Daily Archives: July 8, 2017

July 8, 2017 by Jeffrey Gantz

One hundred and fifty-seven years after Gustav Mahlers birth on July 7, 1860, he could hardly have imagined a better birthday present than the performance of his Second Symphony, the Resurrection, that Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave to open Tanglewoods 2017 season.

Mahler premiered the Resurrection in Berlin in 1895, to a mixed reception. The certainty of its redemptive Finale would give way to the pantheism of his Third Symphony, the mortal humor of the Fourth and Fifth, the mortal tragedy of the Sixth, the mundane humor of the Seventh, and the death struggle that is Das Lied von der Erde and the Ninth and Tenth. But Mahler never outgrew the hope of the Resurrection. It was the piece he conducted at his Vienna farewell concert, after he had resigned as director of the Vienna Hofoper. It was the first of his symphonies that he conducted in New York (1908), and the first that he conducted in Paris (1910).

The Resurrection symphony also prompted the late New York businessman and financier Gilbert Kaplan to acquire the autograph manuscript of Mahlers score and take up the baton. Kaplan conducted Mahlers Second on more than 100 occasions, and he recorded it twice, with the London Symphony in 1987 and the Vienna Philharmonic in 2004. Kaplans philosophy of the Resurrection was that the angels are in the details, but theres more to the heaven of this symphony than his literal readings dream of. On a rainy Friday, Nelsons took it by the devils horns, so to speak.

You dont need Mahlers program to understand that the opening Allegro maestoso is a funeral march, or that its the hero of his First Symphony whos in the coffin. But that opening outburst in the cellos and basses can be calm and resigned or big and angry. Nelsons went for big and angry. Recorded timings for this movement range from 17-1/2 minutes (Otto Klemperer in 1951) to 25-1/2 minutes (Otto Klemperer in 1971); Nelsons took 25. He gave the initial theme drama, space, and articulation, making palpable those bars where the cellos and basses, now downward slipping, recall the passage in the first act of Wagners Die Walkre when Hunding orders Sieglinde to prepare food and drink for Siegmund. The wistful, yearning E-major second theme was fraught, almost self-consciously so, but on its second appearance, in the development, Nelsons conjured what T. S. Eliot called the agony in stony places. He was ferocious where Mahler introduces the plainsong Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) to the march, then tender when the yearning theme rises to a hopeful F-sharp, a moment many conductors gloss over. The coda was measured but never sagged.

Mahler marked a five-minute pause to follow the Allegro maestoso. Perhaps he thought his audience would need that much of a break to recover from the gravity of the first movement; perhaps he thought that the Andante moderato would be jarring if it followed immediately. Contemporary audiences hardly need five minutes; conductors these days usually take a brief pause. Nelsons took three minutes, which seemed just right.

The Andante moderato flashes back to happy time in the heros life; Mahlers program describes it as a memory, a ray of sunlight, pure and cloudless. The movement has been described as both a minuet and a Lndler; Nelsons gave it the courtly delicacy of the one and the rustic sway of the other. One could have asked for more animation in the stately first trio, but the transition from the second trio back into the main subject was seductive, and the drawn-out conclusion was a benediction.

In the third movement, I lost Nelsonss thread. Titled In ruhig flieender Bewegung (In Peacefully Flowing Movement), its Mahlers remodeling of his Des Knaben Wunderhorn song Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt, wherein St. Anthony, finding his church empty, goes to preach to the fishes, who listen attentively before resuming their venal ways. Mahler describes the movement as a return to this tangled life of ours after awaking from the blissful dream of the Andante moderato. Peacefully flowing describes what Nelsons gave us, but at his moderate tempo the movement was mild-mannered, with no hint of mincing sarcasm, and the climaxes didnt have room to register. Even the moment when the ocean seems to open up and reveal Wagners Rhinemaidens wanted magic.

Mahler was, he tells us, at a loss as to how to redeem this distorted and crazy world until, in 1894, he attended the funeral of conductor Hans von Blow and heard a choir sing a setting of Friedrich Klopstocks poem Auferstehen (Rise Again). In short order, he fashioned the final two movements. The fourth, Urlicht (Primal Light), adapts another of the composers Knaben Wunderhorn songs. Nelsonss mezzo, Bernarda Fink, sang without a score and with admirable purity and gravity she never sounded operatic. She also conveyed meaning without overenunciating. What she didnt do was project.

Mahler concludes the Resurrection with his own version of the Klopstock chorale, but not until the Day of Wrath arrives and the dead rise, march, and stand for Judgment though as Mahler advises us, There is no Judgment, only A feeling of overwhelming love. This fifth and final movement sprawls and is hard to hold together. It begins in chaos before we hear the Resurrection theme, which, it turns out, is a rhythmic variation on the Ewig motif from Wagners Siegfried: Ewig war ich, ewig bin ich (Eternal I was, eternal I am) is what Brnnhilde sings to Siegfried after hes braved her ring of fire. You can hear a foreshadowing of the Resurrection theme as early as bar 48 of the Allegro maestoso which makes you wonder whether Mahler didnt know where he was going with this symphony from the outset.

Andris Nelsons conducts BSO, TFC, Bernardam Fink, and Malin Christensson (Hilary Scott photo)

I wasnt always sure where Nelsons was going either. This movement was mighty Mahler at the decibel level but some sections were hustled and others went so slackly that the phrasing flatlined. The soprano, Malin Christensson, had sung previously with Nelsons and the BSO in Februarys Bach B-minor Mass; she was pleasing then and pleasing Friday, but she rarely rose above the tumult.

What Mahler called Der groe Appell (The Great Call), however, was perfectly calibrated antiphonal offstage brass fanfares set against an onstage flutes nightingale, which Mahler called the bird of death. And it was gratifying to see the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, all in white, off book. The choruss first word, Auferstehen, was hushed (which is the norm in a good performance) but also gentle (a pleasant surprise). Bereite dich, so often barked, was a full-throated cheer. Nelsons integrated the tempos of Sterben werd ich, um zu leben and the slightly faster Was du geschlagen in a way that few conductors do, and the climax was fervent.

The reading overall was expansive at 87 minutes (excluding that three-minute pause). As a live performance (real or imagined shortcomings aside), it measured up to Claudio Abbados legendary 1979 BSO guesting and, yes, Benjamin Zanders offering this past April with the Boston Philharmonic. Next to more compact, natural recordings by the likes of Otto Klemperer and William Steinberg, Nelsonss interpretation could sound studied, but for every perplexing moment, came two or three breathtaking ones. The clarity of the orchestra was remarkable throughout; the counterpoint between the upper and lower strings felt palpable, and the winds and the brass executed with ravishing beauty. A CD of this night would be among the best in the catalog. Happy birthday Gustav!

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Nelsons Leads Tanglewood Resurrection - The Boston Musical Intelligencer

There are at least twenty distinct options on God, found throughout history and afoot right now.

We can say there is considerable variety in the approach to God as long as we admit that variety is just a pretty word for disagreement.

What does disagreement show?

Theological disagreement shows us that humanity has never ever agreed about Who or What or Whether God is. Your own view of God (find it in the list below) will always be a minority opinion, outnumbered by all the other opinions combined.

Here are the twenty:

Polytheists say there are many Gods, as many as you like, into the millions if you prefer, perhaps billions, one for every pair of human eyes. You may worship and adore all the Gods.

Henotheists admit many Gods too, but you may only have time to devote yourself to one, and thats okay because these are not self-doubting, jealous Gods.

Kat-henotheists also acknowledge many Gods, but you should dedicate yourself to a single God at a time, moving from one God to another God at different phases of your life, perhaps the phases offered in As You Like It by Shakespeares intellectualist idler, Jaques, who espies seven stages of life, beginning with infancy and ending in the second childishness of old-aged senilitysans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. There are Gods aplenty for each stage.

Trinitarians affirm one God but this God is to be worshiped and adored in three persons: Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Ghost. To other monotheists like Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Bahais and Caodais, and to polytheists and atheists too, Trinitarian math is elusive (1+1+1=1?) and susceptible to being labelled a petite polytheism of three distinct Gods. Trinitarians vigorously defend the oneness of three.

Dualists acknowledge two Gods, one very very Good and the other one very very Evil. The need for two rests upon the worlds oscillation between beauty and ugliness, delight and dread, kindness and cruelty, irises and ebola viruses. In a family of Dualists you may hear the following dialogue: Child: Mommy, did our good, loving and compassionate God create the talon, the fang and the claw? Mom: No, sweetie, the other God, the God of cruelty, made those. As if you needed to be told, you should adore the very very Good God.

Monotheists declare there has only ever been one good God to worship and adore. Several distinct and opposing monotheistic religions claim this God and define him in many different ways, with many different hues.

Dystheists say theres one God who is not really all that good, given conspicuous evidence from our bloody red in tooth and claw, predator-prey natural world. Adore with caution.

Pantheists state that God is identical to the many things of the physical, material world, and when you adore the many things of the material world you adore God.

Pan-en-theists claim that God is within the many things of the material world but distinct from the many things of the material world. You may adore this God in your esteem for the material world, or adore this God as something above the material world.

Deists insist there is one God who created the universe but thereafter took no interest in it. You do not adore this God because this God cares nothing about you, either because he doesnt know you exist, or because he cares about you as much as he cares about the life of an oyster or a gnat (with due apologies to The World Parliament of Insects, Mollusks, & Affiliated Clam Culture).

Daoists maintain that God is not a person at all but an Impersonal Force that pervades the universe and may be tapped-into by humans but requires no adoration. (Cf. Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Rey of the Star Wars mythos.)

Extra-Terrrestrialists say that what humans have been calling Gods are actually space-visiting galactic beings who used modest ingredients and measuring spoons to un-miraculously originate life on Earth and thereafter vacationed in rural New Mexico.

Monists proclaim there is only one item in existence: God. God is everything, everything is God, and everything is only one thing, God. Variety is a delusion, and all the words we have for the many existent things are superfluous. Thin the dictionary to the letter g and the word God. (Pantheism is different in that it admits the existence of many things).

Anatheists say God cannot be rendered into any image or concept, because the God that can be imagined is not the real God. Our mystics proffer this deity and claim to adore God immediately; that is, without the mediation of holy saints, holy buildings, holy worship services, bells, books, candles, or even thoughts and words. Mystics often claim an ineffable experience and then write inch-thick books describing it.

Euhemerists say all Gods were once humans who at some point achieved apotheosis, elevation to divinity. Adore the worthy ones. (Some Buddhists may be here.)

Misotheists follow Prometheus and hate all Gods because Gods are completely overbearing, pompous, fat-witted despots. Adoration is inapt.

Skeptics doubt not only avowals about God but also all claims to all knowledge. A Skeptic might say, You you claim to know God exists and you dont even know if Charlemagne existed.

Atheists find no persuasive arguments for God, no convincing idea of God on offer in six thousand years, and therefore say there must be no Gods. (Some Buddhists may be here).

Agnostics remain unconvinced by every argument for Gods existence but prefer to withhold judgment as to whether God exists by saying I dont know if theres a God. Agnostics are no kind of believer in God and do not hedge their bet by attending religious services or by prayingjust in case theres a God.

Ignostics advise us to give up the word God and rub it from the worlds lexicons and never utter it again. Why? Because it has been proved over many thousands of years that humans are utterly ignorant about what the word God signifies, as established by our extensive disagreements concerning God, evinced in this very roster of twenty.

Featured image Confusion by lisa-skorpion via Flickr

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Originally posted here:
20 Options on God (Find Yours Here) - Patheos (blog)