BLOMSTEDT CONDUCTS : S.F. VENTURES SCHOENBERG’S ‘GURRELIEDER’

SAN FRANCISCO —  Arnold Schoenberg’s massive “Gurrelieder,” which Herbert Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony ventured Wednesday night at Davies Hall, is not a work for the meek, the mild or the modest.

It demands gargantuan forces, and performers who happen to be heroic poets.

Most of the symphonic cantata was written in 1900. The composer--then 25 and still an incipient firebrand--had one foot comfortably mired in the mushy morass of the fashionable past while the other had begun to strain for liberation in the music of the future.

For most of its quasi-heavenly length, the work out-Wagners Wagner. The focus of attention here is a sometimes primitive, sometimes mystical, always hyper-romantic flight of Nordic mythology.

Then, just when the lyrical indulgences, the dramatic convolutions, the elements of would-be comic relief and the bombastic outbursts threaten to overstay their welcome, Schoenberg dares move on to a new plane of stylistic invention. It is startling, and wonderful.

To depict the wild impact of the final chase and the ultimate transfiguration of the summer wind, he introduces a narrator who recites the text as melodrama. Ordinary singing will no longer suffice.

The gripping recitation involves specifically notated rhythms and somewhat less specific pitches. As such, it introduces the historic concept of Sprechgesang , a.k.a. speech-song.

In order to do justice to this rambling, somewhat dated, ultimately overwhelming masterpiece, the participating artists must be uncommonly flamboyant and uncommonly sensitive.

Schoenberg demands a lot: a conductor who savors subtle detail as well as the impact of the epic statement, a huge, bravura orchestra, a grandiose, incisive chorus, three graceful singers blessed with leather lungs, two more with an affinity for character delineation, and an actor who can approximate the rituals of dramatic singing.

Equally important, perhaps, is an acoustical ambiance that can support the vast musical sprawl without imbalance or distortion.

It would be an exaggeration to claim that the San Francisco performance triumphed over adversity in all respects. Blomstedt enforced clarity, seriousness of purpose, good taste and forward momentum wherever possible, though he slighted the inherent romantic passions in the process.

He also let the orchestra overpower his singers much of the time. It was difficult to ascertain if the problem lay with the conductor, with the relatively weak voices chosen or with hall itself (recently renovated but sonically still quirky). Probably all of the above.

When her limpid soprano could be heard, Susan Dunn seemed to be a pretty and pallid Tove. When his ersatz Heldentenor could be heard, Edward Sooter seemed to be a tight and strained Waldemar.

Janice Taylor sang the Wood Dove’s agonizing narrative nicely, with bright tone and gentle accents. Nevertheless, a heavier voice and a more aggressive temperament would have been preferable.

David Gordon managed the buffo aria of Klaus the Jester adroitly (the thin orchestration here was a distinct advantage). John Cheek sounded muffled in the raucous solo of the terrified peasant.

Hans Hotter, the noblest Wotan of them all, intoned the words of the “Summer Wind” episode with degrees of musicality, force and urgency that Schoenberg probably never dreamed of. At 78, the erstwhile Heldenbariton offered the evening’s only genuine revelation. He was staggering here, just as he had been in 1977 when Zubin Mehta led his second illustrious performance of the “Gurrelieder” with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The San Francisco orchestra played for Blomstedt with remarkable fidelity, relatively lush tone and reasonable precision--when not driven too hard.

Perched on tiers high above the instrumentalists, the 350 members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (trained by Vance George) made a mighty, resonant noise--when they could cut through the symphonic fabric.

Somehow, in context, it wasn’t enough.