New: A Season-Ending Mahler Second Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony brought its season to a close with four performances of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony, Wednesday through Saturday, June 29-July 2, at Davies Hall. Mahler linked his Second Symphony to his First Symphony, stating that the hero of the First is borne to his grave in the funeral music of the Second and that “the real, the climactic dénouement [of the First] comes only in the Second.” With this in mind, I must observe that while I love Mahler’s First Symphony, I find his Second somewhat disjointed and problematic. The first and last movements of the Second are the biggest by far, in length but also in sheer volume of sound, and they tend to overwhelm the inner, softer movements. This was indeed the case in Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas’s reading of Mahler’s Second Symphony. -more-
