Gustav Mahler enjoyed an international reputation as composer and conductor, though it was primarily in the latter role that he was heralded in his lifetime. Both sides of the Austrian composer were on display Thursday evening with the second program of Riccardo Chailly’s two-week stand with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Though he rarely conducted J.S. Bach’s music, Mahler felt a duty to present music of the past and in 1909 he arranged a suite from four movements taken from Bach’s Second and Third Orchestral Suites. Conducting from a piano retooled to sound like a harpsichord, Mahler presented this suite often, and took great pride in his improvisational skill at the keyboard. The conductor was a relentless tinkerer with the scoring of his own works and those of others, but here Bach remains firmly in the foreground.
One of the less salutary byproducts of the period-instrument brigades’ ascendance has been the gradual eviction of Bach from symphony concerts, so kudos to Chailly for bucking the trend and presenting this offbeat Bach/Mahler confection. Chailly made a concession with a somewhat reduced orchestra, yet so stylish and deftly pointed was the playing under his alert direction that any thoughts about period “correctness” seemed like pedantic irrelevancies.
How enjoyable to hear Bach’s music played with such spirit and panache as this! Richard Graef’s flute work in the Rondo and Badinerie was nimbly articulated and Chailly elicited notably refined string playing in the famous “Air.” The final pair of Gavottes provided the necessary vigorous payoff, as one would expect with Bud Herseth leading the three trumpets.
For Chicago audiences tossed between the opposing Mahler interpretive poles of Daniel Barenboim’s heavy Wagnerian approach and Pierre Boulez’s pristine clarity and soulless perfectionism, Chailly’s performance of the Symphony No. 4 came as a breath of fresh Dolomite mountain air. Rarely in recent years has one heard Mahler as beautifully played by the CSO, and with the natural eloquence and Viennese warmth that was heard under Chailly Thursday night.
The Italian conductor’s great gift is to combine an exacting fidelity to the score with a natural expression and a sure grasp of the long line. Chailly made the frequent gear-shifts of the first movement seem to emerge in a single unbroken expanse, flowing naturally from the rough humor of the sleigh bells opening to the burnished ardor of the cellos lyrical theme. Yet the work’s moments of grotesquerie were given their due as well, with Robert Chen’s scordatura violin in the scherzo aptly unsettling. The elegant poise and simple expression from the CSO strings in the slow movement’s variations were remarkable.
Yet, as is often the case in performances of this work, the vocal finale with its naive child’s eye-view of heaven, was let down by the soloist. A late replacement for the respiratorily indisposed Ruth Ziesak, Janice Watson has the requisite youthful soprano voice and innocent approach, but she failed to project her words clearly and at times was virtually inaudible even from the front row of the lower balcony.
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The concert will be repeated Saturday at 8 p.m. and Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. Call 312-294-3000.
