Nov. 3-4 was a musically uplifting weekend, what with hearing John Luther Adams’ “The Light that Fills the World” Saturday, played by La Jolla Symphony, and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 in D minor Sunday, played by San Diego Symphony.
Magnificently played, Mahler’s instrumental music, taken alone, seems to exhort individual listeners to persevere in their artistic and spiritual pursuits; and that this divine music ” among Mahler’s numerous Big Statements ” as well as other things unheard, seen and unseen, is our reward for having the courage to express our humanity.
San Diegans were fortunate to hear such divine music in the course of one weekend. For that we owe thanks to respective music directors Steven Schick of La Jolla Symphony and Jahja Ling of San Diego Symphony.
When the writer spoke to Jahja earlier this year, he was uncertain just how he’d get all the forces needed for the Mahler onto the stage. His solution was not to. Just the orchestra, with added players and a full complement of timpani, chimes and two harps, took up most of the stage. The fifth movement requires two choirs that totaled around 90 singers. The San Diego Children’s Choir was shoehorned into an onstage space to the maestro’s left, and the women of the San Diego Master Chorale ranged along the side aisles of Copley Symphony Hall, creating a stereophonic effect that enveloped listeners in glorious sound.
The orchestra itself played magnificently. In addition to the choirs, the large, 110-minute work, performed without an interval, calls for plenty of horns, sustained statements from solo trumpet and fluegelhorn (magnificently played from backstage by Calvin Price) and a mezzo soprano, provided in this case by Jane Irwin, possessor of a rich, ravishingly beautiful tone and a lovely stage presence.
Sadly, a boorish foot tapping, inappropriate departures and returns ” sometimes midmovement ” and the ubiquitous cell phone marred the Sunday performance. Come on, people. Forget the physical and give over to the cerebral. Sit still, wear rubber soles if you must tap, take a bathroom break before the performance and turn off the electronics!
Nov. 16-18, Maestro Ling conducts a Jacobs’ Masterworks Series program that includes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A major with clarinet Franklin Cohen; Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”); Paul Hindemith’s “Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber; and Anton Weber’s “Im Sommerwind: Idyll fur Orchester.”
Dec. 7-9, Maestro Ling conducts San Diego Symphony, soloists and San Diego Master Chorale in performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (“Choral”). For info and tickets, visit www.sandiegosymphony.com or call (619) 235-0804.