Mahler works highlighted twice

By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff, 10/20/2003

Baritone Thomas Hampson, preaching to the converted, addressed his Jordan Hall audience yesterday afternoon at encore time. "Fear is not our enemy," he said. "Ignorance is." He said ignorance in politicians and our recent political and educational failures "have done egregious damage to the soul of America." And he spoke of the way the arts address, express, and uplift the soul, "especially when we sing songs to one another," he said.

He might have added "Q.E.D." after his recital, particularly the second half which presented American art and folk songs, sung in authentic varieties of American speech. Being the highly intelligent man and musician that he is, Hampson also made sure that the songs mirrored in theme, situation, or mood the songs of war and/or parting by Beethoven and Mahler that he sang in the first half of the program.

The singer's voice was, as always, high, wide, and Hampson, across a wide range of notes and dynamics, and he invested every phrase with intent. It was particularly thrilling to hear the songs on Walt Whitman texts by figures as diverse as Ned Rorem, Charles Naginski, Henry T. Burleigh (the great arranger of spirituals), William H. Neidlinger and Leonard Bernstein (his most beautiful, confessional, and honest song, "To What You Said"). Afterward there were additional compelling songs by Edwad MacDowell and William Grant Still and folk songs in arrangements of uneven effectiveness. When he spoke, Hampson said "Missour-ah" but when he sang "Shenandoah," it came out "Missour-ee." There were also encores, "Long Time Ago," and a pair of sparky novelty songs, "When I Get To Buffalo," and "You Can't Take It With You, Brother Will, Brother John."

Hampson got off to a less satisfactory start with a rather precious performance of Beethoven's "An die Ferne Geliebte," forever pulling behind and rushing ahead, over an accompaniment played by Wolfgang Rieger with the piano lid all the way up, the soft pedal all the way down. But Rieger and Hampson came into their collaborative glory with hair-raising performances of a collection of ironic antiwar songs by Mahler, capped by a terrifying "Reveille," singer and pianist going for the jugular.

This continued a Mahler journey begun earlier in the afternoon when Douglas Boyd led the Gardner Chamber Orchestra in Arnold Schoenberg's transcription of the huge orchestral part of "Das Lied von der Erde" for 14 players. Boyd, one of the world's great oboists, is also a passionate, informed, and vocally involved conductor. There were a couple of rocky moments, but no significant point was left unmade, and Schoenberg's orchestration is like an X-ray. All the players were committed, concertmaster Rimma Yermosh queen among them. The two vocal soloists were tenor Christopher Freeze, young and highly promising, and the Australian mezzo-

soprano Catherine Carby, young, and already exceptionally accomplished. She sings straight from the shoulder and from the heart, and made only one mistake -- during the long interlude in the middle of the last song she sat down and had a drink out of a styrofoam cup, when she should have remained standing and listening, transfixed, and transfigured.