Mahler, Zander and the BPO

Flash back 25 years or so ago: My first exposure to Gustav Mahler was through an evening lecture given by local scholar Benjamin Zander. His general overview of Mahler's career and specific insights to the composer's second symphony were entertaining and informative. I learned that Mahler often contrasts his ethereal inspirations with an earthy pungency.

Two nights later Zander conducted Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with his semi-professional ensemble, the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (the BPO, not to be confused with the BSO). The score calls for an expanded force including vocal soloists, a large chorus, harps, offstage brass and a pipe organ. The musicians overflowed the stage of Symphony Hall for an awe-inspiring performance that launched my devotion to Mahler's symphonic output.

Flash forward to tonight at Symphony Hall: Benjamin Zander led the BPO in Mahler's Symphony No. 9. This work doesn't have any singers, but it is still a large-scale, 90-minute masterpiece. I was hoping to revisit the magic of the past; what I experienced instead was a semi-professional orchestra playing almost all of the right notes more or less in tune.

Zander was most effective in the spans of accumulated tension climbing to plateaus of sustained energy. Throughout the work, however, there are valleys of quiet introspection that were less convincingly purposeful. A restive audience and a chorus of coughers accompanied the waning fourth movement. The final silence was met by cricket chirps from someone's ringtone, a Mahlerian touch of the absurdly sublime.