Gustav Mahler in the foyer of the Vienna opera house not long after he completed his seventh symphony (photograph by Moritz Nähr, public domain, from Wikimedia Commons)
According to my records, my last encounter with a San Francisco Symphony (SFS) performance of a symphony by Gustav Mahler took place at the end of last June, when Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen wrapped up the subscription season with a performance of that composer’s third symphony. Since that time, however, I was also able to enjoy a performance of the fifth symphony this past November with the first Live from Orchestra Hall livestream performance in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra season. Last night Mahler returned to the SFS repertoire with a performance of the seventh symphony led by Paavo Järvi.
This symphony was one of my earliest encounters with Mahler’s music. My first serious listening began when my mother’s uncle presented me with LPs of the fifth (coupled with the Adagio from the tenth) and seventh symphonies conducted by Hermann Scherchen. That marked the beginning of a thoroughly engaging journey (which I am still enjoying)! It took a while for me to adjust to the opening ambiguity of the seventh, but it now continues to be one of my favorites.
The LP album for that symphony included the title Song of the Night, but that was never attributed to Mahler. Nevertheless, it reflects the fact that the second and fourth movements of this five-movement symphony were both given the title “Nachtmusik.” Furthermore, these two movements “frame” the shortest movement of the symphony, a Scherzo with the tempo description “Schattenhaft” (like a shadow). Another departure is the relatively solo tempo of the first movement: “Langsam – Allegro risoluto, ma non troppo.” Only the rondo of the final movement tends to follow a more conventional structure (but I use that attribute “conventional” with more than a little caution) with a rousing conclusion.
One could almost call Davies Symphony Hall a “home” for this symphony. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted it over the course of two different seasons during his tenure as Music Director. Sadly, the second performance in May of 2019 never quite rose to the heights of the account he had provided in October of 2014. Last night Järvi’s interpretation ascended to those “heights of 2014” and may even have exceeded them.
This is a score that could live up to the movie title Everything Everywhere All at Once, but I came away with the impression that Järvi knew exactly what every instrument was doing at every moment. He accounted for every step of the way in the journey through Mahler’s five movements, and there was never an uncertain moment. His interpretation reinforced why this remains one of my favorite symphonies!
The first half of the program was devoted entirely to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 102, his second piano concerto in F major. This was composed in the spring on 1957, about four years after the death of Joseph Stalin. Shostakovich was gradually emerging out of the shadow of fear, and he composed this concerto for his son as a present for his nineteenth birthday.
There is a playfulness in this music that reflects the raucous abandon that Shostakovich enjoyed before Stalin cast his dark shadow. Piano soloist Kirill Gerstein knew exactly how to channel that playfulness, and his chemistry with Järvi could not have been better. He then took an encore of a less raucous but still engaging rhetoric by selecting the fourth (“Mélodie”) movement in E minor from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 10 Morceaux de salon (salon pieces). This moment of sunshine would set during the intermission to make way for Mahler’s nocturnal rhetoric.
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