REPOST - Leafleting first, then music-making in Philadelphia

[Ricordanza]

As a response to the unfortunate loss of all posts after mid-January, I thought I'd re-post this review of a concert that took place on April 14, 2011:

As we entered Verizon Hall on Thursday night, the musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra were gathered on stage, as usual, warming up for the concert. But then, to our surprise, they left the stage and fanned out into the audience, passing out leaflets opposing the Orchestra Board’s plan to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Their leaflet presented cogent points: the Orchestra has no debt and more than $140 million in the endowment fund; bankruptcy will have a devastating impact on the Orchestra, prompting musicians to leave for other orchestras and scaring away donors. The leaflets urged us to call or send emails to the Orchestra’s Board Chairman and President, and express our opposition to the bankruptcy filing (I sent an email to both the next morning, but as we learned on Saturday, the Board voted to authorize filing for Chapter 11). When they returned to the stage, the musicians received a rousing ovation from the audience, leaving little doubt where the audience stands in this dispute.

But then it was time for the music. The guest conductor was the veteran and well-respected David Zinman, former music director of the Baltimore Symphony, among others, and current music director of the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. He began the program with a suite from Alban Berg’s opera, Lulu. Soprano Jennifer Welch-Babidge, a singer with a strikingly attractive appearance and voice, was heard in two of the five pieces of this set. The players and conductor did a wonderful job with this complex score, but I must confess that this shapeless and charmless music is simply not my cup of tea. The program notes indicated that the work runs about 30 minutes, and toward the beginning, I was already thinking, how long until it’s over?

But I chose this concert for the next and final work on the program: Mahler’s 4th Symphony. Some describe it as Mahler’s most accessible symphony, perhaps because it his lightest in mood, shorter than the others, and scored for a more conventional sized orchestra. In any case, it’s an audience favorite, and an opportunity to hear some fine individual and small ensemble playing by the musicians, as well as Ms. Welch-Babidge’s pleasing voice, when she returned to the stage for the lovely song which makes up the fourth and final movement. It was not the kind of Mahler experience where one leaves the concert emotionally drained (the 6th Symphony) or spiritually uplifted (the 2nd and 9th), but it was a Mahler evening to be musically enriched, and that’s just fine with me.