CARNEGIE HALL

The Met Orchestra

The MET Orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen, Conductor
Susan Graham, Mezzo-Soprano
Matthew Polenzani, Tenor

ALL-MAHLER PROGRAM
Selections from Des Knaben Wunderhorn
·· "Der Schildwache Nachtlied"
·· "Verlor'ne Müh"
·· "Trost im Unglück"
·· '"Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht"
·· "Das irdische Leben"
·· "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt"
·· "Rheinlegendchen"
·· "Lied des Verfolgten im Turm"
·· "Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen"
·· "Lob des hohen Verstandes"
Symphony No. 1

"Mahler said “a symphony should embrace the world,” a statement true of much of his music. In just a few bars, he can take the listener on a ramble through the forest, conjure visions of the last judgment, recreate a wild klezmer dance, or paint a picture of heaven. Mahler's music speaks to every emotion and touches every level of the psyche—it truly embraces the world. His song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn) tells tales of joy, recounts the farewell of a young soldier to his lover, conveys the mysteries of childhood, reveals the pleasures and pains of love, and much more."

"The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is regarded as one of the world's finest orchestras. From the time of the company's inception in 1883, the ensemble has worked with leading conductors in both opera and concert performances, and has developed into an orchestra of enormous technical polish and style. The MET Orchestra (as the ensemble is referred to when appearing in concert outside the opera house) maintains a demanding schedule of performances and rehearsals during its 33-week New York season, when the company performs as many as seven times a week in repertory that this season encompasses 26 operas."

"In addition to its opera schedule, the orchestra has a distinguished history of concert performances. Arturo Toscanini made his American debut as a symphonic conductor with The MET Orchestra in 1913, and the impressive list of instrumental soloists who have appeared with the orchestra includes Leopold Godowsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arthur Rubinstein, Pablo Casals, Josef Hofmann, Ferruccio Busoni, Jascha Heifetz, Moriz Rosenthal, and Fritz Kreisler. Since the orchestra resumed symphonic concerts in 1991, instrumental soloists have included Itzhak Perlman, Maxim Vengerov, Alfred Brendel, and Evgeny Kissin, and the group has performed six world premieres: Milton Babbitt's Piano Concerto No. 2 (1998), William Bolcom's Symphony No. 7 (2002), Hsueh-Yung Shen's Legend (2002), Charles Wuorinen's Theologoumenon (2007) and Time Regained(2009), and John Harbison's Closer to My Own Life (2011)."

"Songs and symphonies form the two pillars of Mahler’s output, and both genres are represented on tonight’s program. Although Mahler was an esteemed opera conductor—arguably the greatest of his time—he never composed for the stage. Besides his symphonies and many songs, only one movement of a chamber work and a youthful cantata survive. Tonight’s concert opens with 10 songs on texts from Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim’s collection of German folk songs titled Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which began to appear in print in 1805 and quickly became a seminal text. Des Knaben Wunderhorn is not without its emotional complications, and the melancholic Mahler was no doubt drawn to the collection’s themes of unrequited love, doom-laden militarism, and desperate hopes for a better life."

"Mahler’s First Symphony drew much of its melodic material from his early song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), begun in the mid-1880s. The symphony also drew on other late–18th- and early–19th-century sources, including Jean Paul’s Titan and Siebenkäs, E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier, and Schubert’s friend Moritz von Schwind’s woodcut of a hunter’s funeral. As the work’s performance history progressed, Mahler removed these references, including the subtitle “Titan,” preferring the illusion of abstraction to possible critical indignation at the work’s programmatic roots. Nonetheless, Mahler’s symphony still strikes an extramusical note, offering both a bold continuation of the symphonic tradition pioneered by Beethoven and a poetic evocation of the landscape of Central Europe, albeit with a vein of nostalgia."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/arts/music/review-esa-pekka-salonen-met-orchestra-mahler-carnegie-hall.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fanthony-tommasini&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

Review: Esa-Pekka Salonen Brings Mahler to Carnegie, Ever So Coolly

By ANTHONY TOMMASINIJUNE 1, 2017

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Met Orchestra, with the tenor Matthew Polenzani. Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times 

Two of the best and most important productions at the Metropolitan Opera in recent years were Janacek’s “From the House of the Dead,” in 2009, and Strauss’s “Elektra,” last spring. Both were directed by Patrice Cheréau. And both were conducted, brilliantly, by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

In the middle of the “Elektra” run last year, the Met announced that Mr. Salonen would replace James Levine in its orchestra’s annual series at Carnegie Hall. The hall was packed on Wednesday for the first of three programs, an evening of Mahler offering 10 songs from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” and the Symphony No. 1 in D minor. The chemistry between Mr. Salonen and these players, which came through so powerfully at the Met, was obvious again at Carnegie.

For some Mahlerites, Mr. Salonen’s approach to these classic works may seem a little steeped in Nordic cool. For me, the lean textures, clarity and emotional directness were exactly what made the interpretations so rewarding.

The mezzo-soprano Susan Graham performing selections from Mahler’s “Des Knaben Wunderhorn.” Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times 

The texts for “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” come from a collection of anonymous German folk poems. Many conductors and singers delve beneath the folklore to plumb the tragic depths of these texts about courtship, war and the afterlife. In this performance, featuring two Met stars, the mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and the tenor Matthew Polenzani, the storytelling aspects of the songs were paramount and the mood less heavy; profundities came through without undue emotiveness. Mr. Salonen drew sensitive and colorful yet refined and lucid playing from the orchestra.

In “Der Schildwache Nachtlied,” a lonely sentinel voices passing thoughts, one moment wistfully regretting that he must stand guard while others make merry, the next imagining a beckoning girl. Mr. Polenzani conveyed the sentry’s vulnerability in his sweet-toned singing.

Ms. Graham, in plush voice, captured the rustic courtship rituals between the “she” and the “he” of “Verlor’ne Müh.” The combination of her vocal charisma and emotional restraint proved effective in the aching song “Das Irdische Leben.” Mr. Polenzani, singing with plaintive beauty in soft, high-lying phrases, excelled in the wrenching “Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen,” in which a forlorn soldier, sensing doom, bids his girlfriend farewell.

In the First Symphony, Mr. Salonen seemed intent on reminding listeners that this piece is an earthbound symphonic composition, not just Mahler’s first step into the metaphysical beyond. Mr. Salonen drew out the folkloric elements of the music: the rustic tunes, the evocation of gurgling streams, the heavy-footed stomping in the landler dance that runs through the third movement.

But the slight coolness and clarity of the playing also revealed Mahler’s intricate contrapuntal writing, the boldness of his chromatic harmonies. And I don’t see how any Mahler lover could have felt shortchanged during the brassy, triumphant conclusion of the finale, played here to the hilt.