Review: SIMON RATTLE RETURNS TO THE PHILADELPHIA at Carnegie Hall

By: Oct. 20, 2016
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Simon Rattle is often called "the one that got away" in Philadelphia - but he's not alone. The Philadelphia Symphony has a rich and storied history of losing great conductors to other institutions. Mr. Rattle is in town conducting a very well received new production of Tristan and Isolde at the Met, but at Carnegie Hall on Monday night, Maestro Rattle commanded the mighty forces of the Philadelphia Symphony, his most-favored American orchestra, in a regal performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 6 "The Tragic." To the orchestra's credit, only a week after a short but bitter strike, they have not lost a step.

Right from the start it was clear this was not going to be an ordinary performance. Mr. Rattle's choice of "not overly-brisk tempi" for most of the performance was an interesting choice. The Allegro felt extremely dramatic rather than a light military march and its pulse was steady and powerful. The tempo brought into focus several gorgeous tiny details, luxuriously handled by the legendary Philadelphia string section. The particular emphasis on this evening was on the rumbling and ferocious playing of the lower strings, who made the hall shake like an earthquake. But it was the horns and the woodwinds that should be singled out for particular praise on this evening, delivering a spirited and razor sharp performance thoughout, brightly highlight the more intense sections, and providing richly textures hues in the more plaintive moments.

The well examined standard sonata form of the first movement, containing a virtual repeat of the primary exposition, is almost unheard of in Mahler, but Maestro Rattle brought forth an even deeper level of intensity to the second pass, making it particularly enjoyable. The episodic structure of the movement was punctuated by dazzling playing, and tremendous swings of light and dark color.

Rattle performed the work in the later, more recent sequence of movements, with the Andante second and the Scherzo third. This is not the preferred configuration of this critic, because the Scherzo is a variation on the first movement, and play immediately following one another always feels a bit redundant. The slow and deliberate pace of the magnificent Andante was easily the evening's highlight. The conductor went light on portamenti and sentimentality in the movement but grew it increasingly, building to a spectacularly soaring major theme at its conclusion. The Andante slow-burn build was a risky choice, because there is always the danger of the movement starting to drag - no such problem here. Rattle drew forth ravishingly beautiful playing from his storied string section, bursting into a marvelously cathartic conclusion.

The slower tempo of the Scherzo served to set it off from the more pulsating rhythmic structure of the 1st movement. A sluggish scherzo can muddy the recapitulation of the themes established in the 1st movement, but Rattle managed to find and bring forward fresh details deeply entrenched in the orchestration.

The final movement was both mysterious and epic, rhythmically and dynamically, full of tension and thunder-like explosions of sound. Rattle appeared to be having an out of body experience during this movement, floating away on the fluctuations of tempo and dynamics and the orchestra responded with furiously passionate playing - and some charmingly histrionic hammer blows.

Maestro Rattle back on the podium with the Philadelphia Symphony is always a welcome site, and on this occasion, for nearly 90 minutes, he showed that he still has a great deal of fire in his belly.

Peter Danish

Classical Music Editor



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