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Barry Millington's rating
Resounding triumph for Mahler's greatest work
By
Barry Millington
10 Jul 2008
Few works benefit from being performed in the cavernous acoustics of St Paul's Cathedral. But Mahler's Symphony No8 (Symphony of a Thousand), with its gigantic orchestral forces and massive choral acclamations, exploits the prodigious echo to provide the kind of overwhelming spiritual experience that the symphony should be.
Last night's performance was the first of two bringing Valery Gergiev's epic Mahler cycle with the LSO to a triumphant close. These performances also mark the culmination of the City of London Festival, whose grandest venue is St Paul's. And given that the festival's chief theme has been the Jungfrau mountain range of Switzerland, it was eminently fitting that the symphony's climactic turning-point should be an invocation to another Jungfrau: the Virgin Mary of Goethe's Faust text.
Gergiev caught that crucial moment of expectation to perfection, gathering his forces (the London Symphony chorus, the Choral Arts Society of Washington and the Choir of Eltham College) for the final assault. The latter was the spine-chilling apotheosis one always hopes for: a blend of spirituality and theatricality that mirrors the twin texts employed by Mahler - the Veni, Creator Spiritus (Part 1) and the closing scene of Faust (Part 2).
Inevitably, not everything was on this exalted level. More than once there was a slight drifting apart in the orchestra, though one could but marvel that the ensemble was as good as it was. Similarly, a wayward solo soprano momentarily occupied a tonal zone of her own.
On the other hand, the first entry of a soloist in Part 1 not inappropriately gave the impression of a disembodied spirit, so difficult was it to identify the location of the singer in this vast space. One was grateful for a seat close to the action under the dome; members of the audience further afield would need to have taken rather a lot on trust.
A predominantly Russian cast of soloists was led by Viktoria Yastrebova and our own excellent Ailish Tynan. The baritone Alexey Markov was a mellifluous Pater Ecstaticus and Evgeny Nikitin a forthright Pater Profundus, while to Sergey Semishkur fell the responsibility of launching the final stretch with an operatic Doctor Marianus.
In such an acoustic even a plucked cello note resounds: the chamber-like passages of Mahler's score paradoxically came across surprisingly well. But in the end it was the shattering power of several hundred voices, an expanded symphony orchestra and full cathedral organ that delivered the mightiest of Mahler's symphonies with the sonic splendour it demands.
Festival ends tonight (0845 120 7502, www.colf.org)
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (1)
If you were fortunate enough to sit in the front row with the critics and the 'rattling jewellery' that's fine, but for anyone further back the acoustic is a disaster and I was only in row K at the very front of the nave. The fine strings and woodwind of the LSO were barely audible unless playing on their own; the sound simply does not carry into the nave. The brass were fine as you might imagine. But when the orchestra and chorus were at full tilt, the acoustic fog that built up made the end result intolerable.
In Part Two the textures are generally cleaner and so far as I could make out, this was, at heart, a fine performance with excellent contributions from the solo team. Gergiev brought the piece to a superb climax and I just hope that the engineers can tame the resonance for the intended CD. But the overriding fact is that unless you were in the front few rows this was a very frustrating experience for any genuine music lover. To hold such concerts in St. Paul's demands a fundamental re-think for concert goers are being cheated.
- Jeremy Wakeling, Balham, 10/07/2008 14:10
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