REVIEW: In an impressive reading of the composer’s symphony, Carlos Miguel Prieto makes his case for the orchestra’s directorship.
We’ve had a number of Fifths this season at the Pacific Symphony, as guest conductors/suitors parade through, vying for the soon-to-be vacated music directorship of Carl St.Clair. We’ve had Prokofiev’s Fifth and Shostakovich’s Fifth and what used to be known as Dvorak’s Fifth (the New World).
The latest Fifth, Thursday night in Segerstrom Concert Hall, was Mahler’s, with Mexican conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto doing his presumed best by the work.
Prieto, 58, like several of the other candidates, has already had a sturdy career, with long stints leading the Louisiana Philharmonic and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México behind him, an extensive discography, and a reputation for championing new music and music from Latin America. This season he began in his new position as music director of the North Carolina Symphony.
Mahler’s Fifth turns up not infrequently on programs these days (the Pacific Symphony last played it 11 years ago), but it’s still something of an occasion whenever it does. It’s a sprawling, challenging, moody, exuberant and convoluted work (especially since it coincides with Mahler’s new-found interest in Bachian counterpoint) and it takes a skilled horseman (not to mention ensemble) to reign it in on a few days of rehearsal, or ever.
There are excesses here for sure — Mahler seems to be a Columbo-like composer who, whenever he’s about to leave a room, turns and says, “Oh, and one more thing” — but, in the event, Prieto proved a good conductor to focus them.
Carlos Miguel Prieto conducts with a style that loops up quickly from below the beat. Photo courtesy of Pacific Symphony/Doug Gifford
He kept the tempos moving for one thing, and didn’t dawdle over transitions or over-dramatize the many emotional paroxysms, an approach which emphasized the through line. (At 20 minutes compared to Karajan’s 18 in the same, the central Scherzo might be said to have been a little on the slow side, but it didn’t come off that way to these ears. People are always timing Mahler.)
What’s more, his slightly peculiar conducting technique kept rhythms smartly inflected and articulated, never heavy. Prieto, a tall and thin man, generally holds his arms at his sides, and rather than come down hard on the beat from above, he loops up quickly from below the beat, urging it, lifting it, jabbing it. Certainly an effective practice in this case.
The orchestra played fleetly and urgently for him. Not asked to pound relentlessly, the players could pounce on a musical exclamation point or tempo transition like a boxer on his toes. The few examples of ensemble dishevelment, and one or two places when the strings were blanketed, proved exceptions to the rule of transparency and equanimity. Trumpeter Tony Ellis and French hornist Keith Popejoy handled their substantial solo work with aplomb.
Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C, performed before the interval, is a delightful early work of the composer, sprinkled with touches of the Baroque style, only a few years past. The soloist was Sterling Elliott, 24, still a student at the Juilliard School, but already launched on an impressive career. He came at the work in exactly the right way, emphasizing its nimbleness and grace, while never neglecting its expressive charms. His playing was clean and unforced and warm and friendly. Prieto and company, a chamber-sized orchestra, supported him with equal parts vigor and finesse.
The audience went fairly crazy for Elliott at the end. Grateful for it, and forced by Prieto into his chair, he offered Mark Summer’s “Julie-O," a fun little folksy crossover piece, as an encore, niftily played.
