The Kennedy Center Concert Hall’s rafters rang with hope and triumph Thursday evening as former businessman Gilbert Kaplan conducted the National Symphony Orchestra and the Cathedral Choral Society in an earth-shattering performance of Gustav Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”). There may be no such thing as a definitive performance of any complicated classical masterwork. But this one came awfully close.
Over 20 some years, Mr. Kaplan has been invited to conduct this symphony by dozens of orchestras around the world. He has two recordings under his belt, the latest a recently released Deutsche Grammophon disc with the Vienna Philharmonic. It incorporates for the first time most of Mahler’s final revisions to the score — changes largely embodied in last weekend’s series of concerts.
According to Mr. Kaplan, Mahler’s symphony is driven by a search for the answers to three burning questions: Why does one live? Why does one struggle? Or is life simply a meaningless joke? The questions are raised dramatically in the first movement, a vast, elaborate funeral march. The interior three movements grope for answers. The finale provides a glorious synthesis.
Scored for immense orchestral forces, including a large chorus and organ, platoons of percussionists, offstage brass, a military band in the rafters, and two vocal soloists, Mahler’s symphonic pursuit of personal meaning in the cosmos was, in hindsight, the apotheosis of Romantic individualism two decades before it was crushed forever in the carnage of World War I.
Mr. Kaplan’s latest interpretation of Mahler’s revised score is a revelation. He unveils, perhaps for the first time, a crisp, highly precise composer very much in command of his forces, one who undertakes the ultimate musical journey with a sense of high seriousness, not bathetic sentimentality. Every crescendo is crafted carefully, and each tonal color is applied precisely.
Mr. Kaplan had the NSO playing for much of the evening as a single, finely honed instrument. In the first and third movements, one section or another occasionally slithered away from his baton for a few bars — not uncommon in a work in which sliding tempo shifts are numerous. Nevertheless, the power and craftsmanship of the evening were exceptional, from the ripping “scream of anguish” that climaxes the third movement and commences the fifth to the last triumphal peal of orchestra, organ and bells.
Equally praiseworthy were the symphony’s quieter moments, especially the moving vocal solos of mezzo Nancy Maultsby — a last-minute substitute for the ailing Nadja Michael — and soprano Latonia Moore. Miss Moore was exceptional as she soared subtly above and through the heavenly chorus near the work’s closing moments.
Kudos as well to the Cathedral Choral Society, brilliantly coached by longtime Music Director J. Reilly Lewis. The unaccompanied, nearly whispered choral entrance in the finale is nearly impossible to accomplish cleanly. Yet the precision achieved by Mr. Lewis’ forces was ravishing beyond anyone’s expectations.
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