LINCOLN CENTER CONCERT : BERNSTEIN CONDUCTS THE MIGHTY MAHLER SECOND

Zubin Mehta has been the official music director of the New York Philharmonic since 1978. Many a New Yorker still likes to think of the orchestra, however, as Leonard Bernstein’s Philharmonic.

Bernstein himself has done little to dispel the impression.

Having served--controversially--as music director from 1958 to 1969, he reluctantly gave up the post in order to concentrate on writing important symphonies and operas--important symphonies and operas that, alas, never materialized.

Nevertheless, he has retained the titles of Laureate Conductor and Honorary Member of the Philharmonic. To the delight of a vast circle of local admirers, he never has stayed away from Avery Fisher Hall for long.

In general, Mehta’s tenure seems to have pleased the New York subscribers and the board of directors. It also has inspired a certain degree of boredom, if not disdain, among musical sophisticates. Critics, in this case, can be included in the latter category.

At the moment, Mehta is away on a yearlong sabbatical. No one seems to be protesting his absence. It is generally conceded that, even when he is here, the most vital orchestral efforts at Lincoln Center tend to involve guest conductors.

Or a laureate conductor.

Thursday night, Bernstein took the podium for a performance of the mighty, sprawling, agonizing, hopefully uplifting “Resurrection” Symphony of Gustav Mahler. The concert bore all the markings of an Event. Capital E.

To say that tickets, which cost up to $35, were scarce would be an understatement. The 2,738-seat hall was packed, and the musical elite was well represented.

The stage resembled a jumbled jungle of wires, microphones, recording equipment and television cameras. When Bernstein performs these days, he performs for posterity.

On this occasion, he performed a Mahler Second that dared explore gargantuan dynamic and emotive extremes. It was a Mahler Second that steadfastly stressed heroism, even when the composer focused on the inherent contrast of gentle lyricism and intimate whimsy. It also was the slowest, most distended Mahler Second in memory.

No reasonable listener could deny the grandeur of Bernstein’s concept, his generosity of affect and seriousness of purpose.

It was interesting to note, moreover, that the conductor was able to achieve musical theatricality here without resorting to much physical theatricality. This was no night for dancing and prancing.

Still, the ultimate response to Bernstein’s Mahler must remain a matter of taste. One man’s cataclysm is another’s self-indulgence. What some listeners may regard as otherworldly pathos, this listener might label exaggeration.

Understatement, in any case, has never been one of Bernstein’s prime interpretive traits, and in the thunderous rhetoric of Mahler, a little overstatement goes a long way. Even an iconoclast, however, would have to admire the dauntless, glorious intensity of Bernstein’s overstatement.

Technically, the New York performance proved more notable for fervor than finesse. The Philharmonic, with its raucous brass and thin strings, could only approximate the mellow resonance that distinguishes the greatest Mahler orchestras. The youthful singers of the Westminster Symphonic Choir sustained shimmering pianissimo tones but tended to wander from pitch and lose focus in the climactic outbursts.

The burnished mezzo-soprano of Christa Ludwig (who will join Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic at Hollywood Bowl this summer for, of all things, Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony) ennobled the “Urlicht” solo with clarity, warmth and simplicity. Barbara Hendricks brought purity and radiance to the soprano utterances in the final movement.

The audience greeted the ultimate cathartic roar, of course, with a roar of its own.