Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Florida Orchestra offers blend of Schubert, Mahler

By JOHN FLEMING
Published May 23, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - Stefan Sanderling and the Florida Orchestra wound up the season Saturday night with symphonies by Schubert and Mahler at Mahaffey Theater. Though the two composers had Vienna in common, their music would not seem an ideal match, but Schubert's Eighth, the Unfinished, and Mahler's Fourth went well together, perhaps because each defies expectations.

For all its Schubertian warmth and serenity, the Unfinished is punctuated by some turbulent episodes. And the Fourth Symphony is on the sunny side, mostly free of the death-haunted angst of other Mahler symphonies.

Nobody knows why Schubert never finished his symphony - he lived six more years after abandoning it. Probably he figured it was perfect in two movements. Certainly the passage of murmurring violins beneath clarinet and oboe is perfection.

Sanderling had a healthy complement of 11 cellos onstage, and he allowed their famous theme in the first movement to become too lush. Restraining the cellos would have heightened the dynamic contrasts.

The Fourth Symphony has one memorably weird effect, with the concertmaster instructed to tune a second violin up a tone and play it "like a fiddle" in the second movement. Jeff Multer sounded surprisingly good playing out of tune. Sanderling took the ultraslow route in the Ruhevoll, which held together exquisitely despite the glacial pace.

The Fourth Symphony was the first symphony ever to end with a song, and the soloist was soprano Nicole Cabell. Mahler considered having a boy soprano sing the part, and sometimes a countertenor is used, to achieve childlike sincerity in Das Himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life).

It was hard to tell if Cabell had that innocent quality. She did float out some lovely high phrases, but much of the German text was unintelligible, because her rather small voice was covered by the orchestra and her articulation in the lower and middle register was unclear.

To open the program, Sanderling sneaked in an excerpt from Michael Daugherty's Superman opus, the Metropolis Symphony .

Saturday's concert was the orchestra's last in Mahaffey until March. While the theater undergoes renovation, St. Petersburg concerts will be in Pasadena Community Church, making next season a challenge. Mayor Rick Baker counseled patience with some encouraging words from the podium after intermission, laying out his vision of Mahaffey, the orchestra and the Dali Museum as anchors of a cultural complex on the waterfront.

[Last modified May 23, 2005, 01:23:18]