Looking for a good time at the symphony? Sit a spell with the Mariinsky Orchestra.
The 227-year-old institution is considered by some to be the greatest orchestra in the world. These types of rankings depend on how you like your music, though. If you like merely impeccable playing and a sound that matches a "global standard," you'll find them terrific. If you want something that sounds distinctly grown from its Russian roots and plays something deeply complex like Mahler the way Mahler would have liked it....you'll fall in love with the Mariinsky. I did, during a performance of the haunting Mahler's Sixth, at Carnegie Hall. There was nothing else on the program. They walked in, they hammered the heck out of Mahler, everyone stood and cheered, and it was over. American classical music historian Joe Horowitz, who sat in my row, said he was "shattered" by the experience.
Part of the Mariinsky's secret, I think, is its conductor, Valery Gergiev (that's him, looking pensive in the photo), who can wave his arms with the best of them but can also flutter his hands like doves when coaxing out the Mariinsky's trademark rich, lumbering brass section. He's not "horrible," as Horowitz put it, but he does not run a democracy. The musicians labor in the ballet and opera and theater pit in the Mariinsky Theatre as well as on stage all over the world. They played five programs over eight days of nothing but Mahler at Carnegie Hall. Yes, Gergiev likes Vladimir Putin too much, and he also likes being late for engagements -- something he likely wouldn't tolerate from the orchestra. But boy, does he do good Mahler. And so do his musicians.
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