New York Philharmonic – Bernard Haitink, conductor. May 16, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  First Tier Center (Seat BB113, $54.)

Program

Symphony No. 3 in D minor (1895-96, rev. through 1906) by Mahler (1860-1911).

Artists

Bernarda Fink, mezzo-soprano; Women of New York Choral Artists, Joseph Flummerfelt, director; Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Dianne Berkun-Menaker, artistic director.

At about 100 minutes, this must be the longest symphony I have encountered.  It was last performed by the New York Philharmonic in September 2009, not that long ago.  I did go to a New York Phil concert that month, but it was not the same program (whew.)

When first completed, Mahler provided a program for the symphony as follows.  Part One: Pan awakes.  Summer Marches In. (Pan’s procession) Part Two: What the flowers of the meadow tell me; What the animals of the forest tell me; What man tells me; What the angels tell me; and What love tells me.  The first part is over 30 minutes, about a third of the entire composition.  For whatever reason Mahler withdrew all his program-related markings in the music, and provided rather sterile tempo markings.  Part One: 1. Forcefully, Decisively.  Part Two: 2.  Tempo di minuetto, Moderately; 3. Comodo.  Scherzando.  Unhurriedly; 4. Very slow.  Misterioso.  Pianississimo throughout. (O Mensch! Gib acht! From Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra); 5. Joyous in tempo and jaunty in expression (Bimm bamm – Es sungen drei Engel, from Des Knaben Wunderhorn); 6; Slow.  Calm.  Deeply felt.

I could use the excuse that my memory has faded considerably over the course of the last five days; in actual fact I couldn’t make too many informed remarks about what I heard.

Bernard Haitink has had a long and distinguished career as a conductor.  I thought I had never seen him, but a check of my blog revealed one encounter in November, 2011.  The most salient point is his stamina.  When I saw the stool on the podium, I expected him to walk out in a cane.  He didn’t, and he used the stool only occasionally, in between movements and during some of the slower passages.  He also had a long program in November 2011.  One difference would be how he was treated: like a rock star last time, (only) enthusiastically this time.

This was a debut performance by the Buenos Aires-born Bernarda Fink.  While there was nothing wrong with the performance, and indeed she projected well, the role is quite limited (perhaps less than 15 minutes of singing.)  The chorus part was similarly short in duration.  While Fink only had to come out during Part Two, the poor choral members had to sit through the whole program.  I forgot my binoculars, so couldn’t tell if anyone was falling asleep while waiting.

Playbill describes this long symphony as one of Mahler’s easiest for the audience, and it is indeed so.  It still has a lot of the wanderings that (for me) characterize Mahler’s music, and it also has a heavy dosage of beautiful brass passages.  There are extended passages of relative simplicity that are easy to grasp.  The trombone certainly gets quite a bit of a work out, and there was an offstage trumpet (or rather a "posthorn" per my research) that sang out beautifully.

Two sets of timpani were used in the piece.  At the end they were playing in unison.  I don’t know if it is by design, but one note was slightly off and as a result you hear this quick beat.  Anne did note one of the timpanists feverishly trying to tune his set of drums.  She also observed one of the first violin players broke a string on her instrument, and when Fink came on stage she handed Glenn Dicterow a bag which he in turn gave to the violinist.  Anne kept gesturing that to me, but I didn’t quite know what she was trying to tell me.  So I missed that also.  I guess I was not particularly observant that day.

Overall it was a very enjoyable concert.  Mahler wrote most of his symphonies by the scenic Attersee in Upper Austria.  The Playbill relays a remark he made to Bruno Walter who was enjoying the scenery: “You need not stand staring at that; I have already composed it all.”  Indeed I have described Mahler’s music astaking the listeners on a stroll, but not quite to the level of having “composed it all.”

The New York Times review talks a bit about the orchestras with a Mahler tradition (in addition to New York Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw, Vienna Philharmonic, and the Berlin Philharmonic), and the reviewer enjoyed this performance.  He actually recalls Haitink conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in the Concertgebouw in 1995, that’s quite impressive. 

Perhaps a preview of summer Friday afternoon traffic, it took us a while to drive into the city (from Jersey City), and I had trouble finding off-street parking.  Anne had to box up the food she bought at Europan for me to gulp down in less than 10 minutes.  I still enjoyed the ham and cheese quiche.