Royal Albert
Hall
Symphony no.2 in C minor
This was, all told, an
impressive performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony from Daniel Harding, the
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, their soloists and choruses. Harding’s
direction avoided egotism without becoming faceless, plotted Mahler’s narrative
with a keen sense of drama that came nowhere near the vulgar theatrics we too
often hear in this music, and, no mean feat this in itself, managed soon enough
to rise above the Royal Albert Hall’s dreadful acoustics, in a performance that
balanced instruments as well as competing dramatic imperatives.
The first movement opened
with fine attack from the Swedish cellos and double basses. String tone did not
always sound so full in general, but that was probably a matter more of the
aforementioned acoustic, to which my ears soon adjusted. Harding attended to
detail, whether in terms of dynamic contrasts or rubato, without the mannerism
of undue micromanagement. Woodwind were nicely pungent, brass splendidly
militaristic, but just as important, indeed probably more so, was the sense of
awe and unease in those extraordinary Mahlerian liminal zones. This was not a
case of rehashing a performance of a work many of us have perhaps heard too
often, at least in mediocre performances or worse; it drew us in to listen.
Vistas, both physical and metaphysical, opened up, often subtly, but without
shying away from grander gestures, well prepared, when necessary. If there were
a few occasions when, in abstracto at
least, I might have favoured slightly more gradual shifts of tempo, the
well-nigh Wagnerian cut and thrust largely compensated; indeed, I thought more
than once of Wagner’s semi-serious desire for an ‘invisible theatre’. There was
no denying that a musical mind was at work here – and that is more important
than whether everyone might have completely agreed with every decision. In the
recapitulation, material sounded properly changed in the light of what had gone
before. There was nice violin portamento to savour too: not self-regarding, but
still a delight. Rarely have I heard the downward scalic harp passages so
charged with menace; Boulez’s
performances of this work came to mind.
What a pity, then, that an
ill-mannered section of the audience decided to talk through the silence that
should have followed. Surely, aware of Mahler’s intentions or no, the sign that
Harding had sat down rather than left the stage, ought to have given a clue. In
any case, the second movement proceeded with a winning lilt, rubato again well
judged, and warm strings. A flute as pure as a mountain spring intervened and
made its point. There was a lovely sense of a serenading band writ large,
though actually not so very large, rendering turbulence all the more eruptive
when it came. Pizzicato strings evoked suitably spooky marionettes – yet with
good nature too: this was no mere house of horrors.
Timpani announced the third
movement attacca, in spirit as well
as in the letter. Artlessness and artfulness,
innocence and guile were splendidly
balanced in the twisting turns of what many of us now unavoidably think of as
this pre-Berio (Sinfonia) river.
Sardonic woodwind helped; so did a fine sense of irony that Harding and his
players never sought to overplay. The fishes were relished, but so was the
preacher: perhaps a shade here of Ecclesiastes as well as St Anthony of Padua?
And crucially, good musical values, not least clarity and direction of
counterpoint underlay such ideas. The music sounded more Bachian than we often
hear – and to good effect. Not that dreams and phantasmagoria were neglected,
but they made their point all the more strongly with countervailing tendencies
given their due. Thematic connections with music that had gone and music that
was yet to come were apparent and meaningful throughout.
In ‘Urlicht’, Christianne
Stotijn proved straightforward but never simplistic. Words were crystal clear.
The brass response to her opening line sounded as if an ambivalent chorale or
even equale: was this death or something else that was heralded? As so often
with Mahler, either/or misses the point. The Wunderhorn character of the ‘song’ was not forgotten, but rather
sublimated in its new context.
The finale emerged ‘naturally’,
art concealing art, from its predecessor, whilst also audibly sowing thematic
seeds for what was to come. There are, of course, many dissimilarities here
with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, but the similarities registered rather
strongly, again being permitted to make their own point instead of being
underlined. Once more, drama came to the fore, but without sacrificing the more
‘purely’ musical dynamism of form. (The dichotomy is false, but nevertheless merits
an occasional heuristic mention.) The interplay between the (otherworldly?)
off-stage band and on-stage musicians was truly disconcerting: death and
resurrection are, after all, no easy things. Hesitant steps thereafter did not
want for awe, finally preparing the way for the chorus’s entry, for the
re-entry of the word – and perhaps even for the entry of the Word? We could not
be sure, and that, surely, is Mahler’s point. Kate Royal’s diction was
initially poor, sounding more akin to an operatic ‘vocalise’ than to the Lieder-like contribution of Stotijn,
but, to Royal’s credit, Stotijn’s return had her improve her game considerably.
In any case, the Swedish Radio Choir and Philharmonia Chorus were on fine form;
one could have taken dictation from them. If I say that the rest took care of
itself, that would of course be an exaggeration, but it flowed so ‘naturally’ –
that word again – from what had been prepared that it almost seemed to do so.
And that chord on ‘Gott’ sent shivers
down the spine, as it must.
What a pity, then, that a
loutish minority did its best to ruin things by denying even the briefest of
silences, competing instead to issue the first farmyard noise in response. Such
selfish exhibitionism has as little place in a Mahler audience as in a Mahler
performance.
