Although infrequently heard in concert – due to its length and the immense orchestral forces and rehearsal time required – Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony is the work that best epitomizes the composer’s life and career. One of his sunniest, most extrovert scores, it is a wondrous celebration of life, much heralded as one of the greatest symphonies of all time. On this occasion mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and three choirs joined Yannick Nézet-Séguin and an expanded Philadelphia Orchestra to produce a bold and brilliant account in Carnegie Hall, marked by abundant innuendo and many breathtaking stretches of playing.
Universally acknowledged as a difficult piece to pull off, the mammoth score comprises more than 100 minutes of some of Mahler’s most intricate music. Nézet-Séguin and the orchestra consistently rose to the challenge of successfully revealing the many moods and colors of this challenging work.
After eight French horns in unison sounded the resplendent opening theme, Nézet-Séguin tore into Summer Marches In, the colossal opening movement. While expertly navigating the primordial rumblings, rousing marches and more lyrical passages in the constantly changing emotional landscape, the conductor shaped the long span of music with a secure sense of pulse, creating a wide variety of colorful and dramatic effects by alternating violent fortissimos with barely detectable heartbeats, or slowing down slightly as the music rose to a peak and then suddenly racing ahead. Among the movement’s several fine solo contributions, Principal Trombone Nitzan Haroz’s distinctive work was the most impressive.
Introducing the light and graceful What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me second movement, the woodwinds sounded wonderfully bucolic, and as the more violent forces of nature emerged, the shifting atmospheres of brightness and shade were nicely defined. In the succeeding What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me, a Scherzo which quotes liberally from the comic Ablösung im Sommer from one of Mahler’s early Des Knaben Wunderhorn settings, the mood moved from playful to pensive with a recurring off-stage posthorn solo played with dreamlike nostalgia by Principal Trumpet Esteban Batallán.
In the three concluding movements, performed without pause, Joyce DiDonato, dressed in radiant white and embedded near the middle of the orchestra, sang the haunting Zarathustra’s Midnight Song from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra, with remarkable clarity, fluidity and intensity. In the fifth movement, the 38 members of the combined Philadelphia Boys and Girls Choirs and the 40 sopranos and altos of the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir joined her in a joyful rendition of Three Angels Sang. Though sparingly used, the women’s voices sounded bright and festive accompanied by the vibrant peals of “Bimm, bamm, bimm, bamm” from the child choristers.
In What Love Tells Me, the sublime, string dominated Adagio final movement, Nézet-Séguin elicited passages of sheer radiance, from the gently hushed glow of the opening bars to the overwhelmingly powerful brass climaxes. In the most intimate moments, concertmaster David Kim drew on portamento phrasing to make the most of the heavenly violin solos, and at the conclusion timpanist Don S Liuzzi delivered the appropriate amount of life-affirming drama. Following the loud and majestic final chord, the audience responded with the enthusiastic and extended ovation that this splendid performance deserved.
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