Pacific Symphony
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ST. Clair and Company
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By Joseph N. Feinstein
With his full mane of gray hair, his baton pointing heavenward, his strut so confident, Carl St. Clair crosses the stage to take his place before the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. The members of the orchestra and the 122 member Pacific Chorale rise to greet him. Ironically, the swell of those numbers rising creates the feeling within you that you should get to your feet also. And, while that doesn't happen now, it will most assuredly occur after the baton comes down one hour and twenty four minutes later as Mr. St. Clair and all those hundreds of people before you conclude this most majestic, stirring piece by Gustav Mahler; his Second Symphony called the "Resurrection" --a piece composed from 1888-1894.
In his brief presentation just prior to the symphony, Alan Chapman described each of the five movements for us:
Movement #1 - What is the meaning of life and death?
Movement #2 - The happy recollections of a person's life.
Movement #3 - The song of St. Anthony as he preaches to the fish. They swim away after listening to him, reflecting the disbelief and the loss of faith we all feel at times.
Movement #4 - The place we are all headed to is eternal life and the promise of resurrection to meet God; our faith renewed, our zeal restored.
Movement #5 - The certain promise that we will all be blessed with eternal life. (No wonder the symphony took seven years to compose!)
Chapman urged us to journey along with Mahler, allowing ourselves to feel the music, the emotions, the spirituality as we move so certainly from darkness to light. "And remember," warned Chapman, "the journey never moves on a straight line or continuum but varies along the way."
Words can never fully explain the rapture of Mahler's music, for it enfolds you from the first measure to the last. The enchanting, sonorous sounds of sweet melodies, as well as dissonant and introspective motifs, make Mahler's music magnificent to the many as each incredible movement follows the other.
One can hear two marches: the first in the first movement which depicts an unhappy time - one fraught with sadness as the people attend the funeral of a deceased hero. And the second, in the fifth movement, evinces sounds of a long struggle ending with a great, jubilant victory. The eternal judgment is approaching. The sounds of the trumpets are heard.
Always, there are shadings of loud and soft; melodic and dissonant; hope and despair; light and dark. At several junctures, certain chords and sounds remind me of the same melodies heard in Orff's Carmina Burana. The composer was a good friend of Gustav's. Why not borrow notes in the same way Berle borrowed jokes?
No doubt, Mahler was an "equal opportunity" composer. Almost every instrument gets equal time during the composition to "star" for a moment or two. It is like a very heavy, sophisticated Carnival of the Animals, where each instrument solos throughout the piece.
Accolades must go to John Alexander, the artistic Director of the Pacific Chorale, as well as the soloists, Janice Chandler-Eteme, soprano, and Susan Platts, mezzo-soprano, whose voices, along with the chorale, lift all of us heavenward. Their brief participation in the fourth and fifth movements is moving and a magnificent conclusion to this spectacular symphony.
The audience erupts to a full standing ovation for over five minutes and a most fulfilled assemblage left the auditorium on the wings of angels. The Pacific Symphony seems to be getting better and better with each concert they play.
Pacific Symphony Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall Segerstrom Center For The Arts Orange County Performing Arts Center 600 Town Center Drive Costa Mesa
92626 Tel. 714-755-5799 Next Concert: March 22-24 featuring Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto
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