REVIEW: Mahler explodes over Brighton Festival
IF Gustav Mahler has been reincarnated, what kind of rock band would he have joined? One member of the audience who had just been assaulted by his Sixth Symphony turned to a companion and said: "I suppose that was classical music's version of heavy metal . . ."
The emotionally troubled Austrian conductor and composer had no recourse to Marshall , or any other kind of modern amplification, but he had his instrumentation, of course. And our audience member clutched a concert programme listing 103 players.
He was watching the groaning Dome stage unbuckle from the weight of not only that mass of magnificent Philharmonia humanity but the heavyweight gear of two tympanists, and equipment of nine other percussionists, plus the weighty architecture of two harps and a celeste.
The stage had earlier sighed with relief at the false dawn of a full-length grand piano being wheeled off — only for the orchestra to double in size after the interval for the Mahler.
The decibel level of a large Mahler-sized orchestra was noted back in the 1970s to reach that of bands like The Who and Black Sabbath. And some of the climaxes and outbursts of Mahler's No 6 turmoil and angst possibly exceeded that.
Gustav might have been subject to deep introspection and fear over the health of not only he but the human world. But when it came to telling all that in music, he was as in your face as guitarists Tony Iommi, Pete Townhend or drummer Keith Moon. Hence Mahler's plugging in and cranking up the volume to 11 on the dial his nine French Horns, his 12 other brass, and his 20 woodwinds.
Even his half-century of string players were fronted by a leader in James Clark who took up the space, it seemed, of both ZZ Top guitarists put together. A giant of a guy, when the orchestra took their five-plus minutes of ovations at the end, he completely obscured his No 2 Maya Iwabuchi.
The audience were producing vocally, as well as manually, their own decibel meter-busting response to the performance. They brought back three times the Finnish star Essa-Pekka Salonen — like Mahler, a composer who conducts — but unlike Mahler, apparently blessed with the customary aerobically-boosted fitness his on-stage occupation engenders.
Heart trouble took Mahler's life at 50. Salonen was here conducting this work at 51, five years older than Mahler was at the work's 1906 premier (and, incidentally, born under the same Zodiac sign, of Cancer). The five years left to Mahler produced three more complete symphonies and one unfinished.
I have heard Mahler Six only a handful of times, all in live broadcast with their inevitable power but its psychological import deters my buying a recording. Not needy of dark home sessions with it on my domstic sound system I am going to keep it that way. For my first in-the-flesh experience — this one — will remain what I always knew it would be. An almost overwhelming, near-exhausting experience.
I will be interested to see if the passage of time changes that stance and I find I crave having it on tap. For someone who does, for them does it perform a therapy?
The Philharmonia are now part of the Brighton Festival scene and this was an experience for them, too. After what must have been the symphony's duration of around 1hr 40min, they were hurrying to Brighton station for the last train to London after a day not only of sapping performance and artistic as well as musicianly intensity, but full rehearsal, too, earlier in the day.
What was Salonen like to play under, I asked one player. "Terrific. He is so clear, and he's got so many ideas."
It proved a thrilling event two days short of the Brighton Festival conclusion. And Salonen was conducting in some of his strongest territory. He first leapt to prominence in 1983 with this very orchestra when he deputised at short notice for Michael Tilson Thomas in Mahler's Third Symphony having never previously studied the score.
Such an assured delivery of No 6 made the experience a privilege for the audience.
The concert began with an effective foil. Mozart's 18th Piano Concerto, like many wrongly neglected in popular concert programming, surprised and delighted the audience.
Polish soloist Piotr Anderszewksi showed affinity with it, thoughtfulness, imagination and an urge to investigate.
The Philharmonia's striking wind colours emphasised the operatic element lurking within most of these Mozart works and the horns in particular played to perfection.
Anderszewski's unquiet interpretation of the extraordinary middle movement left no doubt about its greatness. Some spontaneous applause at its end was curtailed by the immediate commencement of the finale, in which Anderszewski's sense of spontenaiety and entertainment made it easy to imagine Mozart's own triumph in giving this work himself in front of reportedly 1,500 Viennese in 1785.
Click here for more classical music.
Click here to go back to leisure.
Where are you? Add your pin to the Herald's international readers' map by clicking here.
Email the Herald: letters@worthingherald.co.uk
Want to read this page in French, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Urdu or 48 other languages? click here for Google translate.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Worthing
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 12 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: South west
