Musikfest Berlin (5) - Aimard/BPO/Nott - Mazzoli, Eötvös, and Ives, 8 September 2024

Philharmonie

Missy Mazzoli: Orpheus undone
Peter Eötvös: Cziffra Psodia (German premiere)
Ives: Symphony no.4

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

Ernst Senff Choir (chorus master: Steffen Schubert)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Gregor A. Mayrhofer (co-conductor)

Jonathan Nott (conductor)

Images: Stephan Rabold

This was, by any standards, a varied programme, though I am not quite sure what connected the three works on offer. That all received excellent performances from the Berlin Philharmonic and Jonathan Nott – Pierre-Laurent Aimard joining not only for Peter Eötvös’s Cziffra Psodia for piano and orchestra, but also as one of the pianists for Ives’s Fourth Symphony – will doubtless not surprise, but is nonetheless worth celebrating. The concert, dedicated by orchestra, soloist, and conductor to Eötvös’s memory, displayed an open-mindedness he would surely have approved. 

First up was Missy Mazzoli’s 2019 two-part suite, Orpheus undone, from her ballet Orpheus Alive. With American minimalism, I try, genuinely. Yet, having some sense of the aesthetic behind it in its admittedly varied manifestations has yet to help me respond as many others do. The piece began, like much of its school, in obviously post-Stravinskian mode rhythmically; here, there were also Stravinskian tendencies in something approaching melody. It offered compelling writing for trombones and playing from them; a strong sense of musical narrative; and, I think, an equally strong sense of personal warmth. I can imagine it working well for dancers, as of course does much Stravinsky. Otherwise, I regret that, for now, I shall simply have to keep on trying. 

Cziffra Psodia was first performed in 2021, by János Balázs, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Mikko Franck, and has garnered a few performances since. This, I imagine, will have gained Eötvös, like Mazzoli, some new admirers, not least for its frank engagement with the piano and orchestral tradition of Bartók. It is neither pastiche nor epigonal, but the affinities, as with the hypervirtuosity of György Cziffra, are surely no coincidence. There were other affinities, naturally: some almost Debussyan chord sequences from piano and cimbalom, but the greater sense was of an organicism one could hardly fail to think of as post-Romantic, despite or perhaps in some ways even on account of the rhapsodic qualities suggested in Eötvös’s punning title. Incisive, substantial, and involving, this was music founded on harmonic progression as much as on melody and rhythm: again, not unlike Bartók. Its four movements and half-hour span offered vivid, helter-skelter writing, married to a keen sense of fun; solo sections that suggested a string of black pearls; a fascinating relationship between piano and orchestra in which the former often seemed to ignite the latter; pealing tubular bells; and more, both to thrill and delight. Rhythms propelled yet also, intriguingly, on occasion found themselves bent. In the enigmatic closing violin solo, was that a conscious echo of both Bach and Berg, or just another instance of the composer writing with unfailingly idiomatic command? 

Ives’s Fourth Symphony received its first Berlin Philharmonic performance nearly fifty years ago, in 1975, under Seiji Ozawa; it was last heard from them thirty years later, in 2005, conducted by Sakari Oramo. The Philharmonie will have added an important spatial dimension then too; Ives’s ‘extra’ solo strings were here placed up by the organ. But that is not really the point of a work that famously, according to Henry Bellamann’s 1927 programme note (in which Ives probably had a hand), seeks to ask ‘the searching questions of What? and Why? which the spirit of man asks of life’. This was ‘particularly the sense’ of the first movement Prelude then and now, given to us with warmth, depth, and astonishing translucency of tone. Yes, it sounded like a prelude, and yes, it sounded ‘Maestoso’. The combination of orchestra and choir, Nott joined by co-conductor Gregor A. Mayrhofer, matched apparent ease in performance with unease of harmonic and other undercurrents.   

The second movement ‘Comedy’ seemed to extend such characteristics in its mysterious introduction. Its stretching of pitches, even of pitch itself, sounded wonderfully fresh—almost as much as it must have done when written and first performed (these first two movements alone) in the 1920s. It rumbled, and continued to rumble, its frustration of unambiguous eruption deeply telling. The whirling vortex briefly put me in mind of Ravel’s La Valse and, more spiritually, of Mahler. Ives’s extraordinary multimetrics, though, were entirely his own, shockingly so. As in Aimard’s Concord Sonata of a few nights earlier, it was the vision, if not the finish, of a James Joyce that came closer as a comparison. Ives, unruly, untamed, and untameable, never took anything for granted. Nor did his interpreters here or in the rich, cultivated string playing of the Fugue, whose corners as well as its counterpart, its emotional import as well as its aesthetic ambition, again suggested kinship with Mahler. 

The fourth movement’s strangeness and conviction – doubtless, for many of us, also strange conviction – built and built, infecting and inspiring the whole. First, I thought it nightmarish, but its quality of apotheosis was not in the slightest negative, nor was it even really dreamlike. It stretched our ears, as Ives’s father told his son music must do. It stretched them, moreover, in multiple directions, more than might even be counted. If the build-up – though to what? – was masterly, so was the winding down, though words are beginning more than usually to fail me. This is music whose categories may not be mine, may not be ours; we probably do not even know what its categories are. At the close, I had no doubt that, whatever its imperfections and its impossibilities, or rather through and on account of them, this was a masterpiece we had just heard and in which, in some sense, we had participated.

Musikfest Berlin (9) – JACK Quartet/Junge Deutsche Philharmonie/Nott: Lachenmann and Strauss, 15 September 2019

Philharmonie

Lachenmann: Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied

Strauss: Ein Heldenleben

Christopher Otto, Austin Wulliman (violins)

John Pickford Richards (viola)

Jay Campbell (cello)

Junge Deutsche Philharmonie

Jonathan Nott (conductor)

It is extraordinary to think that Helmut Lachenmann’s Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied, written in 1979 and 1980, is now almost forty years old; or perhaps, on reflection, it is not. When one considers how much Lachenmann, still considered dangerously outré by many fifteen or twenty years ago, is now not only accepted but welcomed and even loved as a grand old man of German music, and indeed the world’s, it makes a good deal of sense. (It happens to them all.) The play between familiar material – a brief spoken and musical introduction involving the composer will have rendered it so to all – and what we, in the midst of its disintegration and reintegreation, might consider its pasts and futures is not, Lachenmann advised, comical (komisch) but rather cheerful (heiter). The distinction can be a fine one, most likely lost in my attempt at translation. It was not, however, lost in this excellent performance from the JACK Quartet, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, and Jonathan Nott. Nor was Lachenmann’s opening, Stravinskian acknowledgement: ‘Wir Komponisten sind Parasiten’ (‘We composers are parasites’), referring not only to his use of Deutschlandlieder (Haydn, Bach, and others) but his remodelling of Morton Feldman’s The Viola in My Life into a version of his own ‘the music in my [German, bourgeois] life’. Indeed, he proceeded to acknowledge the Christmas Oratorio’s ‘Pastoral Symphony’ as a song not only of his Existenz but his Heimat. (Think Edgar Reitz and Hermann Simon, if you will…)

A classic, then, of musique concrète instrumentale and of German music’s self-reckoning received a performance worthy of such classical status, without losing any of its immediacy and excitement. The quartet’s opening play with material from Haydn’s imperial hymn left open the question of deconstruction or reconstruction: why not have both, and more? It also, crucially, bade us listen intently, as if pre-empting the late music of Lachenmann’s teacher, Luigi Nono. So too did the full orchestra, when employed, its make-up at any one time constantly changing, yet never quite rejection the concerto grosso-ish line-up. Webern’s example was surely heard in the expert (both in work and performance) passing of lines between instruments, although the outcome rightly felt very different. Metrical transformations and restatements proved just as important as those of melody or harmony; this is, after all, a dance suite. Indeed, one had the impression almost of melodic lines rushing to grasp hold of metres, being carried forward upon them, transformed and yet also restated by them. When music from the gigues of two Bach French Suites is given the Lachenmann treatment, is it the gigue (an acknowledged dance in the ninth of the work’s seventeenth parts) or Bach’s notes that will endure? Does that question even make any sense? Even if it does, should one be asking it at that time? It was quite a ride, both immediate and mediated.

Lachenmann’s enthusiasm for Strauss’s Alpine Symphony is well known. I do not know what he thinks of Ein Heldenleben, but it made for a fascinating companion-piece: a self-reckoning of its own, of course, often bizarrely misunderstood as mere egotism. Nott seemed especially keen to emphasis the piece’s symphonic qualities, the opening section ‘Der Held’, perhaps slightly slower, even sturdier, than often one hears, insistent in its grounding of the E-flat major to which it will, to which it must, return. Like Lachenmann in its way, it bade me listen. Not that there was any want of colour from the excellent young players, but this was clearly not intended as an orchestral showpiece. The opening of ‘Des Helden Widersacher’ was in turn quicker than is typically heard, affording greater contrast that yet had clearly evolved, even if one could not quite say how, from preceding material.  ‘Wir Komponisten sind Parasiten’; wir Kritiker auch… An organised chaos of carping woodwind melodies seemed almost to prefigure the birdsong of Messiaen, albeit with considerably more negative intent. Throughout these and other contrasts, Nott ensured continuity of line and sound, which is not to say unexciting, communication of fundamental harmonic rhythm, which far too often can be lost in performances of this music.

The concertmaster’s solo in ‘Des Helden Gefährtin’ showed both dramatic flair and eminently musical phrasing: in a sense, emblematic of the performance as a whole. So too was the depth of orchestral string tone, which yet never overwhelmed nor came close to doing so. That was not the point – and the musicians, Nott certainly included, knew it. For there was similar depth to his conception of the piece overall: not necessarily without irony, but understanding that irony will better be expressed through underlying seriousness of purpose. The closing sections brought both a symphonic sense of arrival and, very much in Beethoven’s Eroica footsteps, further development. Indeed, Strauss’s invention here registered with uncommon skill; too often, this music finds itself unwittingly belittled as mere winding down or tailpiece. A dignified, close, nothing exaggerated, furthered poignancy that arose from the notes and the connections between them, affording apt comparison and contrast with the thinking, writing, and performance of Lachenmann.

Prom 45: Capuçon/OSR/Nott - Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky, 16 August 2018

Royal Albert Hall

Debussy: Jeux

Ravel, orch. Yan Maresz: Violin Sonata in G major (UK premiere)

Stravinsky: Petrushka (1911 version)

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

Jonathan Nott (conductor)

It was surprising to learn that, in its centenary year, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande was making its Proms debut. Still, better late than never – and at least we have good reason to look forward to this orchestra’s return, unlike the SWR SO Baden-Baden and Freiburg, whose first performance three years ago was already known to be its last. The OSR’s new music director, Jonathan Nott, is no stranger to the Proms; I have fond memories, for instance, of a 2013 Bamberg Symphony Orchestra concert of Lachenmann and Mahler. Here, ahead of the release of their first recording together (Debussy, Strauss, and Ligeti), they brought one of those pieces, Debussy’s Jeux, together with the British premiere of a new orchestration of Ravel and Stravinsky’s Petrushka.

Surely the most radical of Debussy’s works, Jeux commenced with due paradox: mysterious, atmospheric, yet clear as a bell, questioning and deconstructing whatever meaning might remain in the clichés, metaphors, even mere descriptions we chose to employ. It seemed to cast something of an aural glance towards Petrushka and even, perhaps, to The Firebird, as well as to roughly contemporaneous Schoenberg, and yet, in its flickering multiplicities of melody, timbre, and their interaction, also look forward to many subsequent milestones in twentieth-century musical history. It flowed; it told a story of sorts, which may or may not have been closely identified with the Diaghilev scenario Debussy derided as idiotic. It danced too, in all manner of ways, kaleidoscopically – if that makes any sense (and even, perhaps, if it does not).

Renaud Capuçon joined the orchestra for Yan Maresz’s orchestration of Ravel’s G major Violin Sonata. An opening oboe solo, perhaps inevitably, recalled Le Tombeau de Couperin, not just in itself but also in its interaction with the violin. The first movement as a whole somewhat puzzled me: it was all very sensitively done, yet I could not really discern the point. Capuçon seemed to be playing his part from the Sonata, which of course he was, but the reason for no longer having a piano, for transformation from a chamber music context remained elusive. There were a few exceptions, for instance echoing between soloist and orchestral violins, when something a little more like a concerto was suggested; they nevertheless remained exceptions. The blues second movement fared better, from its opening orchestral pizzicati – really ‘strummed’ – onwards, Maresz’s jazzy use of trumpets included. The orchestra, as it swelled, sounded more like that of Ravel’s own G major Piano Concerto, much to its advantage. The finale likewise mirrored its concerto counterpart, again to good effect. Capuçon’s virtuosity proved as striking as one might have expected; his, moreover, was not the only virtuosity to be heard. His encore, the all-too-familiar ‘Meditation’ from Massenet’s Thaïs, reminded us that sometimes a piece’s original forces are to be preferred.

There seems only one reason to perform the 1947 version of Petrushka: economy, in most cases a false one. It was 1911 we heard here in a performance that constantly surprised, made me listen anew. The Shrovetide Fair came into view colourful, expectant, percussion unusually prominent: this was a performance that looked forward, never back. An automated quality to the barrel organ music suggested not only Lulu – does it not always? – but Ligeti too. Likewise, one could hear with unusual clarity Rite of Spring-like cells, both inviting and forbidding. Marionettes trod the boards of our consciousness: not entirely unlike zombies from Mahler, if with a very different foundation. In many ways, it sounded closer to Stravinsky’s own dryness in this work – partly, I know, a matter of recording – than to the relative luxuriance of Boulez. Sometimes, perhaps, that was down to an orchestral sound that remained on the thin side, but it was surely an interpretative decision too. Nott’s tempi sometimes proved unexpected, yet always compelled; much the same might be said of the truly phantasmagorical return of the Shrovetide Fair. There were ghosts in these machines and, most likely, machines in these ghosts.

LSO/Nott - Beethoven and Messiaen, 29 June 2014

Barbican Hall

Beethoven – Symphony no.2 in D major, op.36

Messiaen – Turangalîla-Symphony

Steven Osborne (piano)
Cynthia Miller (ondes-Martenot)
London Symphony Orchestra
Jonathan Nott (conductor)

 

Try as I might, I found it impossible, whether before, during, or after the performance, to fathom the idea behind programming Beethoven’s Second Symphony with Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphony. I suppose it showed two highly contrasting approaches to the idea of the symphony, but Messiaen’s example is such a thing-in-itself that comparison verges upon the meaningless. In the end, it was probably better simply to take the concert for what it was; at least that is what I had to do.

 

Jonathan Nott led the LSO in a decent account of the Beethoven, which is certainly not something to be taken for granted, especially in an age characterised largely either by perverse ideas about Beethoven or a manifest lack of ideas about him. That the introduction to the first movement began anything but promisingly was, however, no fault of the performers. Some unutterably selfish member of the audience decided to indulge not once but twice in flash photography; I hope that his or her name will have been taken and the culprit will never darken the doors of the Barbican Hall again. Thereafter, there was considerable relief to be had from a sensible tempo and excellent sense of line, which heightened, indeed engendered expectations. The exposition was on the fast side and might have yielded more – characteristics of the performance as a whole – but there was nothing objectionable to what we heard. Orchestral playing as such was alert, precise, cultured: beyond reproach really. The development section benefited from a sense of exploration, though the approach to the recapitulation was curiously throwaway. However, the great coda blazed as it should.

The slow movement flowed with grace, even if it lacked the profundity, the search for necessity and meaning, which characterise a great performance – such as we might have heard from, say, the late Sir Colin Davis, or today might still hear from Daniel Barenboim, surely the greatest Beethovenian alive. There was greater affection, though, here than elsewhere, and an admirable combination of clarity and warmth. Minor-mode passages had a proper sense of darkness to them. The scherzo was brisk, brusque even, but not in extreme fashion; the trio had an appealing lilt to its woodwind passages. It was difficult not to register a certain feeling of disappointment with respect to the finale. Very well-played though it was, it was probably taken too fast. At least that was how it seemed, with no opportunity to smile or indeed to deepen.

 

It is no tall order to follow a performance of a Beethoven symphony with something on the scale of Turangalîla. For that alone, and despite very occasional evidence of tiredness, the LSO deserves great credit – but its performance was highly estimable in its own right, the distinctly unhelpful acoustic of the Barbican notwithstanding. This Introduction went un-photographed (although the person whose telephone rang for what seemed like at least a minute during ‘Développement de l’amour should summarily have been shot). Either my ears or the orchestra, or both, took a little time to adjust to that problematical acoustic; for once, the Royal Albert Hall might have been preferable. But the congested sound experienced at the beginning was no real impediment to the expository function of the movement, ‘expository’ certainly not being understood in a Beethovenian fashion. String swooping in tandem with Cynthia Miller’s expert ondes-Martenot playing, a portentous brass ‘statue’ theme, a glittering piano entry from Steven Osborne, contrast aplenty with the demure brace of clarinets portraying the ‘flower’ to the brass’s ‘statue’: all made their point in an atmosphere of madness, delirium even, which yet remained musically grounded in rhythmic and melodic insistence. ‘Chant d’amour 1’ sounded somewhat too frenetic at first; again, that may have been as much an acoustical as a musical problem, and again the point should not be exaggerated. The saccharine theme from violins and ondes possessed a suitable combination of naïveté and sheer weirdness. Messiaen’s technique of juxtaposition came across very clearly: perhaps too clearly?

 

At any rate, the first ‘Turangalîla’ movement provided some respite. (The fastidious Pierre Boulez could never quite bring himself to conduct the symphony as a whole, but conducted the ‘Turangalîla’ movements.) It is – and in performance, was – less blanat, sounding imbued with mystery that could claim to be genuinely spiritual, if that shop-soiled word has not entirely lost all meaning by now. Moreover, elements of the music seemed to look forward to the 1950s, the 1960s, even beyond; there is surely a glimpse of Stockhausen to be had here. Perhaps it was not surprising, however saddening it may have been, that some members of the audience rudely began to depart during this wonderfully sphinx-like movement.

 

The second ‘Chant d’amour’ had a splendidly perky woodwind opening. Its clockwork craziness – presentiments of Chronochromie? – increased when the section was joined by other instruments, leading unerringly into the ‘response’ of the love theme. Nott’s shaping here was exemplary. The movement ended in frankly sexual fashion, but that was as nothing compared to the ensuing ‘Joie du sang des étoiles’, its performance unabashed with respect to what we might call its cosmic silliness. I found myself wondering whether the inhabitants of another planet, or indeed an étoile somewhere, might already play this music. Goodness knows what acts it would accompany or presage…

 

‘Jardin du sommeil d’amour’ answered that question in no uncertain terms. Or at least such was the experience in a performance of great languor, even ‘insistent languor’, which apparent contradiction was suggested by Osborne’s piano commentary. As elsewhere, the pianist’s contribution was exemplary in its scintillation, quite the equal of a Pierre-Laurent Aimard. The second ‘Turangalîla’ movement was again welcome in its almost alien inscrutability after that spell in the garden of earthly delights. Now was the time for the LSO’s percussion truly to shine, and it did. Joy was felt in the combinatory aspects of the movement. There also seemed to be a welcome acknowledgement by Nott of its unhinged quality.

 

That telephonic interruption aside, ‘Développement de l’amour’ offered blazing climaxes which left little to the imagination. If not quite a cold shower, the third and final ‘Turangalîla’ movement at least presented a contrast of relative subtlety. Instrumental combinations fascinated, as did the notes ‘themselves’. It was beguilingly curious, and curiously beguiling. Musical processes were readily, revealingly apparent. The finale really had the sense of being a conclusion. It could hardly have been more exultant than some of what had passed before, but it certainly seemed imbued with homecoming, wherever this strangest of homes might be. This was a wonderful – in every way – conclusion to the LSO’s season. The final, prolonged, glowing chord sent shivers down the spine.

 

Prom 5: Arditti Qt/Bamberg SO/Nott - Lachenmann and Mahler, 15 July 2013

Royal Albert Hall

Lachenmann – Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied (British premiere)

Mahler – Symphony no.5

Arditti Quartet

Bamberg Symphony Orchestra

Jonathan Nott (conductor)

 

 

Given the stalwart service of the BBC in the cause of new music, I was astonished to learn that this was the first time any of Helmut Lachenmann’s music had been programmed at the Proms. Better late than never, I suppose, and it certainly came in a provocative coupling, his Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied with Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. It made a great deal of sense, of course, given Lachenmann’s preoccupation with re-examination of tradition, and specifically German tradition. Yet depressingly, a quick perusal of Youtube comments on the piece betrays the sort of reaction the composer is still likely to face in some quarters: ‘It has nothing to do with music, it is nothing but rubbish,’ writes one ‘Utz Beahre’, in response to the question without question-mark posed by ‘jonnyrs1’: ‘could someone please explain to me what the hell this has to do with music!! Thank God for Mahler 5 at the Proms!!’ Whatever complaints we might all have with concerning the BBC, at least it has not entirely capitulated to such boorish, ignorant philistinism.

 

For the Arditti Quartet, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, and Jonathan Nott offered an outstanding performance: just the sort of advocacy that ought to convince anyone willing to listen rather than merely to hurl a priori abuse. We all know that Lachenmann can provoke, though never for the sake of mere provocation; here, he was shown to scintillate, to beguile, and perhaps above all, to dance, indeed foot-tappingly so. The lengthy opening passage for quartet alone – played, as throughout with pin-point precision, though far more than just precision – offered a mini-compendium of the players’ superlative extended techniques. As often in the Royal Albert Hall, and despite coughing, even talking, intimate music drew one in, made one listen. Then came the orchestral call and the highly rhythmical pizzicato section it unleashed in our latter-day concerto grosso. It was less Bach, let alone Vivaldi, summoned up, though, than the ghost of what must rank as Schoenberg’s zaniest piece, the Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, after Handel. Lachenmann, however, goes far beyond Schoenberg as inventor, ushering us in to a veritable workshop – somehow the German Werkstatt seems more apt – of ideas. A workshop, be it noted, not a laboratory: craft, rather than positivistic science, is celebrated here, as it was in the scintillating performance. Shards of earlier music make their presence felt, not entirely dissimilar to Berio’s practice, though arguably less conciliatory. A tapped rhythm put me in mind of the Baroque passacaglia, whether or no that were actually ‘intended’. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio offers epiphany of its own, whilst ‘O du lieber Augustin’ inevitably registers not only as itself but as a reminder of Schoenberg’s scorned usage in his Second String Quartet, a reference that surely had particular resonance for such fine exponents as the Arditti Quartet. But was that Mahler in the orchestra, or was it merely my fancy? Was there even the ghost of an oom-pah band, that in itself perhaps a reference to Bernd Alois Zimmemann. Even in 1979-80, when daggers really ought to have been drawn with Henze, was there an unconscious note of affinity, betokening a shared disturbance with respect to German musical tradition, when the raucous, even raunchy dance-music threatened to shade almost into a reminiscence of Boulevard Solitude Stan Kenton jazz? Lachenmann asks such questions, or permits us to ask them, without definitely providing answers. In that, he is most certainly and emphatically a German Composer.  The players demonstrated the necessity of a great performance; I have heard Lachenmann almost killed under a lesser conductor (Sylvain Cambreling). Here, music drew upon its historical inheritance of fantasy, caprice, even whimsy, without a hint of sentimentality; and aptly, it did so under the auspices of an orchestra from Bamberg, the city that escaped Allied bombing. The still, almost glacial, conclusion seemed to breathe purer air once again; for me, on this occasion, it was the ‘Adagio’ to the Hammerklavier Sonata that came to my mind. If Beethoven still lives, then so does music.

 

I was worried that the performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony might suffer by comparison. Not a bit of it: Nott and the Bamberg SO proved just as outstanding as they had in Lachenmann. The opening tattoo (Markus Mester) was purposeful, even militant, with a finely-judged move into string foreboding. (It was at that point that I realised the tone of the Bamberg strings was reminding me of the Czech Philharmonic of old: perhaps no mere coincidence, given that it was formed in 1946 by German refugees, fleeing the ethnic cleansing of the Beneš Decrees.) Gorgeous yet baleful woodwind evoked Mozart and an idealised village band in almost equal measure. All the while, the cortège continued its progress. Nott’s command of line never failed him, whether in this first movement or elsewhere: a signal achievement in itself in what remains a very difficult symphony indeed to carry off convincingly. And how the players turned their phrases! Not narcissistically, but charged with tragic, musical meaning. Lilt and rubato sounded effortlessly ‘natural’; Mahler was clearly under their skin. Nott proved equally adept at the phantasmagorical skill of turning a corner, revealing a new vista, and yet needing to offer no reminder that this remained the same movement, the same work. The conclusion, not least Ulrich Biersack’s hopeless flute solo, duly chilled. To that, there came a furious attacca response. Mood-swings were more intense in this second movement, yet line remained unbroken. I was put in mind of Rafael Kubelík’s Mahler, a slightly more modernistic sheen certainly not eclipsing the depth of ‘tradition’ in a good sense. Dialectics, then, abounded, as they should, indeed must. Death himself – Himself? – danced, reminding us of Lachenmann, yet danced still more seductively, the violin solo (an excellent Baer Vandenbogaerde) inevitably bringing to mind Mahler’s preceding symphony. Those echt-Mahlerian marionettes, unholy offspring of Berlioz and Nietzsche, menaced, yet charmed. This was a movement terrifying through its musicality, not through the all-too-easy path of external ‘effect’. It was not least for that reason that the chorale sent shivers down the spine, even though – perhaps because – we knew its ‘triumph’ would prove hollow. Mahler’s return to the Inferno seemed but a stone’s throw from the terror of his Sixth Symphony.

 

The scherzo opened with articulation as fine and as warm as one might have hoped for in an ‘old school’ Haydn performance. (Think of Furtwängler in the 88^th.) Gemütlichkeit, needless to say, gave way to ambiguous marionettes, doused in a mixture of Bach and acid, working their nihilistic magic. This movement, then, proved properly full of irreconcilables; indeed, it overflowed with them. And yet – it made sense. Counterpoint was both full and empty, sometimes simultaneously. The awestruck stillness, which yet continued to offer motion, of the trio offered Schubertian longing (the Unfinished Symphony in particular) in its shadow, rendering the reprise of the scherzo an absolute necessity. Such extremity of effort would not of course be resolved here; the battle nevertheless engrossed, riveted, terrified.

 

Nott played the Adagietto as it works best, as a declaration of love, rather than a feast of maudlin onanism. It was beautiful, tender, yet without a hint of self-regard. If fanciers of Visconti’s wretched filmic treatment still exist, the reading might be likened to a Tadzio upon whom Aschenbach had not so much as laid eyes. More importantly, it consoled and moved us through musical  understanding, a true command of harmonic rhythm obviating any perceived need for imposition of irrelevant ‘personality’. And my goodness, the emotional, physical charge those Bamberg strings elicited! One could actually fancy that this represented love as Mahler might have conceived of it: unfathomably complex, yet devastatingly sincere. The follow on of the finale was, once again, judged perfectly. It exhibited welcome sparkle, even lightness, though that should not be taken to indicate lack of depth. Good humour is not a trivial thing, certainly not in Mahler, and these things are without doubt highly relative here in any case. Should one take seriously the ‘battle’ between Brandenburg-counterpoint and mockery of ‘high intellect’? It was not the least of Nott’s even-handed yet committed approach that one never quite knew. Detail was keenly observed, yet he never mistook trees for the wood. Shadows continued to haunt: how could it be otherwise when the undergrowth was as variegated as here?