"Impactive" is not a word I ever expected to be using to describe the Mahler Ninth Symphony. "Poignant," "regretful," "inward," "transcendent" - these are terms more readily associated with this lengthy symphonic leave-taking.
But Utah Symphony associate conductor Robert Henderson managed to get all this plus the other Saturday at Abravanel Hall. And the result was the finest single Mahler performance I have heard from this orchestra since Maurice Abravanel. And I haven't forgotten Varujan Kojian's "Resurrection" Symphony.All the more remarkable then that, despite his two sojourns here, this was Henderson's first Mahler with this orchestra, and his first Mahler Ninth anywhere. Yet after a semi-fragmented start - perhaps intentional - he and they took this monumental opus whole. And despite audience members who applauded between movements (particularly inappropriate in this piece, with its concentrated mood swings) and some who left in the middle, those who remained cheered their heads off at the performance's close.
It is well known how superstitious Mahler was about writing a "Symphony No. 9." This, after all, was the number beyond which Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner and Dvorak had not been able to go. Hence the symphonic song cycle that followed the mighty Eighth Symphony was titled "Das Lied von der Erde" ("The Song of the Earth") and it was only with great reluctance that he tackled the work that would ultimately bear that fateful number.
Alas, the portents were true. Though he came close to finishing a 10th Symphony before his death in 1911, the Ninth did indeed turn out to be Mahler's last completed opus. And nearly every performance of it since has stressed those "farewell" aspects. As did Henderson's, only this time with a fair degree of defiance.
Thus in the 28-minute opening Andante, the conflicts were very much on the surface, the struggle taking place almost among the various sections of the orchestra. Yet the warmth and intimacy that are also part of this music were present. Here, however, they yielded to a gutsy second-movement Laendler, dug into in broadly angular fashion, followed by an even wilder Rondo-Burleske.
Amid the aggressively underlined sarcasm of the latter, even the nobler sections seemed shot through with pain. After which came the controlled anguish and resignation of the finale, here broadly intense.
Yet no matter how raw the emotion, the playing was seldom that way. Witness the wonderfully rich-textured strings, or the sustained power of the brass. Likewise the solos, here giving way to the valedictory hush of the closing pages. Indeed, I cannot recall ever having heard this orchestra play so softly.
Henderson prefaced this with, of all things, Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony - the long and short of the genre, as it were - for a first half that was in fact shorter than the intermission that followed. Yet within its 14-minute timespan there was likewise a multiplicity of moods, just of a more upbeat variety.
Thus the spirited opening Allegro communicated not only the music's charm but its abundant wit and good humor (the increased vehemence of the development notwithstanding). Ditto the airy grace of the Larghetto - here a trifle heavy - followed by the gusto of the Gavotta, with its tomtom-like timpani writing, and the speedy brilliance of the Finale, with its ultravivid woodwind solos.
It's hard to believe that only eight years separate these two works, and that it was Prokofiev's that was created amid the turmoil of World War I (and, not coincidentally, the Russian Revolution).
Was Mahler the more prophetic? Or was for him, perhaps, the war within?