Martin Alsop; Baltimore Symphony's ‘Resurrection’ tops the Mahler memorials

アメリカで女流指揮者のなかで最も人気の高い実力者として知られるMarin Alsop が，Music Director を勤めるBaltimore Symphony Orchestra の2011~12シーズンの開幕を，Mahler memorial　として，その有名な‘Resurrection’「復活」をとりあげたそうですが．Washington Post の　Music Critic が Baltimore Symphony's ‘Resurrection’ tops the Mahler memorials　とアメリカの並みいる Symphony Orchestra の「復活」演奏を押さえて，トップの好演だったと高く評価していましたので，ご紹介します．

The 100th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s death was in May, apparently inspiring local orchestras to play the composer’s Second Symphony as many times as possible to celebrate the Mahler Year. On Saturday night at Strathmore, it was the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s turn to play the “Resurrection,” in a performance that was not without its faults but still the best of several heard this year.　と欠点はあったけれども，最高の好演だったと書き出しています．

Marin Alsop opened her season with an interpretation that bubbled with vivacity and force but, like the previous installments of her ongoing Mahler cycle with the BSO, tended to miss the forest for the trees. Alsop’s tempo choices were often distorted, such as overly slow funeral march sections in the first movement and an overly fast third movement. This mannered approach helped neither ensemble unity nor the sense of overall line through the symphony. Most successful was the delicate second movement, an unruffled, nostalgic Landler that bordered on the shmaltzy in its evocation of a memory of the world left behind.
その第1楽章，第2楽章の解釈は，「木を見て森を見ない」モノとこき下ろしていますが，デリケートな第2楽章は絶賛しています．

それでも，The orchestra’s playing was generally excellent, some off-color high clarinet and oboe wails aside, with the strings offering both lush vastness and ethereal transparency and the low brass solid as steel. とオーケストラの演奏を全体としては賞賛しています．
しかし，メゾ・ソプラノには手厳しく，Mezzo-soprano Susan Platts sang with an unpleasant nervous flutter in her voice, and this tremulous quality soured her intonation at times. Alsop bulldozed through her fourth-movement “Urlicht” song, missing most of the potential drama. と批判しています．

しかし，全体としてソプラノに救われたようで，By contrast, soprano Layla Claire rose out of the choral texture with a limpid tone. The Baltimore Choral Arts Society provided the necessary show-stopping moments in the final movement, purring in a disembodied murmur at its entrance and filling the hall with an ecstatic howl at the conclusion.　と終楽章は大いに盛り上がったようです．

批評の大見出しは，Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Resurrection’ tops the Mahler memorials　と並みいる「復活」演奏のトップを占めると書いているのです．

地元の批評では，演奏は素晴らしかったのに，空席が目立ち，一部の聴衆のマナーは見るに堪えなかったと書いていたのが気がかりな点です．

  

  

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Resurrection’ tops the Mahler memorials

Washington Post By — Charles Downey, Published: September 19

The 100th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s death was in May, apparently inspiring local orchestras to play the composer’s Second Symphony as many times as possible to celebrate the Mahler Year. On Saturday night at Strathmore, it was the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s turn to play the “Resurrection,” in a performance that was not without its faults but still the best of several heard this year.

Music director Marin Alsop opened her season with an interpretation that bubbled with vivacity and force but, like the previous installments of her ongoing Mahler cycle with the BSO, tended to miss the forest for the trees. Alsop’s tempo choices were often distorted, such as overly slow funeral march sections in the first movement and an overly fast third movement. This mannered approach helped neither ensemble unity nor the sense of overall line through the symphony. Most successful was the delicate second movement, an unruffled, nostalgic Landler that bordered on the shmaltzy in its evocation of a memory of the world left behind.

The orchestra’s playing was generally excellent, some off-color high clarinet and oboe wails aside, with the strings offering both lush vastness and ethereal transparency and the low brass solid as steel. Mezzo-soprano Susan Platts sang with an unpleasant nervous flutter in her voice, and this tremulous quality soured her intonation at times. Alsop bulldozed through her fourth-movement “Urlicht” song, missing most of the potential drama.

By contrast, soprano Layla Claire rose out of the choral texture with a limpid tone. The Baltimore Choral Arts Society provided the necessary show-stopping moments in the final movement, purring in a disembodied murmur at its entrance and filling the hall with an ecstatic howl at the conclusion.