Two Weeks with Zubin Mehta, a Fantastique Mahler and Berlioz
/By Truman C. Wang
3/12/2023
Conductor Zubin mehta, contralto gerhild romberger
In his earlier days, Zubin Mehta was not always taken seriously by the critics. The popular Three Tenors franchise in the 1990’s won him riches but no critical favors either. Andrew Porter, reviewing for the New Yorker in 1986, gave a typical assessment, “There seldom seems to be much point in attending Zubin Mehta’s concerts, or in writing about them, except when a new or unusual work or a choice soloist is billed.”
Today, at age 86, Mehta has garnered the respect, if not veneration, of a new generation of critics and audiences. Gerhild Romberger was billed as the alto soloist in Mahler’s Third (March 5), and that alone was something worth hearing; she only had a short song (from Nietzsche’s Zarathustra) in this vast, sprawling symphony, but projected a lot of drama with her dark, warm contralto sound and eloquent utterance about man’s deep pain and even deeper joy. Mehta, seated on the podium, with minimal gestures and from memory, conducted a clear, straightforward account of the work, efficiently played and sung by the LA Phil, the women of the LA Master Chorale, and the LA Children’s Chorus, with flashes of poetic insight and memorable solo turns by the trumpet (Thomas Hooten), trombone (David Rejano Cantero) and oboe (Marc Lachat).
Soprano sophia burgos, boy soprano sebastian dolinar
Also worth hearing was George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children (March 12). Crumb, who died last year at age 92, composed the song cycle ten years ago, on the surrealist poems of Federico Garcia Lorca. Interestingly paired with Berlioz’s drug-induced autobiographical Symphonie fantastique, Crumb’s composition also paints vivid and disturbing imageries (of dead children and supernatural conjuring). The instrumental force is modest – seven instruments (nine if you count the toy piano and musical saw), one soprano, one boy soprano – but the range and colors of the soundscape it produces are staggering and otherworldly. The modernism of piece is tempered by an insistent Flamenco rhythm throughout and quotes from Mahler and Ravel. Soprano Sophia Burgos delivered her Sprechtstimme incantations from under the lid of the Steinway, and her amplified sound was frightfully mesmerizing. The three percussionists were also chanting some voodoo words during the dance numbers, adding to the phantasmagorical soundscape. Boy soprano Sebastian Dolinar sang his vocalise purely offstage, and joined Burgos under the Steinway lid in the last song for one final scare. Then all was calm and silent. Mehta, clearly enjoying it all, conjured up the fantastical sounds like a maestro of the wizarding world.
I wish I could speak as highly of Mehta’s Berlioz. The Symphonie fantastique was worth hearing only because it’s not performed often (nor any work by Berlioz, which is a pity). Berlioz was a good critic of other people’s music, and also his own. In his famous Memoirs, Berlioz noted in his own music “passionate expression, inward intensity, rhythmic impetus, and a quality of unexpectedness” – all these surely apply to the Symphonie fantastique, played vividly and thrillingly in this concert by the LA Phil under Zubin Mehta. (Principal trumpet Thomas Hooten moved to the woodwinds section to play his small but vital part during “the ball” waltz.) However, there was something wanting that’s harder to pin down, something that prevents Mehta from being an excellent Berliozian. Most of the aforementioned qualities noted by the composer were missing. The all-important idée fixe theme, in the first movement especially, sounded square and lacking in passion, and the waltz was plodding rather than lilting. The whole performance smacked of technical brilliance, but in a controlled clinical setting.
In the two weeks of concerts, in between two giants of classical masters, George Crumb came out a surprise winner for me. Bigger and louder isn’t always better.
Truman C. Wang is Editor-in-Chief of Classical Voice, whose articles have appeared in the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, other Southern California publications, as well as the Hawaiian Chinese Daily. He studied Integrative Biology and Music at U.C. Berkeley.