CPO debuts 60th classics season with Mahler’s No. 7
Also on the program was the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5
The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra began its season on the right note with an appropriately balanced evening of Mozart and Mahler at the Jack Singer Concert Hall on Friday night.
Bookending the orchestra’s 60th Anniversary Classics Season with two Mahler symphonies, the Seventh Friday and Saturday nights, plus the Eighth to end the season, Maestro Roberto Minczuk effectively has sent a message to the Canadian music world that the CPO is a splendid destination for taking in the timeless turn of the century master.
And to cap it off for the keenly attentive opening night audience, also on the two- work program was the poetic Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 played by Canadian concert favourite James Ehnes.
Warmly received throughout the evening’s first half, there could be no denying Ehnes Friday night and his squeaky clean reputation for delivering sparkling, nearly flawless performances. And the Mozart Fifth Violin Concerto showed the Canadian star soloist at his fullest ease and comfort with that repertoire.
He didn’t take many chances with the phrasing or the tone, befitting his unflappable artistic disposition, and as might be predicted, his unfailingly safe musical choices sat well with a very satisfied and enthusiastic audience. Even the Turkish Rondo third movement, though brisk in the celebrated A minor section and thus a little ill- timed at certain moments with the orchestra, still presented an enviable degree of panache. The lyrical second movement sustained powerful interest in the hall, and many appeared to hang on Ehnes’s every note.
The orchestra was consistently fine in its phrasing and displayed predominantly 18th century felicitous tone and worked hard to present a faithful ethos of the work in every manner. As a solo encore, Ehnes played the Presto finale of the Bach Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, dispatching it with unbreathed virtuosity.
But the highlight of the night was clearly Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 in E minor, a work which stands in thoughtful if not often jovial contrast to its more serious- minded predecessor the “Tragic” Sixth Symphony. We were all excited for this, and so was Ehnes it turned out, who enthusiastically joined the orchestra’s first violin section to play the CPO’s debut of this wondrous work, one that covers all moods from the tragic and ironic to the humorous if not the downright satirical.
The Seventh is a gaudy, fantastical sound world, exaggerated in its thematic richness and depths of contrasts. The CPO milked all these attributes for every iota of worth, making the evening a splendid success in every way, from the first tenor horn theme to the last exuberant motive in Mahler’s grand five- movement arch. It was such a good time and from cowbell to church bell, no one present could fail to miss the glorious musical richness that rained down on us from the stage, replete with so many tuneful quotes from the repertoire too numerous to mention here. It was the CPO at its finest.
The richly orchestrated March themes in the first two movements acclimated our ears, setting a welcome tone. The third movement’s waltz parody was carried off conspicuously well, buttressed by the two ‘ Nachtmusik’ movements, the fourth movement being the stronger of the two, finding the CPO at its lucid best. After Mozart and Beethoven, Mahler is the master of symmetries, and the orchestra impressed throughout these final movements, exhibiting a clear grasp of form supported by fine orchestral blending, astute balance, ultimately demonstrating the acme of control over these now textbook chamber- music sections, complete with guitar and mandolin no less.
And in the uproarious rondo finale, written with the tongueincheek marking of ‘ Allegro ordinario,’ Mahler sets about splitting his audience into two factions: either you love this movement or you hate it, and by the sounds of things, the audience loved it, and appropriately so. It was the CPO’s highlight of the night, capping off the fun with skilful contrapuntal juxtaposition of themes, fragments and self- parodying collages, deconstructing musical forms themselves.
Perhaps there are those who would disagree, but to my ears the CPO gave its finest performance of any of the symphonies in their ongoing Mahler cycle. I can hardly wait to hear the Eighth Symphony to conclude this magnificent season of classical music, Friday and Saturday June 10 and 11.