SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Zemlinsky and Mahler: Petra Lang (mezzo-soprano), Ladies of the London Philharmonic Choir, Trinity Boys Choir, London Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor: Vladimir Jurowski. Royal Festival Hall, London. 22.9.2010 (JPr)

Petra Lang

In alphabetical order, Vladimir Jurowski, Petra Lang, Gustav Mahler, and Alexander Zemlinsky clashed in an indulgent feast of post-Romantic music. If this had been a sporting contest then Petra Lang would have been recognised as the winner – and by a knock-out. This opening concert of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2010-11 celebration of the Mahler anniversaries will be remembered for many years to come for the one reason alone – that it provided a rare opportunity in London for this acclaimed mezzo-soprano to remind us that she is one of the leading singers of her generation. That she has not achieved the superstar status she richly deserves is probably due to the fact that she is not a soprano, as well as  the decline of the recording industry for classical music over the last decade and more. As a singer of Mahler and Wagner Lieder Petra Lang has few peers: in the operatic repertoire - and her signatures roles of Venus, Ortrud, Kundry and Sieglinde - only Waltraud Meier is in the same ‘league’ as she is. Petra Lang’s many admirers throughout Europe are eagerly awaiting her return to Bayreuth next summer in Lohengrin.  Meanwhile, Zemlinsky’s Six Maeterlinck Songs Op. 13 and the Nietzschean ‘Midnight Song’ of Mahler’s Third Symphony were challenged by her immaculately integrated vocal registers -  from the deep, almost contralto-like tones to her ample and bright upper register which is better than many a dramatic soprano’s.

Zemlinsky’s Maeterlinck settings were given a rare outing and have a devotional, haunting quality. They were written in 1910 apparently to overcome Zemlinsky’s neuroses and grief at his unrequited love for Alma Mahler who had spurned him and married his rival Mahler instead. In Und kehrt er einst heim (And should he return one day) a woman leaves her husband and instructs the maid to break the news to him. In 1913 when there was a sort of rapprochement between Zemlinsky and Alma, he told her to ‘take a good look’ at this particular song. In Sie kam zum Schloss gegangen (She came towards the castle) an old king watches impotently as his much younger wife leaves him for the man she really loves. These are clearly very autobiographical and intensely personal songs despite Maeterlinck’s symbolist poetry. The music has a rich chromaticism and there are a number of long soaring phrases that ideally suited Petra Lang’s voice.

Zemlinsky was Alma Mahler’s music teacher and it is not surprising that this music sounds rather similar to the songs she has left us. Even taking into account the stern and committed Petra Lang’s clarity of diction and purity of tone, Zemlinsky’s vocal line is too often submerged by his endless flow of melody. The dreamy sensuality of the refined accompaniment from Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra did nothing to expel the impression of a seeming blandness to these songs and further underlined how superior a composer Mahler was compared to Zemlinsky.

I have read that Jurowski excels in both the opera and Russian repertoire but I have regrettably heard him conduct more Mahler than anything else. In 2007 Mahler’s Das klagende Lied was the best thing I have heard him do but he followed this up with what is etched in my memory as one of my worst ever evenings in a concert hall, as I sat through (why?) a woefully unnecessary concert exhumation of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane. He does not yet seem to me to be a natural Mahlerian and takes the Nietzsche ‘Superman’ connections in the Third Symphony a bit too far. Jurowski gives us a philosophical treatise on Mahler’s psyche and intentions,  to leave us with a work that ‘mirrors the whole world’.

Of course, Mahler was a composer of paradox and contradictions and undoubtedly the Third Symphony has hidden subtexts. However, too many younger conductors dissect his works while looking for these and this results in performances where you feel they are clutching at things but are never quite able to grasp them. There was a degree of self-indulgence here that led to overkill at almost every point in the first three movements. Mahler’s Third Symphony is actually a work suffused with the creative forces of nature and evolves with much more subtlety, delicacy and truth than Jurowski permitted us. Grand sweeping gestures abounded – Mahler as Tchaikovsky perhaps? -  but tempi were often dragged out to such an extent that any emotional tension he built up soon dissipated. Truthfully, there was a lack of real spontaneity here and it all lacked Mahler’s passion.

I liked the oboe glissandi that exaggeratedly mimicked the bird calls in the fourth movement; this apparently is observing the composer’s instructions and underscored the influence of the Klezmer tradition on Mahler’s music. It was at this point that the symphony began to break free from its own self-absorption and Petra Lang, high up amongst the choirs, began to intone expressively on man’s suffering with her ‘O Mensch’. This segued seamlessly into the bim-bam bells from the always reliable Trinity Boys Choir. Only in the serene hymn of the radiant final movement did Jurowski finally seem to yield to the music rather than impose himself on it. Why was this? Are the obvious allusions to Wagner’s Parsifal so great that he had no choice? This element of the music suggests that by journey’s end in this great symphony,  wounds have been healed and guilt is purged. And this is what it felt like as the final notes died away - despite all the reservations I had,  there was a great sense of fulfillment and an almost spiritual catharsis here.

This performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony took almost an hour and forty-five minutes and throughout the London Philharmonic Orchestra played wonderfully. Mark Templeton’s elegiac trombone and Paul Beniston’s evocative off-stage posthorn solos are worthy of a special mention. Only one winner, did I say in my opening? Well, perhaps there were two – Petra Lang and Mahler!

Jim Pritchard