David Temple conductor
Naomi Harvey soprano
Lynda Russell soprano
Eileen Hulse soprano
Julia Batchelor mezzo-soprano
Kathryn Turpin mezzo-soprano
Jeffrey Lloyd Roberts tenor
Ashley Holland baritone
Graeme Danby bass-baritone
Crouch End Festival Chorus
Hertfordshire Chorus
Finchley Children's Music Group
Forest Philharmonic Orchestra
Gustav Mahler’s 8th Symphony is a colossal undertaking
for any of the world’s leading conductors, soloists, choruses
and orchestras: for so-called amateur performers the stakes are higher,
the challenge more demanding.
Conductor David Temple is no stranger to choral music:
in 1972 he joined the London Philharmonic Choir as a tenor under the
Chorus Master John Alldis (and sung under maestros such as Boult, Stokowski
and Giulini) and in 1984 he began his work with the Crouch End Festival
Chorus. Temple’s experience in this field gave great weight and authority
to this performance of Mahler’s demanding score and it was the collective
efforts of the three choruses rather than the orchestra that gave his
performance such power and drive.
The Forest Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1964,
and one the country’s leading community orchestras, is a performance
and training orchestra and each section has a professional leader whose
role includes rehearsal and technical advice for the section. Members
are drawn from diverse backgrounds, which include music students, teachers,
freelancers and amateurs. Under the baton of conductor Frank Shipway,
the orchestra developed a formidable reputation based on its five concerts
a year at the Assembly Hall in Walthamstow and an annual concert at
the Royal Festival Hall
Temple conducted a straightforward, classical
performance of this quasi-romantic work and in stark contrast to today’s
media manipulated actor-conductors, Temple did something rather extraordinary
and somewhat old fashioned: he eschewed histrionics in favour of a very
clear and measured beat devoid of mannerisms and affectations. The
first movement was launched with great panache, with the conductor in
total control of his vast forces. This movement can sometimes sound
brash and anarchic but under Temple’s baton it sounded perfectly unified
and flowed organically. The closing of the first movement ended
with an incisive bite: even the most professional performers are known
to smudge this climax with a reverberating echo. The sheer impact
of this tightly controlled climax followed by a sudden silence drew
spontaneous applause from the audience.
The second movement was conducted and played with
a deliberately lower level of intensity; more reserved and detached
as if we were entering a different symphonic world. Deryck Cooke
described this world as a ‘forest’, summarising Goethe’s description
of the scene: ‘Mountain gorges, with forest, rocks and wilderness; anchorites
are disturbed in various places between the ravines’. The well-executed
pizzicato notes on the basses, further emphasised by stark sounding
flute and clarinet, brilliantly conjured up this eerie landscape. Here
conductor and orchestra created a sense of desolation making the sounds
fragmented and distant. Unfortunately there was some flat woodwind intonation,
lacking that pointed and poignant ‘Mahler’ sound‚ we hear from orchestras
who have long traditions in playing this composer, notably the Concertgebouw
Orchestra. However, the Finchley Children’s Music Group were totally
in tune with Mahler’s sound world, giving this movement a sense of joy,
wonder, innocence and mystery.
In the closing passages the brass - located
in the audience boxes - gave the ending great lift and weight,
engulfing the audience in a blaze of majestic sound. A notable
feature of this concert was the uniformly high standard of the soloists
who complemented each other beautifully: it is rare indeed to have a
team of soloists who are all in such superb form. Whilst it is
an invidious task to single out a performer from this excellent group,
for me Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts’ movingly rendered Blicket auf zum Retterblick,
(Doctor Marianus’s praise of the Eternal Feminine) was the high point
of the evening.
David Temple brought great vitality and urgency to
his reading and has proved himself to be an instinctive and insightful
Mahlerian. This performance was an outstanding achievement for
all concerned.
Alex Russell