Ends justify means at PSO concert
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra program on Friday night featured two works, but they weren’t really the pieces listed in the program.
The official listing at Heinz Hall: “Miserere,” by PSO composer-of-the-year James MacMillan, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.”
But music director Manfred Honeck was interested in highlighting the spiritual connections between those two very different compositions — one, an a cappella piece for mixed choir (the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh) by a living Scottish composer; the other, one of the most epic symphonies in the repertoire, written for an enormous orchestra, choir, and soprano and mezzo-soprano soloists.
The Mahler is about an hour and a half long, and the PSO presented “Miserere” and the first movement of the Mahler (played immediately after the MacMillan, without a pause) before the intermission.
Mahler’s score actually calls for a five-minute break after the funereal opening movement, so while the intermission was a bit awkward, it wasn’t sacrilegious. In any case, the arrangement added musical tissue between the MacMillan and Mahler first movement, while movements two through five were like a whole other piece.
This a cappella opener echoed the orchestra’s 2014 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York; then, the Mendelssohn Choir began the PSO’s concert with another a cappella work. It was a watershed moment for the Mendelssohn.
I’m all for experimentation, but the attacca transition between the MacMillan and Mahler didn’t work to my ears. The complement of Mendelssohn Choir singers sounded too small for Heinz Hall but too large for this lean, rhythmically driven and often homophonic music. The result was a performance that was overly choppy but not round enough, and it sounded pale against the intensity of Mahler’s initial musical material.
However, the concert improved as the evening went along, so it’s worth working backward. The final movement was one of the most arresting things I’ve witnessed — visually and aurally speaking — at Heinz Hall in a while.
The symphony recently acquired a new set of tower chimes from an Illinois church, which reach up to 14 feet tall, and they rang like town church bells on the stage. Mahler, who always seemed to go for the theatrical, would have approved of this spectacle. A parade of musicians walked on and off the stage, while the choir made up for earlier missteps with singing that was, at times, warm and mammoth. The orchestra seemed to be raring to go for this movement, primed for its recurring climatic moments, and Mr. Honeck drew out a dramatic performance, adding his interpretive stamp with long crescendi.
And the gorgeous fourth movement was the ideal fulcrum for the work. Mezzo-soprano Gerhild Romberger, who performed this work with the orchestra in 2012, delivered an easy, fragrant tone, as if she were singing a lullaby. Soprano Ying Fang showcased her honeyed voice in her smaller role.
While the first three movements had their moments — the acerbic brass in the first movement, the lilting dance and topographical pizzicati of the second movement — they were also less consistent. The third movement, for example, was overly restrained, especially given the quirky Mahlerian textures it offers, while quiet moments oftentimes lost fullness.
Alexi Kenney served as the guest concertmaster.
Concert repeats at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
Elizabeth Bloom: ebloom@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1750 and Twitter: @BloomPG.