Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg
Symphony no.6 in A minor
SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg
Michael Gielen (conductor)
This was one of the most
extraordinary Mahler performances I have heard. Whether it were the best Sixth
I have heard I really cannot say; league tables are in any case not so much of
dubious value as of none. (Would that our political masters might understand
that.) That said, the only rivalling memory I have is of Pierre
Boulez conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin in this symphony in 2007. ‘Modernist’
Mahler in both cases, one might say, and there lies a grain of truth in that
description; however, the interpretations lay poles apart, leading one to doubt
the utility of an all-too-easy designation. In any case, how could a Mahler
performance that was not simply perverse not
be modernist in character? It would be almost akin to saying that it was not
Mahlerian.
Boulez’s harrowing
performance, however, stood closer to what one might have expected than Michael
Gielen’s, equally harrowing. Gielen has never been one to follow received
wisdom; his Beethoven offers one of the very few genuinely refreshing
standpoints upon the greatest symphonic cycle of all, not ‘new’ for the sake of
it, but because he has harnessed his formidable musical intelligence to the
music. What might one have expected of his Mahler Sixth? Acute understanding of
musical form? Awareness of the music’s proximity to that of the Second Viennese
School? A keen ear for instrumental balance? So far, so ‘modernist’; yes, we
certainly heard all of that. However, I had expected a brisk, no-nonsense
approach, and instead heard what I think – though I never consult my watch in
such matters – must have been the slowest performance of the work I have heard.
I am guessing, but, judging by the time I left the concert hall, think it must
have lasted more than an hour and a half.
The first movement, then,
began as the symphony meant to go on, though in less extreme fashion, sounding
on the slow side, though not provocatively so. The tempo adopted tended to be
strict, until it was not, though even then it more often than not sounded as if
it were. What do I mean by such (apparent) gibberish? Somehow, and this was a
characteristic of the performance as a whole, Gielen pulled off the very
unusual ‘trick’ – though that is certainly the wrong word – of managing
modifications of tempo so as to sound as if, whether accelerando or ritardando,
they were ‘in time’, or rather that being in time at that point entailed increase
or decrease of speed. There was little that sounded like, or indeed was rubato; in that, Gielen certainly
differed from Boulez, or any other conductor of whom I can think. Indeed, the
conductor who came to mind more often than any other was Otto Klemperer, in the
sense of what I imagine a Klemperer performance of this symphony might have
been like. The granitic integrity was there, likewise the resolute lack of
sentimentality; so too were an apparently ‘objective’ approach that yet moved one
to tears. (In that respect, I was helpless for roughly the second half of the
final movement: tears of horror as Mahler’s nihilistic vision reached a
culmination that verges upon the unbearable.) It would be an odd performance indeed
that had nothing of the march to the first movement, but I do not think I have
heard one in which strict, implacable, militaristic foreboding, based upon an
unrelenting march rhythm, was so utterly inescapable. That was not simply a
matter of rhythm, but also of prominence of certain parts at certain times, not
least the snare drum and some truly awe-inspiring xylophone playing (here and
elsewhere).
Gielen came closer than
anyone else to persuading me of the Andante-Scherzo ordering of the middle
movements. I am not going to argue my case here; it has always been that I am
willing to be persuaded, but have yet to hear a performance that did so.
(Claims on the other side tend to be of a fundamentalist, false positivistic
nature.) At any rate, the Andante
sang, at a pace, which, considered ‘objectively’, would probably have been
considered an Adagio, but never
seemed too slow. Maintenance of line was a key aspect of that achievement, yet
so was what one might call the Klemperian character of the performance. Not
that colour was neglected; the sadness of one particular horn call peered
forward to the next symphony’s Nachtmusik.
Perhaps what shattered most, however, and this applies to following movements
too, were the moments of disintegration, the moments when an idealised version
of Adorno’s ‘modernist’ Mahler seemed to become flesh. There was a hollowness
that was anything but hollow; there was a nihilism that was yet imbued with
belief. Still more so did one hear such ghosts and contradictions in the
Scherzo. Gielen’s speed was perhaps, again ‘objectively’, what one might have
expected from imaginary Klemperer on a slow day. Yet, as with Klemperer, or at
least often with Klemperer, it worked, indeed bludgeoned, its way into one’s
Mahlerian consciousness as, if not the only option, then the strongest at the
time. I could not quite rid myself of my ear’s warning – or is it simply my
mind’s prejudice – that I ‘ought’ to have heard this movement before, nor that
it would have made still more sense in its alternative placing; however, as I
said, I have never come closer.
The terrible finale was
certainly not fast, but it was perhaps less far removed from the ‘norm’ in
terms of tempo. There was not so vast, so phantasmagorical, an array of colours
as I have heard with Boulez, whether in Berlin, or on his staggering Vienna
recording. Structural understanding, and, just as important, communication of
that understanding, was every bit as impressive, however, and the granitic
quality, the sense, common to the entire performance, of struggling against the
fatal side proved more than compensation. (Many masterworks, and I am sure that
this is one such example, are greater than any one interpretation, however
superlative, can encompass.) Cumulative power, of a musco-dramatic quality one
can hardly not call Wagnerian, grew until it could not grow further, and yet
somehow continued to do so. Indeed, I found myself slightly regretting the
omission that is arguably not an omission of the third hammer-blow. This seemed
to be a reckoning with Fate on a level with that of the Ring’s ultimate peripeteia,
Wotan’s dismissal of Erda. But Gielen – and Mahler – looked forward too. The
moments of breakdown, abysses musical and metaphysical, have surely never
sounded so close to functional atonality, to Schoenberg himself. The end when
it came felt absolutely necessary; all had been said. However, when, following
awestruck silence, punctured by a barbarian cry of ‘Bravo!’, and the onset of audience
applause, I moved to join in, I found that initially I could barely do so; my
hands were shaking.
It was, then, as I said at
the beginning, an extraordinary performance. I have omitted one extraordinary
element, though, both extraneous and anything but. Upon arriving at the
concert, we were met by banners, leaflets, pleas for help from members of the
orchestra and other supporters. The SWR SO Baden-Baden and Freiburg is, as many
readers will know, suffering, along with its sister orchestra in Stuttgart, one
of the most disgraceful, philistine attacks upon an orchestra in the so-called civilised
world. Despite a worldwide campaign (click here for details on
the present situation and how to help) to prevent the reckless merger of two
very different orchestras in the name of ‘austerity’, the beancounters have so
far proved victorious. Alexander Pereira, Director of the Salzburg Festival,
came on stage before the performance to express solidarity with the orchestra
and its well-nigh unrivalled record in performance of new music. The defiance
of Gielen’s performance was surely in some sense, consciously or otherwise,
founded in the desperation of the orchestra’s situation and the defiance of its
response. Still more extraordinary, then.
