"Rich Tones of Mahler Thrill and Delight"Stephen Pettitt, The London Evening Standard, January 21, 2003Posted: 2003-01-23 10:39:36 Then, on Sunday, it was the turn of the Philharmonia Orchestra and the charismatic American conductor (and leader of leadership seminars) Benjamin Zander for Mahler's life-affirming third Symphony. Zander's reputation in Mahler is justly high; his recent recording of the Sixth Symphony with his orchestra has won many critical plaudits. His approach to what can seem like Mahler's most loosely structured symphony, with its massive opening movement, was to intensify everything. Nothing to do with pace or even timbre; everything to do with the unheard elements of interpretation. With the Philharmonia in such excellent form - their control in that great, searching, transcendental slow finale was something amazing - the work held itself together quite beautifully. It was helped by mezzo-soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers sublime singing of the fourth and fifth movement solos - her poised, hushed, yet rich-toned opening note in the fourth movement, the one that sets lines from Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra, deserved framing - and by contributions in the fifth movement of the ladies and lads of the London Philharmonic and Tiffin Boys Choirs, both in splendid collective voice.
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