pic from New York Classical Review.NYPO Simone Young
April 12, 2019, Geffen Hall
NYPO - Simone Young
Mahler Symphony No. 6
Serendipity!
Jaap was supposed to conduct but his problematic shoulder got the better of him and Simone Young was summoned at the last minute to replace him. An that was my fortune!
As someone from HK, where one gets to hear Jaap often, I know Jaap's Mahler 6th. But nothing prepared me for Simone Young's interpretation.
I am familiar with Simone Young's work on recordings (Ohems) and she is an authority in Mahler and Bruckner. Still, nothing prepared me for this!
I agree with almost everything the NewYork Classical Review said, (the NYT is a non-review, increasingly so) and agree even more with one of the comments. She is the real thing!
Straightforward, but utterly natural and well paced. Highly detailed (like the dance elements) yet single-minded, marching inexorably to the last movement. This is one of the greatest Mahler finales's I have heard over 4 decades at the NYPO. The repeated struggle, calamity, attempt to recover, were so graphic as to be painful.
My words mean little, but I saw the Viola first chair (Cynthia Phelps) wiping her tears off just before her last notes. There cannot be higher accolade. In my decades of attending the NYPO, I have never seen a principal weep.
Make sure Simone Young returns in Mahler and Bruckner, which she does better than Jaap.
