http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/arts/music/the-philadelphia-orchestra-at-carnegie-hall.html 2014-11-03 00:13:33 The Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) on Friday night at Carnegie Hall. === “Why did you live? Why did you suffer? Is it all nothing but a huge, frightful joke?” As Gustav Mahler explained to an admirer, Max Marschalk, his Still, as its most convincing interpreters tend to be old hands, it’s easy to forget that the “Resurrection” is a young man’s hope for “ingenuous faith.” Mahler was just 35 when he led the piece’s premiere. Even the Philadelphia Orchestra’s exuberant music director, It helps that Mr. Nézet-Séguin leads an orchestra ready to give him its all. In a gentle second movement, heard as if from another room (or another life), there were misty pianissimos and delicate shadings. The brass achieved a ghoulish fury for the fifth’s Last Judgment, the strings a timeless stasis as the mezzo Of course, this was still an interpretation in progress: from a conductor this young, in so demanding a work, expecting otherwise would be foolish. In Carnegie Hall’s plush acoustics, woodwind lines too often went unheard. Some transitions, especially in the first movement, felt lumpy. And while Mr. Nézet-Séguin has talent enough that his every gesture sends a visible and aural shock of concentration through whichever section he’s cajoling, the scherzo amply displayed his tendency to obsess over single lines, frequently incidental, at the expense of the whole. Not that any of that mattered by the time the Westminster Symphonic Choir artfully whispered redemption’s arrival, and the soprano