Review of the Mahler Experiment – exercise comes at the cost of music in a choreographed symphony | Classical music

MeIf you’re Macbeth, a moving forest is usually not a good thing. But what if you’re Mahler? Sinfonia Smith Square musicians, conductor, Stephanie Childress and director, Tom Morris decided to test the results. The Mahler Experiment. As Morris gleefully says at the beginning: “None of us knows what’s going to happen!”

The composer’s First Symphony connects the changing landscape of birdsong and blooming flowers, town groups and hunting parties, spring rebirth and human death and mourning. You can see the temptation to turn a sonic journey into a physical one, especially when you’re working with a dynamic venue like Smith Square Hall.

The practice of getting the singers and audience to their feet in “spatialised” performances is fun. For better or for worse, it turns a work of art into a theater: the first and second violins throw music back and forth over your head; timpani biscuits make your body tremble; A clarinet instrument jumps out from behind you. It’s fun, especially if you’re someone who likes to count the rests in the trumpet, or marvel at the semiquavers in the violin. But is it more than that?

You can see the possibilities here, but this first release was, as announced, a big test: R&D rather than final. The recent graduates of the Sinfonia music college were able to listen to Morris music, which is often different from their music, and sing along. But the physical drama came at the cost of the music. The singing was slower, the violins were more live, and the choruses became louder. And these challenges forced Childress to make smart choices, often becoming a traffic cop rather than a conductor.

There were some good moments, especially in the third act when you can run the scary theme of “Frère Jacques” around the orchestra to the good reduction of Yoon Jae Lee, and the final energy (although you have to be careful not to go into the brass oom-pahs when there is a happy song). But it felt like heat. The second half of Mahler’s work as Mahler intended it – the volume of the singer and the singing provided by the wandering masters after wandering – can turn the experiment into a finished piece.