THOMAS HAMPSON AND ANDREY BAREYKO COMBINE FOR ENRICHENING MAHLER AND ZEMLINSKY
Thomas Hampson (baritone), Vancouver Symphony Orchestra/ Andrey Boreyko (conductor): Music of Mahler, Zemlinsky and Rachmaninoff, Orpheum Theatre, May 9, 2025.
It is always a special event when Thomas Hampson sings Mahler, and the results at this concert gave considerable pleasure. Though now approaching 70, Hampson’s vocal resources show little sign of deterioration, and his rich, honeyed tone and his artful, elegant shaping of legato lines draw one in as they always have. What limited this experience to some degree was that the baritone performed only 5 songs, some almost too familiar to offer a sense of exploration. His collaborator Andrey Boreyko provided attentive orchestral support, and the conductor’s involving performance of Zemlinsky’s Die Seejungfrau (‘The Mermaid’) was a highlight of its own.
Thomas Hampson first recorded three of Mahler’s song cycles with Leonard Bernstein in 1991, but 4 of the 5 songs heard here were from Des Knaben Wunderhorn which Hampson explored with the Vienna Virtuosen in his DG recording of 2015. We started with the familiar ‘Ging heut' Morgen über's Feld’ from Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, which had a nice buoyant feel to it, rich in texture, though the singer’s upper register seemed slightly constrained. The fact that he needed a sip of water immediately thereafter may have signaled that his voice wasn’t entirely healthy. Nonetheless, ‘Lied des Verfolgten im Turm’ and ‘Das irdische Leben’ brought a dramatic glow to the proceedings, the former crisp in articulation and demonstrating great strength in its declamatory punctuations, the latter offering strong characterization and splendid crescendos.
‘Das himmlische Leben’ is best known as the finale of Mahler’s 4th symphony – ‘a child’s vision of heaven’. Here it was quite illuminating to hear the song in its baritone version, yet for all the singer’s dramatic cunning and the alertness of the orchestral response, I probably still prefer a lighter female voice where more caprice and impulsiveness are possible. And on to the sublimely beautiful ‘Urlicht’ from the 2nd Symphony, which Hampson sung with consuming concentration and a lovely legato reach. This was an uplifting experience for sure but I felt everything ended too soon. Perhaps ‘Revelge’ and one other contrasted song might have been added before ‘Urlicht’ delivers its radiant spell.
Alexander Zemlinsky’s Die Seejungfrau (‘The Mermaid’) might have seemed somewhat far afield for the audience, but it has now been performed and recorded many times and fit perfectly with the ‘turn of the century’ focus of this concert. In fact, the VSO performed the work with John Storgårds in 2016. Written in 1903, a full realization of the original score had to wait many years to surface, since the composer withdrew the manuscript only a few years after its debut. The three original movements were not retrieved and put together until 1984, and it was only recently that Anthony Beaumont’s critical performing edition managed to restore 88 bars to the second movement that the composer originally cut. The composer regarded the work as a ‘fantasy’, not a symphony, and it lasts 45-50 minutes. The significance of Zemlinsky’s writing is that it successfully welds together features of Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Richard Strauss, and the ‘New Vienna’ movement, yet still manages to maintain its own voice. Die Seejungfrau, based on a rather gruesome tale of Hans Christian Andersen, might be seen to follow the template of Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben – with the solo violin as narrator – but it is really a more complex mix, and has distinctive emotional reach and sensuality.
Polish/Russian conductor Andrey Boreyko and the VSO gave a strong and preceptive reading of the work. Boreyko has recently received strong acclaim for his orchestral control and powerful expression in large works (not least in the UK), and those attributes were certainly evident here. His most recent appointments have been with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica de Milano. Though the programme notes did not explicitly mention it, it was actually a bit of a homecoming for the maestro: he was Principal Guest Conductor of the VSO from 2000 to 2003 – when Bramwell Tovey first arrived from Winnipeg – and quickly became Music Director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra from 2001 to 2006.
After the quiet, mysterious opening depicting the mermaid in underwater depths, Boreyko moved Die Seejungfrau forward in a relatively tight-knit way, highlighting the Straussian surge in the strings but always leaving space for concertmaster Nicholas Wright’s solo tributes to ‘old’ Vienna. These were played with poise and sweetness, having just the right touch of sentimentality. The climaxes – especially in the ‘storm’ – were strong and passionate, and the responsive playing of both VSO brass and winds added to the pleasure. Amidst all its structural concerns, the reading managed to maintain some feeling of fairy-tale innocence and wonder, which was affecting. One notes the range of woodwind expression in the work: it is remarkable, varying all the way from freely impressionistic flutters to tones of the darkest foreboding.
The middle movement is more complicated, more evocative, and contains some intriguing idiosyncrasies. It is a wonderfully varied composition. After a very powerful Bruckner-like opening rhythmic statement, the development winds its way through many fantasy-like postures before the opening scherzo figure returns. Shades of tranquility mix with shades of euphoria, shadowy, ominous allusions combine with the most sensual, passionate responses and, interestingly, some of the sparser qualities of ‘new’ Vienna compositions replace the tonal brilliance of the old. This broadly depicts the love affair between the Mermaid and the Prince. Bareyko developed the movement’s variety with concentration, and was wonderfully involved and spontaneous in its romantic outpouring later in the movement.
The finale is the most touching of the movements. After restating earlier themes, the music takes on more of a Mahlerian character, building with frenzy to a tremendous ‘hammer-blow’ when the mermaid stabs the prince, and then proceeds with a noble, yet forlorn gait, heightened in feeling through a variety of brass chorales. The extended close of the work has remarkable mix of beauty and sadness, using a simple, quiet lyricism amidst shrouded textures to depict the ascent of the mermaid’s soul to heaven. As Anthony Beaumont and others have stressed, the work is autobiographical, reflecting the pain that Zemlinsky felt when his much-loved student Alma Schindler rejected him and married Mahler.
The conductor was again excellent in developing the line of this movement with intensity and sensitivity, and in finding the quiet timelessness of its closing pages. The performance as a whole was a real success – fully suspending and musically coherent – and the many newcomers to Zemlinsky’s music in the audience seemed to be strongly persuaded too. Kudos to the orchestra as well for securing the flexible response this work needs. I like the work more and more each time I hear it. It deserves to be mentioned alongside, say, Josef Suk’s ‘Asrael’ Symphony, written only three years later.
As if this was not enough, the concert began with another contemporaneous work, Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead (1908), inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s eponymous painting. In fact, both this piece and the Zemlinsky start similarly, with ominous murmurings on the lower strings, and opening out gradually. Boreyko’s performance was strong here as well, nicely sculpted, full of colour, capturing both the inexorability and the volatility in the work. The climaxes were excellently executed. Unfortunately, the best is the enemy of the good, and there is no doubt in my mind that, on this occasion, the Zemlinsky left the bigger imprint.
© Geoffrey Newman 2025