OVERNIGHT REVIEW: Los Angeles Philharmonic and Mahler's Symphony No. 8 at Hollywood Bowl

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
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Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Children's Chorus, eight soloists; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Hollywood Bowl
Next performance: Thursday
Tickets: $1-$95.
Information: 323/850-2000; www.laphil.com
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This week marks the beginning of the end for Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. From now through next April, when the 50-year-old Finn's 18-year tenure at the Phiharmonic's helm comes to a conclusion, nearly every piece he conducts will be for the last time in this leadership role.

As it turns out, this week's concerts at Hollywood Bowl are both a first and a last: last night and tomorrow night are the last time he'll conduct at the Bowl as LAPO music director and he chose a piece for his swan song that he's never conducted in Los Angeles: Mahler's Symphony No. 8, the so-called Symphony of a Thousand (although last night it was the Symphony of 307).)

Whether Salonen hasn't felt that he was ready to tackle this most gargantuan of Mahler symphonies (he has reportedly conducted it twice in other locales) or the occasion wasn't auspicious enough until now, he and his forces — 123 musicians in the Philharmonic, Los Angeles Master Chorale, with 100 voices, the Los Angeles Children's Chorus (75 singers) and eight stellar soloists — delivered a performance that was, for the most part, exemplary, and on more than a few occasions rose to brilliant.

In an 80-minute work that features plenty of full-throated bombast, it was the quiet, introspective moments that ultimately proved the most satisfying. One of those was the opening of Part II, Mahler' hour-long setting of the final scene of Goethe's Faust, Part II exquisitely laid out by Salonen and luxuriously played by the orchestra. Likewise, the hushed choral singing by the Master Chorale at the end had listeners on the edge of their collective seats until Salonen slowly and carefully built to the final shattering climax.

Salonen paced the entire performance expertly, allowing both the introspective moments and the over-the-top powerful ones to unfold in what always seemed like a logical plan. This was a performance that he couldn't have conducted when he first took over the Philharmonic, but one that now seemed perfectly natural.

He got plenty of help. All eight soloists — sopranos Christine Brewer, Elza van der Heever and Stacey Tappan, altos Nancy Maultsby and Elena Manistina, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, baritone Alan Held and bass John Relyea — were in top form, with Brewer, Griffey and Tappan proving to be the highlights.

Salonen made canny use of the Bowl's expanse by placing Tappan (in the role of Mater Gloriosa) on top of the Close Encounters of the Third Kind light ring over the orchestra to sing her lines "Come, raise yourself to higher spheres!" (it's actually the first time I can recall the video screens being an integral part of the show, as the camera slowly panned up the back wall leading to Tappan). Griffey then elegantly responded, "Look up, up to the redeeming grace," the beginning of the symphony's climax.

The Master Chorale (which was divided with the Children's Chorus in the middle) sang with its customary poise and point and the 75 kids were rock solid in their efforts.

About the only real disappointments in the evening were the cheesy electronic organ used almost inaudibly in the first movement (one can only hope that someone will one day program Mahler's eighth in Disney Hall with its powerful pipe organ) and the Bowl sound system, which in the first movement over-accentuated the soloists and made the choruses sound as if they were in Kern County. Fortunately, things improved measurably in the second movement — maybe it was just that the performers caught fire.
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Hemidemisemiquavers:
• The crowd reportedly numbered 9,128 and, judging by the dozens of people who left during the second movement, many had no idea what they were facing when they entered the Bowl. Come on, people, it's Mahler, for heaven's sake! The eighth isn't even the longest of the composer's symphonies, although it was played without intermission last night.
• Music Critic Alan Rich has a nice retrospective on Salonen's experience conducting Mahler in Los Angeles in "Performances Magazine." It almost makes the $1 fee for the program worth it.
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(c) Copyright 2008, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.