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3467 Sonoma
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Vallejo
Symphony masters Mahler's Fifth From the opening trumpet notes to the closing, crashing full-orchestra chord, Mahler's Symphony No. 5 sounded like the ineffable masterwork it is in the hands of conductor David Ramadanoff and the Vallejo Symphony. Augmented to 70 players to handle the sprawling piece, the regional orchestra, ending its 76th season at Hogan High School on Saturday, left its formidable calling card once again: highly disciplined strings, rousing percussion, adventurous and sometimes daring brass and woodwind playing. In sum, the musicians and Ramadanoff shaped a heroic and occasionally surprising sound that would have been the equal of a large metropolitan symphony with a huge annual budget. Completed in 1902, the symphony is probably the best-known and most accessible of all of Mahler's music, notable for its 20th-century themes of neuroses and mysticism. Its familiarity (the Adagietto, or fourth movement, was used for Robert Kennedy's funeral and the 1971 film "Death in Venice") accounted for Ramadanoff's choice to close the season, his 25th as conductor. Lead trumpeter Brian Anderson began the symphony's well-known funeral march in C-sharp minor, and, from that moment on, I could not shake the notion that the orchestra's sound compared excellently with that of the Chicago Symphony, who, in 1971, recorded the symphony with Georg Solti as conductor. Anderson's fanfare and melody was repeated throughout the first movement and it ended, uncommonly, with pizzicato (plucked) strings, a contrast that the players were consistently good at conveying. The second movement, a stormy affair, also ended with a contrasting pizzicato sound in the strings. The third movement, a scherzo, was notable for the emergence of D major, a bright and somewhat triumphant sound, the focal key, as the musicians began to wind down the sturm and drang of the first two movements. (Curiously, however, symphony leaders chose to break the performance into two parts, with an intermission between the third and fourth movements, which I had never experienced before but was happy to learn that it was a way for the orchestra to raise much-need cash by selling concessions.) What can you say about the Adagietto? It is a song without words, played only by the strings and harpist Agnes Lee, who helped to coax the music's sublime and heavenly nature. The musicians nimbly played the 14-minute final movement, a rondo, at breakneck speed, without sacrificing its muscularity, energy and verve. Reporter features
writer Richard Bammer can also be reached at 453-8164. |
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