[ad_1]
United Kingdom Mahler: BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Markus Stenz (conductor). St David’s Hall, Cardiff, 17.11.2022. (PCG)
Mahler – Symphony No.9 in D (1909)
I’ve famous on many events that interpretations of Mahler’s symphonies are likely to fall between two extremes. Conductors of what one would possibly dub the ‘Haitink school’ have a tendency to stress the fundamental unity of Mahler’s formal symphonic strategy, sometimes to the extent of firming down among the quirkier traits of his orchestral sounds. The different excessive, the ‘Solti/Bernstein school’ (one takes these titles for comfort from the pioneers of Mahler efficiency within the Nineteen Sixties), stresses the emotional content material of the music and provides full rein to Mahler’s directions for shrieking woodwind, trenchant brass and so forth. The former faculty, giving priority to what different critics describe as musical priorities, appears to me to overlook a substantial quantity of the purpose of the Mahler’s writing. As an skilled conductor, Mahler would have been properly conscious of the often-idiosyncratic results he was specifying in his scores. For instance, when he instructed the horns or clarinets to boost the bells of their devices in the direction of the ceiling, he was risking the very actual chance that they’d exit of tune. Conductors disregard his fastidiously detailed directions at the true peril of emasculating the music. On the opposite hand, one needs to be barely cautious about his specs within the Ninth Symphony, which he by no means had the chance to conduct in public after which to make changes to the directions on the web page.
To decide by John Quinn’s overview (click on right here) of Markus Stenz’s recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony in 2014, he appeared to assign the conductor firmly to the extra ‘symphonic’ fashion of Haitink and his followers, whereas acknowledging Stenz’s willingness to indulge the composer in a few of his extra attribute calls for. This was much like what Thomas Søndergård adopted when he carried out this orchestra in its final efficiency of the symphony on this corridor in February 2014. What turned obvious very early on this traversal of the rating, nevertheless, was that Stenz has considerably modified his strategy over the intervening years. Time and once more he positively inspired the woodwinds to shriek out as if in ache, at climaxes dominated by the shrill sounds of piccolo and E-flat clarinet; the trombones to offer a rasping reverberation to their decrease notes which dominated the entire of the orchestral texture; or Lenny Sayer to challenge his bass clarinet gurgles with a goblin-like sense of enjoyment.
This was Mahler conducting at its most frenetic and most Bernsteinian, treating the music as a private assertion of irony, anguish and agony which appeared positively aggrieved. There have been occasions when this resulted in a sure fragmentation of the shape, particularly within the second motion when the waltz-like passages pressed urgently ahead in distinction to the extra relaxed Ländler textures elsewhere. The Presto coda to the Rondo-Burleske third motion took off like a bat out of hell. On the opposite hand, the Adagio finale, after a weighty starting and a surprisingly pressing acceleration within the central part, turned virtually utterly becalmed some two minutes earlier than the tip; the low cello traces pale into virtually whole inaudibility and the Adagissimo coda for muted strings was refined virtually to the purpose of extinction. It might be fascinating to see how far the BBC engineers can replicate these excessive dynamic contrasts within the corridor when the efficiency is broadcast. The programme knowledgeable us that it’s going to characteristic on Radio 3 in live performance, though no date was given.
It might be evident from the foregoing that I’d not all the time want to hear Mahler’s Ninth performed on this ultra-histrionic trend, though it labored properly within the context of a reside efficiency. The conductor’s approach, beckoning and beseeching his gamers with expressive gestures, introduced again determined reminiscences of Bernstein (albeit with no sweeping baton, and no would-be Olympic athletic excessive jumps). Some of Stenz’s extra sudden tempo changes appeared to result in some orchestral unsteadiness and or tiredness, however on the entire the orchestra responded properly to his lead and clear intentions. And it’s certainly higher to listen to Mahler at full stretch on this operatic method than diminished to neutered good manners suited to the supposedly extra rarified environment of the normal live performance corridor. The Royal Albert Hall Prommers would have beloved it, and certainly the viewers right here cheered the efficiency to the rafters. It was odd to offer the work with none coupling (and subsequently no interval) and maybe this perceived brief measure could have deterred some folks from attendance; the stalls have been surprisingly thinly populated for a Mahler efficiency on this corridor. But it’s exhausting to see what different merchandise may presumably have measured up in opposition to an earth-shattering iconoclastic efficiency like this. It might be very fascinating to see the way it sounds within the chilly mild of day over the radio airwaves.
Before the live performance, Chris Stock, the principal percussionist of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, was offered with an award from the Royal Philharmonic Society for his work with the promotion of orchestral music in disadvantaged areas of Patagonia, which originated from the go to the orchestra made to the area in 2016.
Paul Corfield Godfrey