PROM 70:   Mahler Symphony No 2. Susan Gritton (soprano), Christine Stotijn (mezzo soprano), BBC Symphony Chorus, London Symphony chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink (conductor) Royal Albert Hall, 06.09.2006 (AO)

 

Mahler’s Second Symphony is music created to be experienced live. It is meant to involve the audience as well as performers.   Just as in the First and Third Symphony off stage instruments play a crucial role.  They rise eerily from the auditorium themselves, like unseen presences, creating a new dimension both musically and interpretatively.  It is “theatre in the round” before the term was invented.  Visually, too, it is a spectacle.  The golden bank of French horns, held almost horizontally, the silver trumpets, the choir rising to their feet as one, all these too are details that enhance the impact of this music.  Indeed, Mahler’s idea of a long gap between the first and second movements has certain logic on stage, completely lost on recording when there is just “blank” sound. 

But what this capacity audience had really come for was Bernard Haitink. This was an elegiac performance. Perhaps it was an old man’s traversal of a lifetime’s experience.  Seventy seven isn’t really “old” by conductor standards, but Haitink’s approach was surprisingly weary and sedate. It was as if he were lovingly re-examining details, assuming the audience knew the overall thrust of the symphony well enough to appreciate a change from a more incisive overview. Everyone loves Haitink, so if he wants to indulge, why not? It’s still interesting, and he’s probably right: the Second is famous enough for most people to know what it’s about in the wider context.   

The first movement may be inscribed “with a serious and solemn expression throughout” but the tempi here gradually reached funereal.  Appropriate, perhaps, as a meditation on death, but so too was the lyrical “pastoral” theme that arises as a counterpoint to the gloom.   For whatever reason, there were many harsh moments, especially in the smaller brass, and quite a few “orchestra noises” such as objects falling.  Often Haitink’s eyes seemed closed, as if he were hearing celestial music and perhaps he was, but his hands spread the sounds out and signalled slowness. It paid off when the harp laid down the rhythmic basis, but the rest of the orchestra seemed to struggle to adjust to the pace. The trumpets in particular lost their moorings.  Even the penultimate flourish was so subdued that that final, sudden chord, which acts as a punctuation mark, seemed an afterthought.   

A longer Luftpause might have allowed the musicians to adjust their instruments, but the second movement started no sooner than the soloists sat down.   Even the strings sounded somewhat hesitant, not something normally associated with an orchestra of this quality. The BBCSO may not be the Concertgebouw, or the Berliners, or the Viennese, but they are a good enough band, so I really don’t know why at times they seemed to delineating note by note without the usual sense of flow. Again, the sudden final note lacked its usual dramatic punch.

The “Fischpredigt” theme in the third movement is glorious, vibrant writing.  It transforms the symphony.  Often I imagine those rising chords lifting above the music as a kind of spirit soaring beyond the temporal.  Here at last, we heard some very good ensemble playing, the woodwinds with particularly producing sharp attack.  Then Stotijn rose, statuesque and flame haired, reminding me of Birgit Remmert whose performances in this part are superlative. Stotijn (who appeared in the Oxford Lieder Festival a few years ago) was very impressive, injecting a much needed sense of emotional depth. She’s still under thirty, so may prove to be another great interpreter of the wonderful Urlicht.  The “distant” horn then expanded the concept.  Rising like an alpenhorn calling across the mountains, or the “distant trump” in the bible, it upped the ante.   On stage, the trombone took up the call, as did the “distant” horns and percussion in the box at stage left. 

Then, with a crash of the cymbals, the soaring vistas hinted at by the distant horn burst into the imagination.  At last, the power of this most monumental of symphonies was truly unleashed.  A few deep notes on harp, and the music exploded again, skilfully held at bay for a brief moment of silence by Haitink, who then let the orchestra surge forth.  On stage the intensity is enhanced because the choirs are already standing in anticipation, while the music grows ever more powerful. .  The multi dimensional effect is dramatic.  The off stage horn calls resound round the hall, while visually the eye is drawn to the choir.  On the platform, only the quietest reed is heard. It’s incredibly poignant.  Mahler was a showman, all right! He built such drama straight into his music that the exuberant, triumph of the finale transforms all with its power.  The combined choirs were magnificent. Those immortal words rang out “Bereite dich, bereite dich – zu leben! (Prepare yourself for life!) Ultimately, it is life that Mahler is really interested in, death is just a rite of passage.  “Sterben wird’ ich, um zu leben!” (I shall die, in order to live !)  The look on Haitink’s face was beatific.  He’d achieved his point, and his faith was justified. 

While listening I remembered how young Haitink had been when I first discovered Mahler as a teenager, and realised that, I, too, had aged.  But along the way I hope I’ve learned (and from Haitink, too) something of what Mahler believed in.  He was a searcher, always thinking and feeling, not a pedant, nor one for opinionation.  As he wrote of the finale “what happens now is far from expected: no divine judgement, no blessed and no damned, no Good and no Evil, and no judge”. And “there is no judgement, no just men, no punishment and no reward….. just a feeling of love which illuminates and fills us with blissful knowledge of all existence”. So what if there were problems in this concert? Music isn’t about the “wobble” in the pitch of some instrument per se.   It’s a metaphysical art, which gives you what you put in.  Flawed as this performance may have been, there was still plenty to learn, as Haitink must have known all along.

Anne Ozorio