THE TIMES OF LONDON
FEBRUARY 14, 2001

MAHLER FOR MASSED FORCES
By Hilary Finch

The Israel Philharmonic might have been tempted to play safe in the first London concert of their UK tour, but this was clearly only to conserve their resources for Sunday's adventure at the Albert Hall. It may not have been quite a Symphony of a Thousand, but Mahler certainly got more that he had bargained for when the Israeli orchestra turned up in Kensington hand in hand with the London Philharmonic. The link between the two orchestras is Kurt Masur: principal conductor of the London band, and honorary guest of the IPO. And the two managements, of course, just couldn't resist in exploiting the connection.

In revising his First Symphony Mahler had, indeed, already scored it for a larger orchestra -- but not quite this large. One could well imagine what 12 horns instead of seven would sound like at the climax of the first movement, where the great god Pan seems to be drawing up into himself an entire dying century's passion and despair. But what would well-nigh 200 players make of that first hushed note, held long and high in harmonics -- in Mahler's words, like "a luminous body eclipsed by the light that streams from it"?

Thanks to the sheer concentration of Masur's presence, and the intensity radiating from those batonless fingertips, the effect was mesmerising.

And, as the Wayfaring Lad set off on his morning walk, the distinctive voicing of the IPO's woodwind soloists, in distant fanfare and cheeky cuckoo-calls, was set in high relief above the fine translucency of the LPO's strings.

And what glorious stamping and yodellings from the serried ranks of double-basses, trumpets and horns in the bucolics of Mahler's Ländler. The Russian émigré contingent of the IPO's strings relished, too, the consoling schmaltz of the trio's nostalgic song -- just as the two orchestras' leaders made the most of their melancholy duet under the shadow of the third movement's linden tree.

After these intimations of mortality, the "cry of a wounded heart" was terrifyingly unleashed from a double body of wind and brass at the start of the finale, as violin bows tore at the air and flutes and piccolos screamed. But, just as Masur never failed to observe the tiniest nerve flicker on the face of Mahler's score, so he balanced the bombast with a suppleness of song which was little short of the miraculous in such a vast body of players.

Oh, and the first half. There really was nothing exceptional in either the merry pranks of the LPO's Till Eulenspiegel nor in the IPO's Mendelssohn Italian Symphony. But then the evening was not about scoring competitive points, but rather one in which Israel's musicians, at least, could display the regenerative powers of collaboration.