far removed from the transcendent musings of the preceding and entirely earthbound in its interpolation of the ländler. Nonetheless, Welser-Möst conducted the movement with a certain degree of restraint, ensuring that things didn’t get too rustic, although matters became increasingly unbuttoned as the movement proceeded. Solo lines in the viola and contrabassoon gave the movement an ominous end, upending any presumptions that the Ländler was meant to be purely in jest, and foreshadowed the subsequent, shattering Rondo-Burleske.

By that point, the orchestra was showing no discernable signs of fatigue, whether in the sardonic brashness that anticipated Shostakovich, negotiating the thorny web of counterpoint, or in the shrillness of the E flat clarinet. A serene contrasting theme was introduced, boasting a chromatic richness and almost sinful beauty, only to be marred by the brusqueness of the insistent primary theme which had the last word in the rondo’s powerhouse conclusion.

Long-bowed strings marked the Adagio finale, opening up into a heavenly chorale. The serene theme from the rondo returned, and here at least it was allowed the flourish unmolested. The last few minutes are unlike anything else in the literature with texture distilled to the bare essence, a steady departure from the corporeal world. Each note seemed to hang on to one’s final breaths, and the orchestra had complete control of the extreme low end of the dynamic range. With fears allayed, a peaceful acceptance of the inevitable closed the work, and Welser-Möst held the audience spellbound in reverential silence.