Mahler: Symphony nr. 7

I'm crawling back into the blogging routine after an unusually long break. It just happened. I 'fell out of music' and my spare energy and attention were to a significant extent redirected to everything connected to ... cycling. So I have listened, but really very little. The concert season took off with a flourish but without me. Yesterday was the first time back in the Henry Le Boeuf hall at Bozar. But it was a joyous occasion and it has given me the impetus to pick up the thread of my listening diary again.

Yesterday night's program consisted of a single work, Mahler's Seventh. If I'm looking back over my blogging notes of the last two years it is certainly the Mahler symphony I spent most time with. On the podium was DeFilharmonie (the former Royal Flanders Philharmonic) led by their chief conductor Edo De Waart. I've always had a soft spot for this orchestra with which I have been associated, many years ago, as a program notes writer. But I haven't consistently followed them over the years, However, with Edo De Waart they have engaged a superbly experienced chef and I was curious to hear how the orchestra responded.

The Bozar main hall wasn't even half filled for this concert. Is it just because we were in Brussels where DeFilharmonie has only a skimpy following? Or is it a sign of the times that you can't even get a hall filled for such a complex and magnificent work as the Seventh? No idea, but somebody (the Bozar, the orchestra, tax payers) must have lost an awful lot of money on this evening.

Anyway, the orchestra didn't take it personally and they played their butts off in a wonderful reading. I was sitting in my favourite seat in the 'fauteilles de loge' on top of the ensemble. Again I was mesmerized by the myriads of details you can be part of from that privileged viewpoint: the concentration and quiet professionalism of the musicians, how they hold their instruments when they're not playing, the way the first horn blows her flatterzunge, the blush that appears on the mandoline player's cheeks when her solo is approaching, ... It's a feast to the eyes and ears. Of course, I also had a first rate view on De Waart shepherding his orchestra through this hypercomplex score. His gestures are energetic but unostentatious. A professional orchestra builder. You can see that.

In another post I suggested that interpretations of this work roughly fall into two categories: the romantic (Sinopoli, Abbado, Chailly) and the classical (Solti, Scherchen, Gielen). Both can be very satisfactory. A litmus test is maybe how the rondo finale fits in. Paradoxically, romanticists usually have more difficulties in giving it a place whilst classicists seem to have no qualms with this rambunctious symphonic extravaganza. De Waart quite clearly embraced the classicist approach, with finely judged but rather brisk tempos and an analytic perspective guided by clear lines, textures and volumes. The performance was kaleidoscopic yet coherent, objective and humane, virile and tender. Quintessentially Mahlerian, I would say. The orchestra played gloriously. The countless solos and mini-ensemble pieces were a delight as were the stormy tuttis. It all flowed seamlessly and vibrantly into an amazing, panoramic tapestry of music.

Soon De Waart and DeFilharmonie will perform another major neo-romantic masterpiece: Elgar's Dream of Gerontius. I must not forget to book tickets for that.

Mahler - Symphony nr. 7

Mahler cast a magic spell over me with his Seventh! In fact, I'm not alone. Ever since we went to that concert last Thursday at Bozar, Ann and I have had this music obsessively pounding in our heads. And if there is a momentary lull, we hum or whistle a theme to one another and we're hooked again for a few hours or days, who knows!  But it doesn't wear me out. To the contrary, the music stays fresh and alive.

Today I listened to Gielen's version in full and it is a wonderful rendering indeed. Very special. It seems as if Gielen has found a way to let this complicated and fractured musical process unfold in some sort of hyperdimensional space. Whilst most of his colleagues either get bogged down in the symphony's labyrinthine structures (Sinopoli), or happily dismiss the complexities in a rollercoaster ride (Solti; the live version we heard) or - sometimes very capably - illuminate predominantly one of this work's hidden strata (say, Scherchen, the expressionist; or Abbado, the romantic), Gielen conjures a particularly multifarious 'musicscape'.

There is no 'story' here. This is absolute music indeed, in all its glittering splendour and baffling intricacy. Gielen plays on significant variety in tempo, a very lean orchestral sound, analytic clarity in the work's rhizomatic voices and painstaking attention to minute shifts in expressive registers. His approach doesn't strike me as particularly 'modernist'. It's more-dimensional than that. Gielen weaves a rich tapestry of different layers here. There is the explicit historicism that pervades this whole symphony (the references to Strauss waltzes, the baroque figurations, the serenade character of the Nachtmusiken, the rondo template of the finale). Then Mahler doubles up this historicism in his backward glance to the Wunderhorn years, not only in the brooding references to the first movement of the Third but also in the authentically Bohemian sounding first Nachtmusik, transporting us back to the First Symphony, in the manner of Callot indeed! But then these wistful or ironic figurations are counterbalanced by a radical expressionism, expertly suggested by Gielen in a truly 'schattenhaft' scherzo that, paradoxically, in its lightness of touch prophesies the abstract, shattered but still monumental visions of expressionist painters such as Feininger or Jawlensky. Richard Strauss compartmentalised psychedelic rage and regretful nostalgia in two consecutive works, his Elektra (1908) and Rosenkavalier (1910), respectively. Mahler simply brings those two worlds together within the confines of the same work. The second Nachtmusik is a serenade, a 'Ständchen' with some genuinely warmhearted lyricism, crisscrossed with nightmarish overtones. A 'Siegfried Idyll' running amok! The finale, often so depressingly overblown and disjointed, really comes to life here. More than once I wondered what I was listening to, so disorientingly fleeting are the perspectives offered. It's kaleidoscopic and coherent at the same time: a most satisfying and genuinely symphonic end to this unsettling work.


All this is a most unsatisfactory rendering of what is in effect a most intricate musical process. I'm experiencing it as absolute music but I have to resort to hapless similes to reveal something of that experience. When I listen I am not resorting to narratives to keep track of the unfolding process, but it's an almost holographic experience that appeals to an inner eye for structure and space, and an inner sense for shifts in texture. It's like experiencing a medium of fantastically differentiated viscosities, like feeling the swoosh of a trapdoor suddenly opening under your feet, the dizzyness of constantly shifting perspectives. It involves horizontality and verticality, sequentiality and mirroring, stasis and dynamism, body and mind. That's what a Mahler Seventh in the right hands can do.

Mahler - Symphony nr. 7

I have been unable to get this music out of my head for the last couple of days. I had planned to shift sooner out of the Mahler register, back to Bartok, but the Seventh (all movements apart from the finale) has been swirling around so obsessively in my head that I feel compelled to come back to it once more. Luckily there is no dearth of Sevenths in my collection ... ;-)

I listened to Gielen's version of the first movement which surges splendidly ahead, like a knight in shining armour. Not quite the swashbuckling Solti, although timings are very similar (21'53" vs 21'35"). But despite the impressive sense of direction conjured by Gielen he is able to hold on to some of the mystery too. I love the introduction where he plays the string notes that accompany the tenor horn as semiquavers, not tremolando as almost everyone else does (Sinopoli does the semiquavers too; this is about the stroke of the oars and the droplets falling into the water when Mahler made that trip in a rowing boat across the Wörthersee, early July 1905: In Krumpendorf erwartete mich Alma nicht, weil ich meine Ankunft nicht angezeigt hatte. Ich stieg in das Boot, um mich hinüberfahren zu lassen. Beim ersten Ruderschlag fiel mir das Thema (oder vielmehr der Rhythmus und die Art) der Einleitung zum I. Satz ein - und in etwa 4 Wochen waren der 1., 3. und 5. Satz fix und fertig! Ich schrieb alles in einem Furor nieder.). The central section gets plenty of time to breath. Its lyrical climax is impressively shaped.  But in the recapitulation the juggernaut gathers impressive momentum again. However, it never sounds breathless. In Gielen's hands this Allegro risoluto appears as one of the most accomplished symphonic movements ever written, which it undoubtedly is! Interestingly, whilst for me the Seventh connects most obviously back to the Third (with that meandering, cavernous opening movement), the way Gielen plays it here alerts us to its kinship with the more classically poised, muscular Sixth! I hope to be able to listen to his rendering of the whole symphony as soon as I'm back from a short trip to London.

Mahler - Symphony nr. 7

In the slipstream of the live Mahler 7 on Thursday I listened to some more of this symphony. The reacquaintance with the Maazel/Vienna version was a delight. I am aware that in some circles Maazel can do no good as a Mahler interpreter (in fact as interpreter of no matter what music). One prominent Amazon reviewer goes so far to laud the excellent playing of the Vienna Philarmonic without wanting to give the credits to Maazel. Others find his approach simply to cold and analytical. His Seventh is indeed to a rather plain and reserved, but that doesn't mean it is a banal rendition. I still have the old CBS versions of his Mahler Sixth, Seventh and Eighth and also love the beautiful artwork of these discs.

Browsing some of the critical and scholarly discussion across several books in my library it strikes me that there are basically two schools in approaching this controversial work. There are those that see in the Seventh a paragon of proto-postmodernist fragmentation. They tend to consider the Rondo finale also in a very critical light. Some think it is unsalvageable, an outright failure. Adorno is prototypical of this discourse. From what I can see this is still fashionable talk in the academic community. Then there is a minority that sees  the Seventh as basically 'joyful noise', cast in a beautifully balanced, five-moment arch form (fast-slow-fast-slow-fast). Populariser David Hurwitz ('Unlocking the Masters', Amadeus Press) represents this opinion.

I find both approaches persuasive to a certain degree. In fact, they are mirrored in the interpretative traditions that have emerged around the symphony. Martin Geck quotes Barenboim in the Mahler Handbuch, saying: "From the very start onwards we detect a distinct lack of direction. Conducting the Seventh is like engaging in an archeological excavation. As the first movement starts, one has the feeling of digging through layers, of peering into dark corners to bring the music to light and inspect it." That is, in my opinion, the route taken by the likes of Sinopoli, Abbado, Chailly, supported by sumptuous, resonant recordings. I think this also naturally reinforces the link with the Wunderhorn period, notably the labyrinthian first movement of the Third.  But is here also that the finale often appears as a difficult to classify anomaly. Then there are conductors who build their interpretation more on the classical credentials of the symphony: symmetry, brisk speeds, sonata structure (for the first movement), clear musical paragraphs, diatonic harmony (in the finale). An upbeat version of the Sixth as it were. Here we find Solti, Scherchen, Gielen, helped by very clear, analytic recordings. In these versions the finale seems to make sense much more naturally.

The above is only a crude approximation of a much more differentiated interpretative menu. Take Maazel, who seems to aim for the clear outlines of the classical approach but adopts the slower tempos of the romanticists. Or Scherchen - a version I relistened to this morning - who plays the symphony at breakneck speed and pushes it in the orbit of Schoenbergian expressionism.

The net result is that, despite this being such a complicated work, we have an exceptionally wide range of valid and engaging renditions to choose from. Which is not always the case in Mahler.

Mahler - Symphony nr. 7

The past three days I have been listening to Mahler's Seventh (1904-05) in preparation of a concert tonight. I know this symphony well. "Lied der Nacht" ... It has always been one of my favorites. Particularly the first movement is one of the grandest that Mahler ever wrote. It's a giant flashback to the very best of the Wunderhorn years, the cosmic opening movement of the Third, and spiced with Mahler's evolving modernist idiom.

My reference recording is the Abbado with the Chicago SO, taped in 1984. Scherchen (1953, with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra) is another treasure. And I've always like Maazel's Seventh with the Wiener (also recorded in 1984). Recently I added some CDs to the collection which I hadn't yet heard: the analogue Solti, with the CSO, remastered as part of the Decca/DGG Originals series, the digital Levine on vinyl, also with the CSO, and the Kondrashin/Leningrad SO on Melodya. Interestingly, I find myself now with three versions of Mahler's Seventh with the Chicago SO: Solti, 1971, taped in Krannert Centre; Levine, 1980, from Medinah Hall, and Abbado, 1984, in Orchestra Hall.

I didn't have the time to listen to all these version from start to finish, so I sampled some movements. On Tuesday I listened to the first movement of the Solti, Levine, Kondrashin, Chailly (Concertgebouw) and Maazel. Solti has the reputation of being particularly fleet-footed but, in fact, it seems his timings are within the range of the normal. His first movement is a robust Allegro (it's marked risoluto after all), but he takes plenty of time to let the central 'moonlight' section flower. The virtue of this kind of tempo is clarity. It's very easy for the listener to grasp the symmetrical architecture of the movement. But it comes at the cost of an epic sense of mystery which is associated with the luxuriant, darker colours and the disorienting ebb and flow of more leisurely interpretations (such as the Chailly, for instance). Solti's version is recorded in a spectacular, spot-lit sound (Kenneth Wilkinson behind the console) which is, in a way a pleasure to listen to, but dispels with the last ounce of mystique there might have been (although I must say the transfers have not been entirely successful as the tutti exhibit an annoying glassy edge; I'm sure the LP will be even more enjoyable). But all in all Solti's seems a very lucid and legitimate take on the matter.  Certainly pleased to have it in my collection.

I still like the Maazel immensely. Sensible tempo, good grasp of the architecture, wonderful colours, spectacular playing of the Vienna SO, amazingly lifelike recording. The Chailly has a lot going for it, but I wouldn't recommend to listen to it after the Solti. After the CSO sonic spectacular the Concertgebouw sfumato doesn't really convince. Also Kondrashin offers a very convincing first movement, although it looks like it is not quite at the same level of inspiration as his visionary live recording with the Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1979. Finally, the Levine struck me as superbly accomplished too, but the orchestra is recorded much more distantly than with the Solti. I need to relisten to it.

Yesterday I focused on the Scherzo and the second Nachtmusik. Again the Solti and the Maazel which did not disappoint. I also put on the Abbado, whose Scherzo is truly, magisterially Schattenhaft.

The concert itself then. The orchestra on duty was the Orchestre Symphonique de Liège Wallonie Bruxelles led by their chief conductor Patrick Davin. We were sitting in the 'fauteuilles de loge/logezetels' on top of the orchestra. Acoustically not ideal perhaps, but this has never bothered me as it is such a feast to be able to follow all the orchestral proceedings in detail. I am still awed when I see a symphony orchestra at full strength on the podium. The performance was serviceable enough, at times even outright enjoyable. Davin opted for a brisk tempo for the opening allegro. A little too brisk because things started to sound a little breathless after a while (with some slips in the brass section). Luckily the 'moonlight' section, delightfully done, allowed the orchestra to recompose itself. The recapitulation of the opening material was superbly imposing. It's the passage I most love of the whole symphony. This is Pan awakes, once more. The rest of the movement was predictably hectic. Unfortunately the tempo was so fast that the final accelerando fell flat. The first Nachtmusik was fine if again a tad on the fast side. I started to be a little uncomfortable in the Scherzo which again came across as short-breathed. Shadowy it was not. Davin continued to jockey on fast speeds so that the second Nachtmusik failed to cast its magic spell. Although I enjoyed the contribution of the very committed wind section very much. The orchestra pulled off a dazzling Finale, brash and festive.

The overall impression was of a rather straightlaced, prozaic reading, trumping Solti in his own game. Unfortunately the Liège orchestra, capable as they are, is not the CSO. And Davin did not seem to have the vision to mould his tempos in a more sensitive manner. In fact, he played the whole symphony through in shades of basically the same tempo. This was not a nocturnal but a neon-lit Lied. Anyway, I found it certainly enjoyable. It was a pleasure to dip into the Mahler universe again. And I'm happy to have finally heard the Seventh live. I think it is the last one I hadn't heard in the concert hall yet (I once had a ticket for a Rattle performance in Brussel, but my plane came in late from Germany and missed it!).

Mahler 2

After having sampled a Boulez concert (with Bartok's Music), I slipped into the Berliner's Digital Concert Hall to attend a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony "Auferstehung". Simon Rattle conducted the house orchestra with Magdalena Kozena (mezzo), Kate Royal (soprano) and the Rundfunkchor on duty. It's supposed to be a live concert, but I am not sure exactly how 'live' it is.

Anyway 'slipped' is the word as my initial attempts to connect were rebuffed because of server capacity problems. When I finally got in the first piece, Schoenberg's Survivor from Warsaw, was already well under way. It was the first time I heard this work which must still create some rather uncomfortable vibes in Berlin.

The Mahler symphony started without much ado immediately after the last bars of the Schoenberg had died down (one reason why I suspect it is not a genuine live event). I must admit not being a great admirer of this particular work. In Mahler's canon it's the symphony I return least often to. It's the scale, the melodrama, the pious claptrap that goes with it which feed my circumspection. Despite the scale and the use of progressive tonality, I also feel this is a work which belongs more firmly to the 19th century than anything else that Mahler has written. In a way Brahms' Fourth symphony sounds more modern to my ears. So, I've gradually come to sympathise with Debussy and Dukas who at the time left a Paris performance objecting that the music sounded 'too Schubertian'. I certainly prefer the more abstract and modernist late Mahler.

Kudos to Rattle and his Berliners then to prove my prejudices very wrong! I had to laugh a little at myself when I was sitting mist-eyed through the rousing finale. The great thing about this performance was Rattle's impressive grip on this sprawling mega-structure. There was nothing particularly new or revelatory about anything in this reading. Luckily no disturbing histrionics, only an occasional indulgence in highlighting an expressive detail. But the sentiment of a vast structure gradually, relentlessly unfolding was there from the beginning, a spellbinding ebb and flow stretching away over movements, culminating in that outrageous last stanza of the Klopstock hymn. Remarkably, those 80 minutes seemed only half as long. 'Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit', to put it with a Wagnerian cliché.

Enough said. It was a great performance. Rattle and his Berliners and the soloists put their hearts in it. My faith in the Resurrection has been re-confirmed. Also lately my confidence in Rattle has been on the rise. I have never been a great admirer of this conductor. Too many times I have been disappointed by recordings that show all the portents of perfection but in actual effect sound terribly dull and lifeless. But last year I was impressed by a performance here in Brussels with the Berliners in a truly terrifying Bruckner Ninth. And then now this riveting Mahler symphony ... Maybe Rattle is maturing, maybe he just doesn't shine in the studio. I will have to dig a little deeper in the Digital Concert Hall archives to recalibrate my view on this conductor.

Bartok - Music for S, P and C/Mahler - Adagio, Symphony nr. 10

Listened to Ferenc Fricsay's reading of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, on LP (dating from 1954). Although there is much to admire, it will likely not become my favourite recording. It is mono, which is a distinct disadvantage in a piece where the string orchestra is divided into two antiphonal groups. The orchestra is set in a rather hollow acoustic, which drowns a lot of the percussion details. The timps sound unattractively muffled. But I found much to enjoy in the string playing, despite the RIAS Berlin orchestra likely not having been a top ensemble. But maybe it's just that, and the fact that in those times Bartok's music will not have been as thoroughly absorbed in players' collective memories as it is today, which put players on edge in this recording.

Anyway I picked something up from this recording that didn't strike me from listening to any of the other versions. Suddenly, towards the end of the first movement, when the fugue subject plays softly over its inversion, the oscillating strings reminded me of Mahler's Tenth Symphony. More particularly, the hesitant passage in the strings right before the climatic dissonant chord in the Adagio's coda came to mind. So, I put on Ormandy's early recording of the Deryck Cooke performing version (taped in November 1967 at the occasion of the US premiere). It is a splendid reading with the Philadelphians in Olympian form. And indeed, from the very beginning the stark chromaticism of the movement's first theme, presented by the violas, sotto voce, reveals the kinship with Bartok's piece. Another thing that strikes in both compositions is the constantly changing meter.  Furthermore, there may be an harmonic relationship as well. The opening Andante of Bartok's Music is anchored in the tonic of A, on which the movement begins and ends. This tonality is also pivotal in the Adagio. Jörg Rothmann writes in the Cambridge Companion to Mahler (p. 154) about the climatic passage at the end of the symphony's first movement: "It is also interesting that the starting point from which all the tension of the ensuing sonority grows is an unaccompanied A, two above the middle C, in the first violins. The chord is built up in four stages with triads below and above, first forte, then fortissimo. The initial pitch, A, is then continued alone in the trumpets after the nine-note chord. The final condensed combination of the unaccompanied A and the abrupt tutti repetition of the nine-note chord suggests that the choice of this pitch, held for then bars in all, is to be understood symbolically as the initial, and only 'playable', letter of the name 'Alma'."  Of course, I may be completely mistaken in looking for these correspondences and they are likely completely anecdotal, but it keeps one involved anyway.