Review Of Mahler 8. I got past the Chicago Tribune paywall

 

LEVINE`S MAHLER GETS BETTER AT END

By John von Rhein and Music critic

Chicago Tribune

July 12, 1987

As if protected from the rains by heavenly intervention, James Levine`s performance of the Mahler Symphony No. 8 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Friday at Ravinia played to a nearly full pavilion and a respectable number of listeners on the lawn.

That in itself is important, for the so-called ''Symphony of a Thousand'' is festival music par excellence, demanding not, only a large space, both aural and physical, but also a large audience to share fully in its exaltation.

For this performance (his fourth at Ravinia) Levine had enlisted a double chorus of nearly 300 voices drawn from the ranks of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, plus the Glen Ellyn Children`s Chorus and eight vocal soloists, with the orchestra occupying a stage extension. Though roughly 500 musicians short of the 1,000 or so who gave the 1910 premiere under Mahler`s direction, in sheer sound-output this was a pretty impressive assemblage.

To prepare this complex choral symphony within the limited rehearsal conditions available at Ravinia is a tall order even for so experienced a Mahlerian as Levine. While the score is not precisely everyday repertory to the orchestra and chorus, they are familiar enough with Levine`s approach to guarantee, at least in theory, a technically adequate account.

I am afraid that with the first half of the symphony--a mystical prayer for peace based on the medieval hymn ''Veni, Creator Spiritus''--Levine barely gave us even that. At his rushed, strenuous tempo the music lacked a majesty equal to Mahler`s perfervid vision; the sound was unvaryingly loud, the brasses brayed coarsely, and the soloists seemed heedless of any obligation to blend voices.

Then came the second section, a kind of mystic Mahlerian opera based on Goethe`s symbolic vision (from Part II of ''Faust'') of mankind`s redemption through love.

For the first time all evening Levine was making music instead of noise, transporting the music and his listeners to an altogether higher plane of consciousness.

He shaped the great musical arch firmly, making particularly vivid the hushed mystery of the nature tableau, building through the various solo and choral statements to a very grand (if not eloquent) account of the final apotheosis signaling mankind`s transfiguration through the power of love and faith.

There is not a lot an outdoor performance can do to project the chamber-music-like details of this huge score, but at least essentials like the electronic organ and mandolin parts were clearly audible. Nor can one praise too highly the committed, full-throated singing of the choruses. They were magnificent. The orchestral playing was big and thick and could have stood more refinement.

The uneven vocal soloists were Kaaren Erickson, Marvis Martin, Karen Williams, Hillary Johnsson, Florence Quivar, Timothy Jenkins, Thomas Hampson and John Cheek.

Martin`s Mater Gloriosa soared radiantly, and Quivar`s rich mezzo caught the transcendent quality of the Goethe text. Cheek was an aptly ecstatic Pater Profundis. Jenkins, who sang despite the fact that he was suffering from the flu, coped as well as he could with the high tenor tessitura.