"My" Mahler

The critic takes the stage -- sort of

by Jeffrey Gantz

Beginning back in the 1960s, Paris Review editor George Plimpton started living Walter Mitty fantasies and writing about them -- most famously in Paper Lion, his story of going through training camp as a somewhat uncoordinated quarterback with the Detroit Lions. George also boxed a few rounds with former light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore and tried his hand at being a goaltender for an ice-hockey team, but he met his waterloo after snaring a gig as percussionist for the New York Philharmonic: he couldn't keep a steady beat with the sleigh bells that open Gustav Mahler's Fourth Symphony, and NYPO director Leonard Bernstein sent him home from the orchestra's tour.

I don't write as amusingly as George, and I can't even sight-read music, but with a Mahler-recording collection that long ago passed the 200 mark, I'm probably better acquainted with Gustav. And so, back in January, I decide to follow Plimpton's example and audition for the chorus of the Mahler Eighth that Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic, with Jeffrey Rink's Chorus pro Musica and David Carrier's Newton Choral Society, are planning -- with the idea that I'll go through the 14 rehearsals and ultimately sing in the two performances March 9 and 13 at Symphony Hall. Without getting sent home.

The Eighth isn't just any Mahler symphony. Its two sections -- a 25-minute setting of the ninth-century Latin Pentecost hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" and a 60-minute setting of the final scene from Goethe's Faust -- call for double chorus, children's chorus, eight soloists, and Mahler's usual mammoth orchestra. Gustav himself premiered it in Munich in 1910 (it was the last of his works he conducted) with 171 instrumentalists and 858 singers; no wonder Munich concert agent Emil Gutmann dubbed it the "Symphony of a Thousand." That's one reason Boston hasn't witnessed a Mahler Eighth since Seiji Ozawa and the BSO did it back in 1980. Even Symphony Hall can't accommodate anything like 850 singers, but Jeffrey Rink, chorusmaster for this project, will have to augment the Chorus pro Musica and the Newton Choral Society to get the total up to 200 or so adults. Which is where I come in.

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Lloyd Schwartz reviews Zander's Mahler

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If I'm successful, it won't be my first Mahler performance. In the summer of 1969, I sang in a performance of the Second Symphony -- the Resurrection -- up at Dartmouth College with the Harvard-Radcliffe Summer School Chorus, an evening that most people remember as the one when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I recall thinking it would have been nice if they could have projected the moonwalk behind us as the chorus rose to sing in the final movement, but the technology wasn't available, and anyway, the concert organizers seemed to prefer their Mahler straight up. Even then I hardly qualified as more than a pleasant baritone of limited range who could sing on key; I owed my acceptance into the chorus to a severe tenor shortage (the final count was something like 45 sopranos, 45 altos, 30 basses, and seven tenors) and to my ability to memorize the music.

Now I have a chance to perform in Symphony Hall -- at a significantly higher degree of difficulty. The Resurrection, with its 10 minutes of relatively melodic and easy-to-remember singing, is a choral pussycat. Mahler's Eighth is more like a man-eating tiger. The chorus sings for most of the 25 minutes of part one, and that movement's centerpiece is a nasty double fugue that's heaven to listen to but hell to perform. Part two is less physically demanding (at least for the not-so-celestial men's voices), but you keep popping up in short phrases, and on pitches that aren't easy to find. If I go into the audition unprepared, I'll flunk out on the spot.

The audition

And so I pull out my score, sit down at my piano (which, built in 1893, is actually older than the symphony), and play through the tenor part. It's an ear-opening experience. The Eighth is my least favorite Mahler symphony -- Gustav described it as "a gift to the whole nation," and indeed it's an attempted public declaration of faith from an artist whose beliefs were neither public nor simple, but private and complex. You can see straight off what's missing from this Faust: Mephistopheles, who's been vanquished in the previous scene. Mahler's greatest works arise from doubt, even despair; the Devil has most of the best lines. Here he has hardly any.

For the performer, however, Mahler's script is all too demonic, its choral cacophony right out of Bosch's Last Judgment or Dante's Inferno. And then, I don't exactly ace the audition, at which I sing a verse of "America," repeat some phrases Jeffrey Rink plays on the piano, and try to read the tenor line of some four-part harmony. Jeffrey was clearly hoping for better; he diagnoses my fuzzy pitch, my lack of vocal support, and my miserable sight-reading. We reach an accommodation only on my promise to memorize my part, and at that he looks doubtful. I assure him that, for me, memorizing Mahler is easy.

The rehearsals: Old South, Newton

Well, relatively easy. But as I make my way through the first few rehearsals at Old South Church, in Copley Square, I wonder whether Jeffrey's initial impulse to say no wasn't right. I've been assigned to the first (high) basses in Chorus I, possibly because he figures the bass line will be easier for me to follow, but I'm still floundering. Sitting down at the piano and trying to learn the notes ("What kind of a progression is G-flat/F/E/D/D-flat/C?") is not fun, though eventually I perceive that building a symphony through the juxtaposition of numerous by-themselves-meaningless parts mirrors Mahler's vision of God's creation: it makes sense only when everyone plays and sings together. And the painful learning process creates a common bond as we struggle through the rehearsals -- the two choruses first separately, then combined, sometimes at Old South, sometimes out in Newton. At rehearsal number six, Boston Philharmonic conductor Ben Zander turns up to hear and tape our efforts, prompting Jeffrey to plead, after we've screwed up, "The man has a vision. Don't take away his dream."

Jeffrey has made our assignment that much more challenging by redistributing some of the parts to provide more weight in the middle; I can see the logic, but it means that the high basses, for example, can find themselves jumping from bass clef to treble and back in the middle of a phrase, which is a strain even on the good singers. The highlighter will be my friend, I realize. Actually, I need two highlighters -- yellow for the tenor line, green for the bass (to distinguish them from Chorus II's entirely different tenor and bass parts). The jumps aren't all clearly marked, either -- or maybe that's another way of bringing us together, as we huddle over what we're supposed to sing and whether we can do it.

Jeffrey presides over this seeming chaos with a Judge Judy-like combination of smarts, indignation, and humor. At the outset he vows, "I'm going to work you like dogs" (this elicits some barking from the second basses), but over a typical two and a half hours of rehearsal he really doesn't ask for much more than undivided attention and concentration. Although he professes respect rather than love for the Eighth, he has a sharp ear for what notes, what accents, what dynamics we should be singing at every moment. He greets our failure to deliver with good-natured resignation: "Ladies, that's an awfully democratic B-flat I'm hearing." He offers moral support: "Hey, he [Gustav] only modulates about five times in three bars." And if he doesn't love the symphony, he certainly understands it: when we come to the climax of part two, Goethe's "Alles vergängliche/Ist nur ein Gleichnis" ("All that is transient/Is just an image"), he points out that for all Mahler's storming of the heavens, this quiet, sublime passage is what the audience will remember.

For our part, we're like well-meaning students who don't always remember to do our homework. You need commitment to sing in an organization like the Chorus pro Musica (which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year). There are dues to be paid (revenue from your concerts won't cover costs), sponsors to be courted, raffles to be run. And you have to be able to sing -- I would never cut it as a regular member. But you try to have fun, too. The tone is set at the beginning of my first rehearsal, when John Crawford is introduced as the organization's president. "What do you do?" a newcomer asks. "Nothing," John says, beaming proudly. "I'm just a figurehead." Sometimes during the break a conga line will form, everyone massaging the shoulders of the person in front.

Gradually something that Gustav might recognize begins to well up. Ben Zander turns up to direct at rehearsal number eight (the one rehearsal I miss). At rehearsal number 10, in Newton Corner's Eliot Church (getting there is its own adventure), he tells us to phrase the music, to caress it like opera singers. Ben has always reminded me of E.T.A. Hoffmann's intense, almost manic fictional conductor Johannes Kreisler. His love of this symphony is boundless, his attention to details (particularly those of phrasing) is inexhaustible, and his enthusiasm is contagious. It's easy to see how he gets professional results from amateur performers, and how he's made a second career for himself as a motivational speaker for businessmen.

The rehearsals: Symphony Hall

Twenty minutes into rehearsal number 11 and my dream of performing on the Symphony Hall stage has been shattered. No, I haven't been sent home, but now that we've embarked on the first of four Symphony Hall rehearsals (finally meeting the orchestra and the children), it's evident that the stage won't accommodate all 200 adult singers. Volunteers to go up into the first balcony are solicited. Overlooking my occasional acrophobia, I decide the press should set a good example, so I join the "enfants du Paradis."

Actually, the real children of Paradise are gathered up in the second balcony -- the Performing Artists at Lincoln School and the Newton All-City Chamber Singers. Call us the adolescents of Paradise, a squabbly lot who can't even get ourselves seated without direction. We have a magnificent view of the orchestra and our separated brethren, and also of the house. It's not quite the novelty I hoped for -- I think I was sitting in this exact same seat for the BSO's Mahler Tenth back in 1979. And I'm a little concerned when it's announced that the Saturday performance has been sold out. Did they remember to reserve our section? Will I discover a paying customer sitting in my seat?

The immediate problem is that I'm situated behind Ben, so that when I turn to sing out toward the audience, I can barely see him out of the corner of my left eye. And we can't hear anyone on stage, only the Philharmonic, which Ben keeps asking to play softer. (Many orchestra members are doubtless also making their Symphony Hall debuts, and naturally they want to play out rather than just accompany.) When we come to the section where the angels sing that Faust can be saved, he admonishes the players, "This is the only version of Faust where he isn't damned. It's a great moment in the history of humankind -- don't drown it!" When we get to "Alles vergängliche," the singing is too loud; Ben asks us to mouth the words, and it's an eerie thing to watch him conduct our silent "singing" with all his usual energy. After 15 seconds, he's pleased: "That's it! Just a whisper louder than that!"

At rehearsal number 12, a redeployment of the gallery gods puts me in the front row, and though the first balcony at Symphony Hall isn't very high, my fear of heights kicks in and I have trouble concentrating on the music. At the break I'm able to retreat to the back row, where, with bodies between me and the stage, I do better. But I'm still not in command of all the notes, which is discouraging after so many rehearsals with the group and practice sessions at home. And there's no first bass within earshot, so I'm on my own. It's clear that the arrangement of singers -- about 150 adults on stage and 50 more in the first balcony, plus about 80 children in the second balcony -- is far from ideal, but there's no good remedy. By this point Ben and Jeffrey have concluded that another 100 adult voices are needed to balance the orchestra, but even if there were time to recruit the extra singers, there'd be no place to put them -- Symphony Hall simply isn't large enough for this work.

At least I'm no longer getting lost on my way to the chorus room, which you reach from the Symphony Hall stage door by going under the stage and then through several zip codes into the bowels of the Cohen wing -- I keep looking down at the floor for track lighting, or maybe a trail of bread crumbs. And there's no repetition of what happened before rehearsal number 13, when the Chorus I gallery group, all charged to go out and kick some Mahler butt, stormed up the stairs only to find the door into the hall locked. Best of all, a deus ex machina has materialized in the seat next to me: Ben Sears, the singing half of the local vocal/piano duo Sears & Conner, was in the chorus for the BSO Eighth in 1980, and he's been called on to help out. With a professional first bass on my right, I begin to achieve respectability.

But watching the other Ben, down on the podium, is still a problem, especially since I'm also wrestling with my brand-new "progressive lenses" (the current consumer-friendly trade term for what used to be called bifocals). They seem to be upside down: Zander is blurry and so is my score. Even singers with 20/20 vision are struggling to keep together; there's concern in the chorus room over Ben's zippy tempos and mercurial phrasing. Jeffrey reminds us that "Ben's credo is risk-taking, and risk-taking in music is like risk-taking in the stock market: when you win, you win big-time, but when you lose, you lose your shirt." Our only hope is to concentrate and watch Ben like a hawk. Oh, and not get distracted when the TV crew from Nightline shows up.

The performances

Yes, we're celebrities now, though the Nightline cameras are, understandably, pointed at the assemblage on stage before Tuesday's first performance, not up at the balcony forces. Down in the chorus room Jeffrey has a sobering thought for us: "Most of you will never have the opportunity to sing this again, so carpe diem." It's true: Boston could easily wait 20 years for another Mahler Eighth. The gallery groups have to line up out in the hallway, in front of incoming audience members, and inevitably there are missing bodies; I feel for John Crawford, who's supposed to be sitting in front of me but is fighting the flu.

My day has already included dropping my just-laundered formal shirt into the snow on the way into work (fortunately, the affected parts don't show), then searching for a three-hole punch so I can transfer my score to a larger binder and turn the pages more quietly. (I can just hear myself on the phone: "I'd love to go hear Traviata but I'm repunching my Mahler score tonight.") After a hectic 10 hours of production at the Phoenix -- I dump what I don't finish into the lap of my trusty but overburdened associate editor, Jon -- I scramble into my tuxedo (only 20 minutes to get the bow tie right), rush through a bad choice of pre-concert snack (beet-and-squash pizza is not for everyone, certainly not for me), and discover I'm too exhausted to feel nervous.

We've been warned that there might not be much light up where we are, but there's enough. I look out wistfully at the very back of the second balcony, the place you want to be to hear a large-scale work (I stood there for Claudio Abbado's legendary BSO Mahler Second in 1979), and discover that that's where Jeffrey Rink has stationed himself -- well, I said he was smart. The soloists file in, Ben (celebrating his 60th birthday but looking 50) takes the podium, and a few botched entrances and fluffed notes (from me) later, the audience is on its feet for a seven-minute standing ovation. I feel as if I'd dreamed the whole 90 minutes. Yet the audience is obviously moved, and when I locate Jon and his wife, Clea, afterward, they assure me it sounded great from where they sat.

The reviews from Ellen Pfeifer (Herald) and Richard Dyer (Globe) are mostly favorable. (I've ordered the Phoenix's Pulitzer-winning classical critic, Lloyd Schwartz, to be enthusiastic or else, knowing that, as always, he'll cheerfully ignore me.) I wish my contribution had been more positive. My piano and I spend a lot of quality time together before Saturday's performance as I try to figure out why the simple modulation from E-flat to C in the "Jungfrau, rein im schönsten Sinne" ("Virgin Mother, purest of the pure") section of part two should be a musical mystery as well as a religious one.

Saturday I decide not to wait till the last minute to fuss with my bow tie, so I start working on it at 4 p.m. -- and of course this time it takes just 20 seconds. The excitement level is high outside Symphony Hall, with "need ticket" signs going up, but not inside, where the chorus seems a little flat (second-night slump?) and the audience applauds rather than erupts. Ben Sears has another commitment, and back on my own I sing some phrases better, others worse. The piece zooms by again; afterward there's an emptiness about the chorus room, and it doesn't help when the Harvard music-professor friend who came to hear me finds her car's been towed. I'll be back here the next night, but only as a critic, to review the Chieftains; my Symphony Hall performing career is over, barring the unlikely chance that Kevin Conneff comes down with laryngitis and they ask for Gaelic-vocalist volunteers from the audience. The bravos were nice; what's missing from my Symphony Hall dream, I realize, is the feeling that I earned them.

Coda

I need an infusion of Ben's optimism and energy, but I suspect the last place I'll find him is at his own party. By 10:30 his Brattle Street house is packed even tighter than the Symphony Hall stage was; meanwhile, he's still back there, greeting friends and admirers. Around 11 or so, a chorus of "Happy Birthday" goes up: he's arrived. An impromptu men's group clusters around the piano to bang out the last pages of part two. Later a tape of the performance booms out over Ben's magnificent sound system and an entire roomful of us sing along from memory. Although we're pretty ragged, there's a jam-session exuberance that was missing from the concert performances -- and that isn't really in the score, either. (I start to wonder whether Ben shouldn't devote next week's "Jazzical" BPO fundraiser to a jazz version of the Eighth.) Having joined in (I actually did memorize most of the score), I feel better about my contribution. Maybe this doesn't have to be my last public performance. Anyone know where I can find a set of sleigh bells?

Jeffrey Gantz is the arts editor of the Phoenix.