Mahler 7 at the Kimmel Center

Published February 23, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: Gustav Mahler, Kimmel Center, Leonard Bernstein, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic

I just got in from hearing the London Symphony and Gergiev do Mahler 7. Received wisdom says that this is a problematic piece, with the outer movements not seeming to be from the same piece as the inner movements, especially the two Nachtmusiken; the finale also comes in for criticism as being strangely banal. I never found the work to be a problem, but I have an odd relationship with the piece – it was the first Mahler I ever heard, when I brought home an LP copy of Lenny and the NY Phil from the public library back in my home town. I was caught right in the first few bars, and have had a special affection for the piece ever since. I had the privilege of hearing Bernstein conduct the piece in the 80s, and it was the way he could capture the nuances of tempo that I missed tonight. Gergiev simply played the piece too darn fast. The first movement was the best, but the 2nd, 4th and 5th were all rushed. Rehearsal 72 in the second movement is marked molto moderato in 4/4 but tonight it was played as though in 2/2, with a moderately moving half note. It was impossible to articulate the staccato triplet offbeats in the horns at 3 before 79, and so the charming waltz-like effect was lost.

Maybe it was just the Lenny charisma, but somehow he made the finale work – it was ironic in its juxtapositions. There is that startling moment when a soft a-flat chord is revealed when a tutti C major chord cuts off, and there are similarly abrupt inflections of tempo – I count 72 indications of tempo changes and nuances in the score of the finale. And yet the piece is sincere as well – the bell-ringing passage near the end is genuinely joyful. Tonight’s rushed performance seemed to bring out the banalities, and lacked the sense of irony that Bernstein achieved. At moments it seemed like Mahler had been influenced by Shostakovich, which is not a good thing, in my book.

While the conducting was dismaying, the playing was magnificent – rich in dynamic contrasts, virtuosic in the demanding solos (the horn playing was memorable), precise and clear, but warm in ensemble sound. The end of the fourth movement was magical, as it should be – all credit to Mahler and the players rather than the conductor.

It is not a new post, but via Classical Convert – choose your own Mahler Symphony cycle.

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James Primosch, composer

When honoring him with its Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters noted that "A rare economy of means and a strain of religious mysticism distinguish the music of James Primosch... Through articulate, transparent textures, he creates a wide range of musical emotion." Andrew Porter stated in The New Yorker that Primosch "scores with a sure, light hand" and critics for the New York Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Dallas Morning News have characterized his music as "impressive", "striking", "grandly romantic", "stunning" and "very approachable".

Primosch’s compositional voice encompasses a broad range of expressive types. His music can be intensely lyrical, as in the song cycle Holy the Firm or dazzlingly angular as in Secret Geometry for piano and electronic sound. His affection for jazz is reflected in works like the Piano Quintet, while his work as a church musician informs the many pieces in his catalog based on sacred songs or religious texts.

His music has been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Lydian, Cavani, Cassatt, Ying, and Miami string quartets, the 21st Century Consort, the New York New Music Ensemble, Network for New Music, Dawn Upshaw, Lisa Saffer, Janice Felty, and Lambert Orkis. Twelve of his compositions have been recorded for Albany, Azica, Bard, Bridge, CRI, Centaur, Innova, and New World labels, with new discs of vocal and choral works planned.

Current Projects:

Working with audio wizard George Blood on editing recordings of "Holy the Firm", "From a Book of Hours", "Four Sacred Songs", and "Dark the Star" for eventual CD release. The performers are Susan Narucki, William Sharp, and the 21st Century Consort, directed by Christopher Kendall.

Two composition projects:
- a cycle of songs for soprano and orchestra. Susan Stewart, whose poetry I have set in three previous pieces, has written new poems specifically for this project, to be called "A Sibyl".
- an oboe quartet for Peggy Pearson, commissioned by Winsor Music.

David Patrick Stearns on “Songs for Adam”

If there's anything out there like Primosch's Songs of Adam, I haven't heard it - though the music wears its singularity lightly, with no need to express itself radically. It has a confidence of expression that comes of Primosch's having written a steady stream of song cycles since the late 1990s. Composers are still drawing legitimate inspiration from poets of the increasingly distant past, such as Walt Whitman, but Primosch pushes both himself and thus his listeners onto new ground with Susan Stewart's verse, which are called songs in their printed version because they suggest music, especially in the first poem, in which Adam is stuttering his way into existence.

Both poet and composer share an ability to contemplate how basic elements of existence might feel for the first time, and the duo know how to capture that in their respectively cultivated vocabularies, with an emotional rightness that never becomes too analytical.

In fact, Primosch enters the Korngold zone when describing Adam's intoxication with the word. Though words are set dramatically and in ways that are well written for the voice, the best moments are in the masterly orchestration, which gives an extra percussive spark to moments of discovery and unflinchingly confronts the agony of Adam's expulsion from Eden.

The pale strings capture his disappointment in the real world in an overall dramatic arc that's almost epic, going from the unimaginable (the beauty of Eden) to the unthinkable (the world's first children, Abel and Cain, and the world's first fratricide).
-Philadelphia Inquirer, May 2, 2010

Secret Geometry – James Primosch's blog