The weekend just gone by found the region's two major orchestras delivering very different programs -- Haydn, Ravel and Strauss from the Baltimore Symphony with music director Marin Alsop; Mahler's Ninth from the National Symphony with music director Christoph Eschenbach -- in almost equally impressive style.
On Saturday night at the Kennedy Center, Eschenbach and the NSO explored the emotional extremes of Mahler's Symphony No. 9. The results were compelling.
Eschenbach can be counted on to take his time with reflective music, and he did so here whenever Mahler turned inward. But there was also tremendous tension and energy from the podium, too, so that the symphony cleary was as much about life as the leaving of it.
The little quotations of the Johann Strauss waltz "Enjoy Life" woven into the opening movement emerged with an extra radiance. In the second movement, Eschenbach drew out the striking bits of humor and irony with great skill (his body language wryly reflected each jolting shift of mood), and made the prismatic, sometimes almost circus-y instrumentation register brightly.
Likewise, the conductor gave the Rondo-Burleske a wonderfully sharp edge -- the rush at the end was like a children's game gone out of control.
The symphony's haunting, halting finale unfolded with considerable, but never excessive, emotional weight. Eschenbach's unhurried handling of the concluding minutes proved especially masterful, allowing the profound implications behind each phrase, each harmonic shift and, above all, each silence to be keenly felt.
A few brass chords could have been more solidly centered, a few string passages (especially in the finale) more uniform in tone and touch, but those brief moments amounted to little in light of so much vivid, cohesive playing. The musicians sounded totally connected to the conductor's wave length throughout.
Eschenbach spent a good part of his bows applauding the NSO players, who returned the gesture. It was that kind of night.
I suppose the people who have never recognized the conductor's artistic worth would still have been unmoved. How they can miss the man's deep musicality is hard for me to fathom.
Oh well, I know I wasn't the only one taken with this concert. The large, remarkably attentive audience (excepting that lady across the aisle from me who added frequent choruses of "Jingle Bells" with her zillion bracelets and fiddled nosily with her purse) gave a roaring demonstration of approval after the nearly 90-minute performance.
There were hearty cheers to be heard as well Friday night at Meyerhoff Hall, where Alsop and the BSO offered several colorful pieces, including Strauss' "Rosenkavalier" Suite, which received a sweeping account.
The only disappointment came from the composer -- that tacky coda he stuck on the piece. I wish Alsop had done what some others do and substitute the much more effective and appropriate ending from the opera (Alan Gilbert took that approach when he conducted the Suite with the New York Philharmonic last week ).
That said, Alsop sculpted the score with great sensitivity; her phrasing for the Presentation of the Rose and Trio scenes was admirably spacious, and she ensured quite an effective lilt for the waltz passages.
With little exception, the BSO summoned a rich, well-polished sound for the Strauss work, as well as Ravel's "La Valse," which Alsop paced with sufficient nuances of tempo to keep things eventful. That composer's "Valses nobles et sentimentales" could have used a touch more delicacy here and there, but still hit an elegant spot.
Not quite fitting into the programmatic scheme of things, but thoroughly welcome, was Haydn's C major Cello Concerto, featuring Sol Gabetta. The cellist's uncommonly sweet tone, refined articulation and character-rich phrasing yielded consistent pleasure, as did the lithe and transparent playing that Alsop drew from the orchestra (the strings sustained especially beautiful pianissimos).
Gabetta's encore cast quite a subtle glow over the hall -- the Catalan "Song of the Birds" made famous by Pablo Casals -- which she performed exquisitely, with an eloquent quartet of BSO cellists as accompaniment.