Thomas presents Mahler in all his warmth
Sometime last week, Michael Tilson Thomas posted a picture on his Twitter feed of himself at rest on a shag carpet, surrounded by the score of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and two impossibly snuggly poodles. But the full meaning of that image only became clear on Friday Nov. 24, when he led the San Francisco Symphony in the warmest, fuzziest, most fetch-your-slippers-and-lick-your-ear performance of the work that Davies Symphony Hall has witnessed in a good long while.
If that description sounds like something that could have a serious impact on your blood sugar level — well it was, a bit. It was also absolutely irresistible, a performance of such tenderness, warmth and detailed specificity that only the stoniest heart could have withstood its charms.
And after all, the Fourth is always going to be the sunniest and most nuzzly of Mahler’s symphonies, a golden surge of serenity and good feeling. It unfolds in long expanses of mostly gentle graciousness, and even though Death puts in an appearance — personified as an acidic, retuned violin in the second-movement scherzo — his presence inspires neither fear nor philosophy.
Why should it, when the finale offers a radiant portrait of the afterlife, full of delicious food, beautiful music and a household staff composed of saints and evangelists? For the duration of the Fourth Symphony, life is good, and only promises better to come.
Thomas, intriguingly and persuasively, doubled down on that sensation from the sym--
phony’s opening strains. Throughout the entire first movement, he assiduously rounded off every textural edge, kept the dynamics soft and intimate, and lightened up on every rhythmic downbeat.
The sleigh bells whose rhythmic tattoo punctuates the episodes of the first movement — and returns to do the same during the finale — have never sounded less jangly or intrusive; in percussionist Jacob Nissly’s subtle rendering, they seemed to already be covered by a layer of feathery snow.
The movement’s main theme spun out with languorous elegance, and the buttery orchestral sound made room for a host of internal lines and piquant details to register. Even the passages in which the violinists tap the strings with the wooden back of the bow came through on velvet paws.
There was enough sharpness in the scherzo to keep the performance from cloying, and concertmaster Alexander Barantschik, in his sardonic solo turns, did not stint on demonic energy. But the glorious slow movement brought a welcome return to the overall spirit of placid rumination, its soft-hued harmonies registering with a nostalgic air as if in a half-remembered dream.
Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard did double duty, coming in to sing the finale of the Mahler in gilt-edged phrases after concluding the first half of the concert with a crisp, warmly expressive account of Mozart’s early motet “Exsultate, jubilate.”
Both were slightly surprising assignments, because this is music generally sung by a silvery lyric soprano (Susanna Phillips was originally scheduled to appear, but withdrew last month because of her pregnancy). Yet Leonard imparted a wealth of unusual new colorations to both works, injecting just a tinge of earthiness into Mahler’s celestial landscape and shaping the coloratura of the Mozart as if it were a vivacious Rossinian showpiece.
The all-Mozart first half could not have been a more apt companion for Mahler’s most overtly Mozartean work. It began with the first Symphony performance of the Six German Dances, K. 509, graced by buoyant rhythms and the exuberant piccolo contributions of Catherine Payne. All it needed to complete the picture was a couple of dancing dogs.