SFSYO’s Stimulating “Mahler++” Program

SFSYO violinists (from the event page for this concert on the San Francisco Symphony Web site)

It was the music of Gustav Mahler that drew my attention to the San Francisco Youth Symphony Orchestra (SFSYO). My wife and I were living in Palo Alto when we learned that this ensemble (conducted by Alasdair Neale) would be performing Gustav Mahler’s second (“Resurrection”) symphony with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus on May 20, 2001. It would be not-quite understatement to say that we were overwhelmed with the results, both in the scrupulous attention to grammatical details and in the passionate (but not excessive) expressiveness of the interpretation. Since then, we have tried to return consistently for subsequent Mahler performances and have yet to be disappointed.

Indeed, one of those performances (which we missed) found its way to a recording produced by SFS Media. When SFSYO toured Europe in the summer of 2012 with conductor Donato Cabrera, they played Mahler’s first symphony in D major at the Berlin Philharmonie. That performance was recorded, and the album is still being distributed.

All this serves as introduction to observing that lightning struck again yesterday afternoon in Davies Symphony Hall, this time with Christian Reif on the SFSYO podium. Reif’s SFSYO tenure, which will conclude after the ensemble makes its next European tour this summer, has had a generous share of high points. He, too, knows how to balance that “scrupulous attention to grammatical details” with the sort of expressiveness that seizes attention from the very first gesture and holds it all the way to the final cadence.

It was that discipline that carried him from the almost inaudible opening measures of the Mahler first to the final cadence of the fourth movement, the undisputed “highest peak” in the overall landscape of Mahler’s score, replete with steep ascents and declines. Indeed, the second half of yesterday’s program was so stimulating that it is important to acknowledge that it emerged not only from Reif’s control over the final execution but also from the amount of time put in by the San Francisco Symphony musicians that form the Coaching Team for SFSYO. To be fair, there were occasional ragged moments to remind the listener that this is not a professional ensemble; but such instances were more than subdued by Reif’s judicious management of the overall flow and the often bizarre shifts in both dynamic level and tempo that make this symphony such a bold act of composition.

Indeed, if technical discipline is a key virtue in SFSYO performances, it was exercised just as vigorously prior to the intermission. The second piece on the program was Nathaniel Stookey’s “Mahlerwerk,” a composition based on hundreds of fragments extracted from Mahler’s symphonic compositions. Anyone familiar with the Mahler canon knows full well how there are thematic elements that migrate from one composition to another. Back in my student days, I like to joked about the proposition that Mahler composed only one piece of music, which he began in his youth and was working on until the day he died. Stookey samples a rich abundance of representative samples and sends them off on a new migratory path.

His explanation of his technique prior to the performance was brief and straightforward. He knew that listening to the music was more important than listening to the sound of his voice. He probably also knew that those who really knew their Mahler would approach this piece as a “find that tune” game. To this end, each of the many fragments that he assembled was subjected to repetitions, enough to affirm its presence but not too many to overstay its welcome. Since superposition constituted the underlying structural logic, Reif was left to make sure that the presence of every fragment was properly established; and he achieved this goal with almost uncanny consistency. One way to conceive the result is to imagine the score that Carl W. Stalling would have provided for a Mahler biography depicted as a Looney Tunes cartoon. Such an experience may not have been as passionate a roller-coaster ride as the symphony that would follow the intermission, but it still emerged as one hell of a trip that I would gladly take again.

Yesterday’s program began with Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 26 concert overture. Mendelssohn gave this overture the title “The Hebrides;” but, thanks to the Breitkopf & Härtel publication of the score, it has become known more familiarly as “Fingalshöhle” (Fingal’s cave). It is deceptively easy to dismiss Mendelssohn as a “lightweight” when he is placed beside Mahler; but that would be an unjust misrepresentation. There is more intricate detail in this overture than meets the ear, so to speak. This is particularly evident in the interleaving of ornate lines for the different string players, textures that are more readily associated with this composer’s chamber music. Reif’s management of such details could not have been more attentive, making sure that there was no sense of the program beginning with “just another concert overture.”

Taken as a whole, the entire afternoon’s performance could not have been more engaging and was an undisputed high point for those who take listening to Mahler seriously.