MSO ends its season with a gripping Mahler “Resurrection”

A blood-curdling snarl, a vicious, flutter-tongued blast of raspberries rose from the seven French horns assembled for Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Conductor Edo de Waart jabbed and shook his fists to draw this rude noise from his Milwaukee Symphony players, and they spewed it into Marcus Center Uihlein Hall with evil glee. It was unnerving and, as it turned out, cathartic.

The racket sealed off the restatement of the dark, restless principal theme in the recapitulation. This searching, serpentine line twists about in the low reaches of the basses and cellos and eventually twines into the high, massed violins. The horn blast was Mahler’s basta! no mas!

With all the frustrated energy released and the angst-ridden theme exhausted, the second theme returns. But not literally; its amorous passion has disappeared. The second time around, the theme has turned ethereal, heavenly, borne aloft by airiest purchase of bows on violin strings, guided by de Waart’s airiest gestures and most beatific expression.

The startling and then redemptive drama in that contrast and those few moments stood for the whole of this performance of this five-movement symphony. De Waart had an opinion about every moment in this 90-minute consideration of despair and hope and doubt and faith. He made those opinions clear beat by beat, and the MSO, the MSO Chorus, soprano Twyla Robinson and contralto Kelley O’Connor bought in and delivered.

Lee Erickson’s superb chorus waited patiently for the fifth movement, then sang not only with great power, but with arresting nuance. Mahler assigned them several unaccompanied pianissimos, and the chorus achieved exactly the electric hush the composer must have imagined. O’Connor’s big, warm, weighty contralto is just the thing for Mahler, and Robinson’s bright, penetrating soprano complemented O’Connor perfectly.

The intensity of concentration was palpable and made it easy to listen intently for 90 minutes. Mahler’s ingenuity and daring never hit me as hard as it did Friday night. The clarity of line and certainty of gesture made it easy to hear themes become counter-melodies and then figuration, and figuration morph into foreground melody. I heard strands of music grow and mutate, fade out and recur within a complex but completely comprehensible grand fabric. To jump metaphors, hearing this performance was like flying over the Alps to get the grand vista but getting feet-on-the-ground details at the same time. Remarkable.

Frankly, I don’t take Mahler’s Romantic existential angst and final declaration of faith all that seriously. But I do take the music seriously, because the music is bigger than the the composer’s specifics.  In the “Resurrection” Symphony, Mahler, de Waart and friends got at humanity’s larger, more general compulsion to ponder our place in the universe. We look at the stars and we wonder; it’s what we do and who we are as a species. This music and Friday’s performance stirred that essence and caused our hearts to vibrate sympathetically, like so many tuning forks. Some day, we’ll understand this physics of the soul. For now, it’s enough to feel it.

This program, the last of the MSO’s season, will be repeated at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, June 11-12. Tickets are $25-$93. Visit the MSO website or call the Marcus Center box office, 414 273-7206.