Teatro La Fenice (live stream), 15/05/2021

Mahler : Symphony No. 1

Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice

Myung-Whun Chung

The Teatro La Fenice has been putting out a lot of sterling work during the pandemic, and quite aside from the music itself, it's been a pleasure to get those views of the spectacular auditorium, a true gem.  This, however, was the largest orchestral grouping I have seen since the start of the pandemic.  Distancing requirements have obliged most organisations to programme works for smaller forces, or to use reductions, but while I'm not sure if there were quite as many strings (almost always a flexible item) as most conductors would like under normal circumstances, the brass and winds were there in full, and Mahler asks for a lot of them.  

For the first time, though, I understood what I have heard musicians say about the difficulties of playing socially distanced.  I heard Sir Simon Rattle, a few days ago, comment that he thought an orchestra played better under such circumstances, because the players are obliged to listen to each other even more closely than usual.  That may be, but there are penalties in the form of pure cohesion.  The distance between players, and between instrumental sections, as well as the distance from the conductor, which is quite considerable here, creates timing difficulties that were very audible in the first movement, the winds playing fractionally faster than the strings at times, notably at the start of the first "Ging heut' Morgen" section.  Chung is a fairly discreet conductor, not prone to large, exuberant gestures which might make him more visible to players on the outer edges of the grouping,  In short, it was a minor miracle that at the conclusion of the movement, with its mad dash to the final cadence, everyone did indeed end up at the same place at exactly the same time.  The horns were a little rough in places, but the off-stage trumpets sounded very effective.

The second movement, a rumbustious ländler, held together quite well, on the whole, but the third, despite, again, a little disunity right at the start, was richly evocative, with the winds vibrantly raucous in their imitation of a klezmer band, and the whole with that strange, faintly sinister air very eloquently delivered.  The tumultuous start of the final movement was also well negotiated, with any slight issues of timing no more or less than one might find in a regular concert.  The second subject was poetically handled, though on the return to the principal subject, the horns again were a little sub-par.  The differences in dynamics were well-handled, however, mystery vying with excitement in equal measure.  

Clearly, there's work to be done - in all orchestras, I imagine - to achieve the kind of unity and precision that was probably once taken for granted, and players and conductors alike must be aware of that.  Nevertheless, this was a good and heartfelt interpretation, brought to an exultant conclusion.