May 30 & June 1(m), 2025
Meyerson Symphony Center
Dallas, TX – USA
Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fabio Luisi, conductor; Erin Morley, soprano; Catriona Morison, mezzo-soprano; Dallas Symphony Chorus, Anthony Blake Clark, chorus director.
Gustav MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 , “Resurrection”
Gregory Sullivan Isaacs | 1 JUN 2025
Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 has the textual grandeur and musical heft to live up to its moniker “The Resurrection Symphony.” After every exhilarating performance, you cannot help but silently think, “Lordy, I hope that this musical message is true.”
To give his answer to the eternal question of “what does it all mean, if anything?” Mahler wrote for a monster-sized orchestra, including a huge expansion of the instruments, a full chorus, two vocal soloists, and even a pipe organ to boost the denouement further. Managing all of these forces requires a conductor with highly honed skills in managing the instrumental texture and observing Mahler’s carefully layered dynamics. But most importantly, the conductor must save enough sonic ammunition through a symphony overladen with really big moments to lavish on the glorious ending.
Since he earned his living as a conductor, “Mahler the composer” supplied extensive written instructions directly into the score to enlighten whoever followed him on the podium. In addition, much of the orchestration is crafted to be “conductor-proof” by assigning louder dynamic markings to solo lines than to the rest of the ensemble.
In general, music director Fabio Luisi managed this herculean task with elegance and careful attention to most of Mahler’s wishes. There certainly were a plethora of triple forte passages along the way, but surprisingly, Luisi launched a secret overdrive dynamic level for the biggest biggy of them all. (A guess: this was most probably driven by deploying all of the huge resources possessed by the Lay Family Organ.)
Overall, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra delivered an excellent performance of this challenging score, which was greatly enhanced by the superb acoustics of Meyerson Symphony Center’s Eugene McDermott Concert Hall. While there were some noticeable baubles here and there, they are endemic in live performances of such lengthy and fatiguing works. (Only highly edited recordings can avoid such displays.)
While many could criticize Luisi’s tempi here and there, he managed to bring in the performance close to the expected time frame of about 90 minutes. By contrast, some commercial recordings clock in at almost two hours. His perhaps extensive use of rubato was always effective while displaying the operatic influence of Richard Wagner, ladled with a soupçon of Giacomo Puccini.
As for the symphony’s vocal demands, the Dallas Symphony Chorus, as prepared by director Anthony Blake Clark, was squeezed in to fill the usually ample chorale terrace completely. They sang with a full, rich sound and spot-on intonation. Their opening super-soft entrance was one of the evening’s highlights. The two soloists were both vocally excellent. Fortunately, mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison and soprano Erin Morley had different enough timbres so as to be distinguishable from each other. The German diction sometimes failed, but the projected supertitles filled us in.
All this erudition aside, it was a wonderful concert and a thrill to experience.
Due to the extravagant cost of just putting this piece on stage, combined with the exceptionally high degree of musical expertise required of all involved to pull it off, it is rarely programmed these days, given the high expectations and belt-tightening budgets.
Luisi and the Dallas Symphony should be highly commended for pulling it off in such an impressive manner. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Dallas Symphony Orchestra: dallassymphony.org
- Fabio Luisi: fabioluisi.com
- Erin Morley: erinmorley.com
- Catriona Morison: catrionamorison.com
Read more by Gregory Sullivan Isaacs.
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