Music Reviews : Rattle’s ‘Resurrection’ at Hollywood Bowl

In many ways, Mahler symphonies run counter to all the conventional wisdom on outdoor programming. Yet over the seasons at Hollywood Bowl, we have been taught to respect and even cherish our summertime Mahler.

The lessons seldom have been more easily absorbed than as administered Tuesday by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its titular principal guest conductor Simon Rattle in the Symphony No. 2, a.k.a. “Resurrection”--the second Mahlerian encounter in three days at the Bowl--for which a crowd of 9,996 clicked through the turnstiles.

Rattle’s “Resurrection” proved a paradoxical paragon of tumultuous restraint and cogent passion, partly an instrumental verismo opera and partly rarefied liturgy. The orchestral detailing was beautifully precise, yet a significant contributor to the most cataclysmic events.

The first three movements were all of an urgent, unified part, although Rattle paused after the opening for a tuning break. Despite the varied and potent vehemences of the beginning, Rattle kept enough in reserve to make the climax of the third movement the shatteringly well-prepared culmination of anger and despair, the emotional fulcrum from which he swung the piece from dark to light.

Feelings ran equally high in the finale, but there Rattle enforced the deliberate pacing and structural articulation of well-defined ritual. He emphasized monumentality, and an exhaustive though exhilarating sense of arrival rather than liberation.

In this he had the assured, spirited cooperation of the Philharmonic at all levels. The orchestra produced a dark, rich sound from which Rattle extracted solo parts in sudden gleams of color. He elicited textures as crystalline or dense as needed, and balances were sustained at both ends of a broad dynamic spectrum, more discreetly amplified than usual.

Mezzo Christine Cairns delivered the primal light of the fourth movement as a warm song seemingly rising from the ground itself, from lamentation to exaltation. She produced ample waves of smooth, plangent sound wonderfully suited to Mahler’s mixture of the earthy and the divine.

The Los Angeles Master Chorale provided equally imposing vocal resources, cresting in triumphant, clarion glory, but most impressively balanced and resonant in the shimmering, quieter ecstasies. Soprano Susan Patterson soared over the chorus with bright confidence and proved solidly matched with Cairns in the duet.

As a distinctly superfluous preliminary, Rattle turned his attention to the familiar charms of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, as a vehicle for Alexander Treger. The Philharmonic concertmaster’s playing brimmed with nervous vitality and virtuosity, though he had his best moments in the tender song of the Andante. He indulged in all manner of tempo and rhythm eccentricities in the cadenza and rushed much of the fiddling fury, contradicting the crisp, pointed accompaniment of Rattle and the reduced orchestra.