TSO conveys emotion of Mahler’s symphony
Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2
(out of 4) Toronto Symphony Orchestra, with Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and guests. Peter Oundjian, conductor. Repeats Friday night at Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St., tso.ca or 416-872-4255. There may be no other piece in the canon of orchestral music that so completely covers the range of human emotion than Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, “Resurrection.”
And in the auspices of Arthur Erickson’s Roy Thomson Hall, a world within a world was formed Wednesday night.
Mahler’s “Resurrection” is unabashedly existential, a story anyone with a heartbeat will readily understand. It laughs, cries, wonders and decides. In an attempt to understand itself, it never ceases to keep moving forward. After 90 minutes, it’s an exhausting journey but will leave you all the better for it.
With the Toronto Symphony Orchestra spilling over the stage, music director Peter Oundjian presented the opening funeral march with hair-raising vitality. Without forgetting about the overall arch, he maintained a shrewd attention on the transitions between the ever-shifting moments. Like the work itself, Oundjian didn’t pretend to be certain of anything. He let the doubts — uncomfortable as they are — remain. In contrast, the climaxes were assured rather than ponderous.
Singing with a singular voice, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir lined the balcony with impressive numbers. Rather than coming out for the fourth movement, they sat motionless until it was their turn to sing. But once they did, their voices filled the hall like the massive organ that loomed at their backs.
Out of the voices of the many rose Canadian soloist Erin Wall. Her tone was pure and tinged with the emotion of the text.
Matched with mezzo-soprano Susan Platts, they combined to create a smouldering pair and each gave the text a shade slightly darker than the orchestra’s pallette. Platts’ tone was particularly murky, generating a heightened sense of fervent-ness to the fourth movement (primordial, very solemnly, but simply).
A small quibble was the briefly out-ofsync trumpets in one of the offstage brass ensembles. Oundjian was quick to bring them in line.
On the whole, the performance was exciting and offered a chance to capture the flow of shapes that Mahler so distinctly lived by. It’s enough to leave you walking home with shaky knees and a mind swimming with ideas.