Runnicles to lead ASO in Mahler’s momentous 5th

Mahler’s ten massive symphonies, the apotheosis of the Romantic period, have unique emotional power. The purely symphonic ones from his “middle period,” (5, 6, and 7) are distinctive and intensely dramatic. Lasting over an hour and written for a gigantic orchestra, the Fifth is potent indeed. The composer’s near-death encounter and his love of his new wife, Alma, were poured into the highly autobiographical symphony.

The work consists of five movements, of which the “Adagietto” is clearly the best known. Sometimes performed as a stand-alone work, it became the theme for Visconti’s 1971 film, “Death in Venice,” and Leonard Bernstein conducted it at Robert Kennedy’s funeral service.

In 2009, Runnicles told AJC’s Pierre Ruhe that Mahler’s “energizing, exhausting” Sixth Symphony “is about the search for meaning in one’s life.” That can also be said of the Fifth.

Runnicles is consistently ranked as one of the world’s leading conductors of Mahler, a reputation acquired almost entirely elsewhere as this will be only his third Mahler concert series in his 14-year ASO relationship. Last October, he stepped in at the last minute to conduct the Fifth at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra after another conductor was injured (because of the ASO lock-out, Runnicles was suddenly available). The performance was considered a season highlight.

In the years before Robert Shaw, the orchestra programmed a surprising amount of Mahler “especially for its ‘youth,’” as ASO spokesman Evans Mirageas put it.

Shaw conducted Mahler sporadically, and recorded Symphony No. 8, one of the great choral works of the 20th Century. But he stayed away from the demanding “middle” symphonies. As AJC critic Derrick Henry wrote in 1992, four years after Shaw departed, “Just five years ago, the ASO would have struggled with Mahler’s Sixth.”

The arrival of Yoel Levi changed everything. A much under-appreciated conductor in Atlanta, Levi showed a special flair for Mahler, and during his tenure the ASO performed all the major Mahler works with some regularity. As Henry put it at the time, the orchestra played Mahler “as if to the manner born, achieving a telling combination of chamber music and overwhelming power.” In Levi’s 12 years at the ASO helm, he led a total of 19 different Mahler concerts and recorded six of his symphonies to reviews that were quite positive. Two more Mahler concerts were led by guest conductors during these years.

Inexplicably, since Levi's departure the ASO's Mahler concerts have declined by half even as the orchestra's profile has increased. The ASO's peers like to mount complete Mahler cycles, something that seems almost unimaginable here. No Mahler recordings have been made since Levi's departure.

In a season that has proceeded shakily, the Mahler Fifth may be the best test of how the orchestra is doing. And it’s a rare opportunity for Atlanta to hear one of the greatest works in the repertoire.