It had been nearly 20 years since local-born Michael Tilson Thomas last conducted the local orchestra. His behavior on the Philharmonic podium in his last appearances here — not easily forgotten, including a version of the “Eroica” best described as “bratty” — had brought down management’s wrath, and deservedly so. As a vehicle for riding back into the affections of the hometown folks, he chose curiously: Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, of all the Viennese master’s off-putting works the one most hopelessly awash in pure Weltkvetsch.
In those 20 years away, most of them spent sopping up adoration in the community he was put on Earth to serve, the Tilson Thomas legend has grown to resemble the exact size and shape of San Francisco itself. The two elements were inseparable in the Mahler: a flamboyant opportunism that paid little heed to such matters as musical form and narrative, but feasted blatantly and gorgeously upon every disconnected moment. Since the matter at hand was a work of exasperating prolixity and — especially in its final half-hour (or was it half a day?) — of ugliness difficult to match anywhere in the symphonic repertory, the exercise left the world no worse off than before. Bad music, badly chosen and performed no better than it deserved: It was the same old MTT; you’d know him anywhere.
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