United States Berg, Mahler: Irene Roberts (mezzo-soprano), San Francisco Symphony / Sir Donald Runnicles (conductor). Davies Symphony Corridor, San Francisco, 29.9.2025. (HS)
Berg – Seven Early Songs
Mahler – Symphony No.1 in D main
Conductor Sir Donald Runnicles has a protracted historical past in San Francisco. As music director of San Francisco Opera from 1992 to 2008 he produced many thrilling evenings of operas by Verdi, Puccini, Strauss and, particularly, Wagner. His good Ring cycle in 1990 cemented his hiring as music director, and in the midst of his tenure we received to understand how intensely he might get an orchestra into the music. It has been 23 years since he carried out the San Francisco Symphony (usually a few times per season), and allow us to hope this won’t be the final time. It has been some time since I heard a Mahler Symphony No.1 with such vitality.
That symphony was my gateway into Mahler’s magic. As a young person, I ushered for classical performances on the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles with my mom, who taught piano and made positive I received a music schooling. At a kind of concert events, Erich Leinsdorf carried out the visiting Boston Symphony in Mahler No.1. Simply think about the impact all these fanfares, hen calls and wonderful full-orchestra climaxes (to not point out a funeral march based mostly on a minor-key model of ‘Frère Jacques’) had on my adolescent sensibilities.
In these days there have been just a few, often European, conductors who had the temerity to conduct any of Mahler’s sprawling symphonies. Within the early Sixties, Leonard Bernstein ventured onto the sector and made it okay for different American conductors. At this time, nearly any critical conductor can enjoy Mahler’s world, in lots of situations bringing their very own takes on what these works can imply.
Runnicles is not any stranger to difficult works. At San Francisco Opera he led memorable renditions of Don Carlo, Guillaume Inform and a tremendous Saint François d’Assise. Mahler’s first symphony spans lower than an hour, about the identical as Beethoven’s Eroica, however in its 50 minutes the Mahler traverses a dizzying number of kinds. Runnicles’s method was emphatic. Contrasting dynamics created the character of every episode and particular person phrase. Muscle usually prevailed over magnificence, however in Mahler’s world that labored simply effective. The opening measures, which play cuckoo sounds from the woodwinds in opposition to a sustained pedal tone that ranged over a number of octaves, have been a bit scary relatively than quiet and mysterious. The strolling tune that lastly emerges as the primary theme (lifted from the composer’s Songs of a Wayfarer) felt like a step again from bustle, not the clearing of the clouds that we often hear.
Because the incidents took their turns, the tempo by no means flagged however by no means rushed both. The muted offstage fanfares, echoing the primary look of them by the clarinets, had vigor regardless that they have been barely audible. The lengthy, wandering build-up to the exuberant end of the primary motion benefited from a way of unerring consideration, particularly in the way in which the tunes bounced across the orchestra. Every part or soloist seamlessly linked to the remainder.
The minuet that frames the second motion appeared to pose as elegant relatively than truly be elegant, and the bumptious ländler between the minuet sections merely upped the ante. The trio solely relaxed a bit earlier than ending vigorously.
The funeral march within the third motion mirrored Mahler’s route – ‘solemn, with out dragging’ – excellent. Timpanist Edward Stephan set an unhurried tempo and principal bass Scott Pingel intoned the minor-key nursery rhyme with the musical equal of a ‘straight face’. The overlapping repeats, which counsel relatively than truly execute a spherical, emerged naturally across the orchestra. The contrasting klezmer-like sections might have dripped with a bit extra schmaltz, however the motion got here to a quiet, dignified end.
The storm that opened the finale was executed with depth and subsided properly earlier than the recurring fanfares step by step took over. Every iteration had a barely completely different solid which made for an exciting end when all of it got here collectively on the finish.
All through, the momentum created growing depth as every solo second added superbly articulated punctuations. Among the many notables have been harpist Katherine Siochi, clarinetist Carey Bell and oboist Eugene Izotov. The entire brass part distinguished itself with orotund sound and crisp rhythm.
The primary a part of this system served as a type of Viennese hors d’oeuvre. Each Mahler and Berg have been writing in Vienna on the similar time. Though the orchestral model of Berg’s Seven Early Songs dates from 1928, he began writing the unique model for mezzo-soprano and piano in 1905 – simply earlier than he started his research with Schoenberg and adopted the atonal palette they’re greatest identified for. The revision performed right here of the Symphony No.1 (which debuted in 1988) was achieved in 1906, across the similar time Berg was writing the Seven Early Songs.
The extravagantly perfumed, harmonically advanced, slow-moving, lushly orchestrated soundworld of those songs put me in thoughts of Wagner’s Parsifal. Each the soloist, mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts (who has carried out at San Francisco Opera 5 instances, most lately as Offred in The Handmaid’s Story), and Runnicles opted for decisiveness over suppleness. As sonically enticing as this was, it missed among the sinuousness of Berg’s phrasings. The primary few songs have been large relatively than delicate. ‘Nacht’ emphasised lusciousness over ambiguousness. The richness of sound minimized the softness of ‘Schilflied’ and the lightness of ‘Die Nachtigall’. Higher was the restlessness of ‘Traumgekrönt’ and the sexiness of ‘Im Zimmer’.
On the finish, although, the sheer loveliness of the harmonies made the songs an apt starter for the massive meal to comply with.
Harvey Steiman
Featured Picture: Mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts and conductor Donald Runnicles after Berg’s Seven Early Songs © Kristen Loken
