Austria Salzburg Competition [5] – Mahler, Symphony No.9: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Andris Nelsons (conductor). Broadcast dwell (directed by Leopold Knötzl) from the Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg, 11.8.2024 and out there on STAGE+. (JPr)
I’ve all the time regarded Mahler’s Ninth Symphony as greater than its crochets and quavers and its biographical nature is typically ignored. So many composers led insular lives, distilling one thing of this inside world into their compositions and this should all the time be thought of.
In the summertime of 1910 Alban Berg studied Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and wrote about it to his future spouse, Helene: ‘As soon as once more I’ve performed by means of the rating … the primary motion is essentially the most heavenly factor Mahler ever wrote. It’s the expression of an distinctive fondness for this earth, the longing to dwell in peace on it, to take pleasure in nature to its depths – earlier than demise comes … The entire motion is permeated by premonitions of demise. Many times it crops up, all the weather of terrestrial dreaming culminate in it … most potently in fact within the colossal passage the place this premonition turns into certainty, the place within the midst of the höchste Kraft [highest spirit] of virtually painful pleasure in life, Loss of life itself is introduced mit höchster Gewalt [with maximum force] …’.
All the first motion is a sequence of refined transformations of the three-note determine launched on the outset by harp and horns, a primal motif apparently primarily based on the opening of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, Les Adieux (Op.81a), which Beethoven related to ‘Leb’ wohl’ (‘Farewell’). This permeates the beginning of the symphony and recurs in direction of its finish because the clear evocation of an unsteady – subsequently failing – heartbeat.
Mahler himself had merely thought of his Ninth as ‘a really welcome improve in my little household’. He made this remark to Bruno Walter and it in all probability hides his actual ideas on the work which he by no means survived lengthy sufficient to listen to a correct observe of in efficiency. Mahler’s Ninth is, like these of Beethoven, Schubert, Dvořák and Bruckner, his final accomplished one and it may need been as if this personal music was, in a sure means, yet one more prognosis of his sickness as terminal.
The second motion is a night time out in Mahler’s Vienna; this dance motion juxtaposes a Ländler in opposition to two ill-tempered waltzes: the primary a pastiche of a theme from The Merry Widow waltz by Franz Lehár while the second is ‘danced’ by the trombones accompanied by oompah-pah tubas. That is virtually a reticent minuet primarily based on the theme of the Andante and results in a touch of resignation at how demise is inevitable. At one level the Ländler seemingly tries to push the waltz group off the dance ground however loses out.
The Rondo-Burleske of the third motion reveals Mahler’s use of counterpoint with but extra Lehár (right here we get the ‘Wie die Weiber’ refrain from Merry Widow) in opposition to a wistful, idealistic trumpet melody (now the Merry Widow waltz theme once more) which is promptly opposed by the cynical, squally, mocking A and E-flat clarinets in music riddled with sarcasm. There was some effort to try in direction of the sunshine from the darkness however (once more?) deep resignation is the emotion most skilled right here and the sensation that nothing is ever adequate.
A trumpet melody reasserts itself within the Adagio finale, the place the chorale-like important theme recollects ‘Abide with Me’ – although much less on this efficiency than I recall earlier than – and is haunted by a quiet melody from the low bassoon. Curiously, Oxford College Press’s The Mahler Companion (2002, editors Donald Mitchell and Andrew Nicholson, each of whom I knew properly) has as a footnote to the evaluation of the Ninth’s last motion the proof for Mahler’s consciousness of that well-known ‘Abide with Me’ tune which ought to come to thoughts – nevertheless fleetingly as right here – each time anybody listens to this plaintive hymn-like passage. The final moments will be thought of virtually an Adagissimo with its last essential – and extendable – 27 bars. Right here there’s a citation from the fourth tune – ‘Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen’ (‘Typically I believe that they’ve solely stepped out’) — from Mahler’s tune cycle Kindertotenlieder, the place the singer expresses his perception that his (lifeless) kids would possibly nonetheless be alive.
Mahler had in fact misplaced his four-year-old daughter Maria to diphtheria and scarlet fever in 1907 and had been put – that very same yr – beneath a demise sentence from his physician, later dying from bacteriological endocarditis in 1911. So, it’s not an awesome leap of creativeness to see why musicologist Paul Bekker subtitled the Ninth Symphony ‘What Loss of life Tells Me’! Mahler truly wrote throughout the pages of the Andante he composed, ‘O youth! Vanished! O love! Blown away!’ He knew that his days have been numbered, although this motion – and certainly your complete symphony – is as a lot concerning the nostalgia (or demise) of affection (for Alma) as his personal impending demise. In conclusion I need to agree with Leonard Bernstein’s assertion about how ‘In his Ninth Symphony he [Mahler] succeeds in writing maybe the best farewell symphony ever written by anyone.’
The sound of the Viennese musicians was as eloquent, wealthy and luxurious as ever and particular person instrumental timbres had all of the readability and definition you’d anticipate from ‘Mahler’s orchestra’ who’ve this music of their DNA. Do they want a conductor I ponder? Actually only a few of these the close-up camerawork focussed on checked out Nelsons who anyway not often lifted his head from the rating high-up in entrance of him. (Has anybody seen Nelsons conduct something with out peering on the music?) Virtuosic contributions all through the symphony from so very many within the orchestra together with Josef Reif’s horn, Andrea Goetsch’s clarinet, Sebastian Breit’s oboe, Anton Mittermayr on timpani and concertmaster Rainer Honeck.
I think Nelsons tends to micro-manage what we hear and there are restricted alternatives for any spontaneity. His account was languorous and, as all the time, the large outer actions have been the most important challenges. The primary motion was relatively episodic with its succession of juddering crises and Nelsons nearly managed to not lose momentum within the post-climactic – or presumably post-coital – sections, the place the music appears to be piecing itself again collectively.
Within the concluding Adagio the violins slowly wound down and the ultimate pages fragmented as Nelsons had the textures thinning and the music stuttering to a halt as Mahler wearily provides up on life. Ultimately, the strings whisper the ultimate transcendent phrase … after which nothing. Nelsons saved his arms raised and the members of the superb Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra held their devices in place. I realised I had forgotten to breathe after which, fairly intentionally, Nelsons lowered his fingers; the musicians put down their devices and there was an ovation for this matinee live performance. A really advantageous Mahler 9 – how may it not be – although not the most effective I’ve heard.
Jim Pritchard
