Mahler end just
By Ruth O. Bingham
the beginning
Special to the Star-BulletinDEATH usually marks the end, but if you begin there, what then? It is no wonder Gustav Mahler took six years to finish his symphony, Resurrection.
For the first time, the Honolulu Symphony under the direction of maestro Samuel Wong yesterday performed Mahler's Second Symphony, a monumental work in concept as well as length. The piece lasts almost two hours without an intermission because, as Wong put it, "when you go through purgatory into heaven, there is no time for intermission."
Joining the augmented orchestra (8 French horns!) was director Timothy Carney's well blended Oahu Choral Society, more than 100 strong, and two promising young singers from the Marilyn Horne Foundation, soprano Dina Kuznetsova and mezzo-soprano Mary Phillips.
Masterworks new to an orchestra often expose its strengths and weaknesses, and this was no exception. Working the orchestra from its softest pianissimos to its loudest fortissimos, Wong produced revelatory moments, when storm clouds parted and heavenly light shone through. Exceptional at constructing magnificent climaxes, Wong made listening worth the wait: at the end, the chorus resounded, "Auferstehen! (Arise!)" and the audience did, in a standing ovation.
Mahler's music is filled with spine-chilling effects, which the symphony recreated beautifully: a pyrotechnical purgatory; striking antiphonal effects; a fuzzily nostalgic, saccharine Laendler, wistfully dreamlike with plucked string raindrops drifting into sleep; ... The list is longer than the symphony.
Although recordings thankfully lack all the beepers, coughs and dropped paraphernalia of live performances, few match the emotional intensity of last night's performance.
Mahler is always risky, and Wong deserves credit for programming him. Those who hate Mahler accuse him of being long-winded and boring. Those who love him praise his depth and complexity and find him worth the sustained effort: not everything worth saying can be said in media-friendly quips.
But even among devotees there are concessions: Mahler's mandated 5-minute break after the first movement lasted just over two quiet contemplation not being one of our culture's strong points. The audience was getting restless.
The death of classical symphonic music, particularly of the type Mahler wrote, has been raucously proclaimed for over a century now, along with sustained concentration, complex discourse and conceptual depth, qualities that make us better human beings. Sometimes it is difficult to tell when something as multi-faceted as a genre ... or a career, or a newspaper ... actually dies.
Mahler and Wong make it difficult not to believe in their resurrection.
Samuel Wong Conducts "Resurrection": Repeats 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Neal Blaisdell Concert Hall. Tickets are $15 to $50, available by calling 792-2000
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