music

Susan Graham in Mahler Festival with SF Symphony

Michael Tilson Thomas has been described as a true Mahlerian. Over the course of his long Gustave Mahler recording project, which began in 2001 and garnered four Grammy awards, he led the SF Symphony through comprehensive and definitive performances. The fruits of those years were evident Sunday afternoon in the first of three programs of their current Mahler festival.

Conducting without score, MTT was incisive and inflected and his orchestra was tight on his every gesture. Mahler is demanding and his Symphony No. 1, the “Titan,” is a composition of extremes. While one can discuss sarcasm and the bite of Shostakovich, it might be more fruitful to simply approach Mahler as one who painted with contrast.

In his song cycles he was more restrained, preferring a direct response to the poetry. Here he had a gift for mood, and he used it—one can find themes from his Lieder entering his symphonic writing.

Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, a leading interpreter of Art Song along with an illustrious career in opera, was brought in to sing the Rückert Lieder, five poems by Friedrich Rückert and set by Mahler.

Graham launched into Liebst du um Schönheit (If You Love Because of Beauty) with honeyed tones fitting the German romanticism. Both shy and mature, it was a song of full-bodied and graceful love. Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder (Don’t Look into My Songs) held a talky quirkiness prefaced by clarinet frolics.

Then Graham left coyness behind for softer zephyrs of love. Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft (I Breathed a Gentle Fragrance) held such sweetness that I didn’t know if I was hearing her or breathing her in. Her entrances were sipped at and her lifts effortless. Mahler carefully closes with woodwinds and harp softly building a chord.

In Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am Lost to the World) Graham showed a darker power, staining her vocal richness with loss. Mahler used simple lines and dreamy Wagnerian phrasing compellingly, and Graham showed her flawless technique in the long fragile notes.

After intermission we feasted on a world-class rendition of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. Daring and contradictory, it opened with an ethereal shimmer of strings. Then woodwinds began a series of descending fourths, stepping-stones to a sylvan idyll. But Mahler’s Nature is unquiet, and moves from good-natured to fervent and even to grandiloquent, with brass suddenly appearing for some well-aimed volleys. His unlikely stew of moods barely prepared us for the heavy footed waltzing of the second movement, as bass and trombone staggered around the lighter trumpets.

But his most unlikely combination is in the third movement, where a funereal “Frere Jacque” morphs into slinky klezmer. Questing past Romanticism, Mahler had entered a realm of patois and pastiche, painting his canvas with vigorous strokes that presaged the caricature and power of German Expressionist painting.

Then the finale—a storm of brass! But they are spring storms, and he reminds us of the surprising tenderness of spring, then raises slow questions in tribute to Wagner. The descending fourths of the first movement reappear, silken and hopeful, and when he slowly rebuilds to a cannonade of French horns there is triumph and joy.

The Festival continues with two programs. Baritone Thomas Hampson joins the SFS for programs of songs and excerpts of Mahler’s Symphonies, Sept 23-26. Then MTT conducts Symphony No. 5 Sept 30 to Oct 3: www.sfsymphony.org for tickets and schedule.

—Adam Broner

This article originally appeared in the Piedmont Post