Konzerthaus, Vienna
It was almost too much, given
the state of the world; however, it had to be. Mahler saw – and heard – it all;
so, I think, did we. First was a concise, intelligent, beautifully delivered
speech, already scheduled, by the President of Austria, Heinz Fischer. It is
tempting to draw comparisons with other political leaders, especially those one
cannot imagine speaking convincingly on the good the United Nations, whose
seventieth anniversary is being celebrated, Gustav Mahler, and Daniel
Barenboim, whose birthday it turned out to be. I shall leave you to draw them,
should you wish. Barenboim was presented with a bouquet and hailed as a great
friend of Austria; most importantly, we were reminded of his extraordinary work
with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.
Mahler’s Ninth Symphony,
though, spoke more eloquently than any words; indeed, I suspect that it spoke
or sang more eloquently than any of the composer’s symphonies with words might
have done. The Second would have been wrong, just wrong, at the moment; so, I
suspect, would the Third. The Fourth might have seemed too naïve; not that it
is, but that is another story. The Eighth: well, another time. Nor can I
imagine having been able to bear the nihilism of the Sixth; the Ninth certainly
has nihilism, but it is not, or not entirely, how it ends. As for Kindertotenlieder…
It began in tones perhaps
unusually sombre, even for this first movement. It was almost ponderous, by
which I mean no adverse criticism. Second violins tried to console; the firsts
tried again, harder. Agitation soon won out, and so it went on. There were to
be no easy answers – or easy questions. Attempts to have dances assert
themselves were hopeless. Barenboim and the Vienna Philharmonic had intimate,
chamber passages – in which Mahler shows himself the truest heir to Wagner –
terrified as much as climaxes. And what menace in the harps, from the very
opening: they chilled to the bone. So, in a different way, did the
heartbreaking tenderness of a Viennese horn. There was nothing appliqué, as there can be in lesser
Mahler performances, which some, alas, take for the works themselves; Barenboim
clearly meant it. Nor was there anything faked about the horror of what could
only today be heard as militarism; this was Mahler the humanist’s horror at
inhumanity. It should be ours too. Hollowed out, exhausted, the sound of muted
trombones and tuba sounded bitterer than ever, leading once again to a crucial,
spotlit intervention from the harp and disquiet from lower strings that
recalled the Seventh Symphony and its oars. Ghosts from a supposedly better
past (Mahler’s, Vienna’s, humanity’s?) tried to intervene, but only made
matters worse; we seemed to be heading the way of the Sixth after all. Violin
solos’ sickly sweetness was only partly offset by the deathly purity of the
flute. The conclusion: exhaustion, resignation, maybe even a flicker of hope,
albeit not of a Beethovenian variety.
Truculent, yet initially good-natured,
rustic defiance was the hallmark of the second movement, or rather of its
opening. Haydn’s music might no longer be a possible aspiration, but we have to
do something in his stead. It was stylised, of course, yet with roots in
something akin to a soil. The threat of the abyss was never far away: immanent
or remembered? Unclear, save for when it became clear. There was to Barenboim’s
reading, quite rightly, not the tiniest glimpse of sentimentality. The
whirlwind concatenation of dances had nowhere to go, yet could not stop; this
was avowedly not Der Rosenkavalier.
Was that cheekiness in the piccolo sign-off? Perhaps that seemed the only
option left, except that this was clearly not the end.
The Rondo-Burleske was marked
by a ferocity of counterpoint that sounded as if it might aim to obliterate
harmony – in every sense – yet could not, must not. Brass hemiolas
signalled an unexpected, angry reference to Brahms (the Progressive, as Mahler
may never have seen, but Schoenberg would). Charm signalled a typically
Viennese change of tack, yet whether urban or more imaginatively rural, it
could not work either, the need to try notwithstanding. This was nihilism all
right: the Mahler whom Berg lauded as saying ‘no’. The Classical battle between
major and minor sounded both as the point and beside it. There was, moreover,
no doubt that this was Barenboim’s performance; if, say, the seconds threatened
to become too loud, he signalled in no uncertain terms and they responded. Had
the harps now changed their role? Time and time again, they acted as heralds
for vistas that could not yet be glimpsed. Hearts almost stopped, and almost
stopped again. I shall not attempt to describe the brutality of the close; it
simply was.
Many conductors take the finale
attacca; there is much to be said for
that. Here, however, there was a pause for reflection. The opening violin line
truly felt as though it might lead anywhere: to Parsifal, to Schoenberg’s op.16 … Yet it had to lead to hymnal warmth. These were, after all, the strings of
the Vienna Philharmonic. What we heard was necessary, yet it could not erase
what had preceded it. Bassoons (and contrabassoon) called even that degree of
consolation into question, and there was vehemence in the strings’ re-assertion
of that apparent consolation. Barenboim visibly sought greater vibrato – and,
thank goodness, we heard it; for we needed it. There was, indeed, it seemed,
mutual incitement between conductor and orchestra. At times, Barenboim’s
approach seemed somewhat Brucknerian. (He is far more selective with Mahler
than with Bruckner.) And yet, Mahler’s chamber music seemed, on the other side,
to herald Webernesque disintegration. (Admittedly, late Bruckner can too, but
not quite in the same way.) Harmony, tonal harmony at that, was not to be
vanquished yet, however. Proud and defiant, if this were not quite tonality’s
last word, then it certainly felt as if it were. However much a bass line might
attempt to delay resolution, there came a point at which we felt it could not
succeed; there came another point at which we knew it could not. Again, this
may not have been the last hurrah for the integrative forces of a symphonic finale,
but it felt like it. Questions remained, but some, at least, of the right ones
had been asked.
