Further Disappointing Mahler from MTT at Davies

Michael Tilson Thomas (photograph by Art Streiber, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) made the first of his final four appearances on the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) for the remainder of the ensemble’s 107th season. The program consisted entirely of Gustav Mahler’s ninth symphony in D minor; and, following Sunday afternoon’s performance, the next item on MTT’s agenda will be a trip to Cleveland, where he will undergo a cardiac procedure. Much of MTT’s tenure with SFS has been distinguished by his interpretations of Mahler’s music; but, given the context, it is understandable that last night’s account never quite came up to snuff.

It would be inappropriate, if not downright foolish, to attempt a cause-and-effect account of last night’s shortcomings. At the very least, there were stunning moments. However, performing Mahler always entails taking on the challenge of the whole cloth; and that challenge was never adequately surmounted.

Furthermore, the problem with that challenge was not entirely unanticipated. It had already surfaced about a month ago when MTT conducted his interpretation of Mahler’s seventh symphony. After the first performance of that symphony, I wrote the following:

… it seemed as if there were too many climax moments that the attentive listener could not sort into lesser peaks and the “real ones” (as Pierre Boulez put it). As a result, what could usually be enjoyed as a long night’s journey into day kept running the risk of devolving into “one damned thing after another.”

The seventh symphony can be unwieldy in its length; but both those “climax moments” and the height of their respective peaks, so to speak, tend to be, at least relatively, clearly defined.

The ninth, on the other hand, is more enigmatic. The score marks the tempo of the opening movement as Andante comodo; but, given the way Mahler summoned rhythms to evoke his own heart murmur, it is hard to decide whether the pace is “accommodating” or reflecting a darker mood. Indeed, darkness surges up along with dynamic levels; and, in many respects, it is up to the conductor to decide which of those surges rises rhetorically above the others. Last night felt as if MTT had not made that decision, just letting the dynamic levels in the score run their course. Indeed, the only time when there was a clear account of where the “real” peak was came towards the end of the concluding Adagio movement; and, in that case, the following coda receded into a bit of a muddle that maintained little command of attentive listening.

With two relatively straightforward fast movements sandwiched between two significantly longer and darker ones, delivering an interpretation of Mahler’s ninth in which the logic of the rhetoric is as significant as managing the many technical challenges is no easy matter. Nevertheless, in his past performances MTT has consistently delivered compelling performances of this symphony in which structure and rhetoric complement each other perfectly. Since the plans for next season have already been announced, we can assume that the original plan had been to provide SFS audiences with one last indelible memory of this symphony; but circumstances seem to have prevented that plan from running its due course.