Tag: gustav-mahler

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Auckland Philharmonia’s astounding performance of Mahler’s Symphony No 3

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Auckland Philharmonia, Deborah Humble, Kirstin Middle School Singers and Women of Choirs Aotearoa Photo: Thomas Hamill

Mahler 3

Auckland Philharmonia (in association with the Australian Academy of Music)

Auckland Town Hall

November 20

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

With the last of the Auckland Philharmonia Premier Series concerts for the year the orchestra presented Mahler’s Symphony No3. This is Mahler’s longest work of six movements and close to an hour and three quarters long. It also features over one hundred musicians, two choirs, (Women of Choirs Aotearoa and Kirstin Middle School Singers) and mezzo-soprano Deborah Humble.

It was described by Mahler as a gigantic musical poem and offers one of the most complete statements of the Austrian composer’s world view. Each of the movements represents an element of the universe – plants, animals, people, angels – culminating in a tranquil deeply felt finale, the celebration of divine love and the culmination of the works giant structure. Mahler once said “A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything”. This performance certainly had everything with a huge range of instrument including four flutes, four oboes, four bassoons, eight horns, four trumpets, post horn, three trombones, bass and contrabass tuba, timpani, glockenspiel, and a large string section.

Where many great nineteenth century composers explored the nature of Man, in this symphony however it was the composer’s relationship with Nature which was his focus.

The massed sounds of the orchestra were impressive, notably the opening of the first movement with its two march-like themes which can be seen as a description and reflection on Nature and the evolutionary theories of Darwin.

There were several other sequences which featured the delicate and nuanced playing of individual instruments such as Andrew Beer’s violin solo and the sounds of birds brought to life by the woodwinds.

Deborah Humble and Giordano Bellincampi Image Thomas Hamill

Mezzo-soprano Deborah Humble sang Nietzsche’s Midnight Song from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, her mournful voice soaring above the plaintive orchestra, expressing sadness and frailty, suggested the words of a requiem.

The choirs gave a bright, simple delivery of one of the composer’s songs, “Kling! Glocken hell kling!” (Ring! Bells, ring!). Here, the choir imitating sounds of bells and a female chorus joined by the soloist represent the voice of angels in a joyous and innocent depiction of a heavenly scene.

Mahler’s used the instrument to create a sense of life evolving which along with the relentless march tunes which suggest the progress of Man. Throughout the work the massed instrument, often led by the horns sounded like the breathing of a huge entity.

Conductor Giordano Bellincampi generally took a precise and measured approach, balancing the various parts of the orchestra and ensuring that even the quietest of moments made an impression. However, with the more dramatic sequences he seemed to be imbued with the same fervour as the music.

This was an intense and rewarding performance by an orchestra which could take its place in any great concert chamber in the world with an astounding performance filled with profound emotion.

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Reviews, News and Commentary

Mahler’s dynamic Symphony No 6

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Gemma New

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Mahler 6

Auckland Town Hall

September 6

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

With their latest concert “Mahler 6” the NZSO and conductor Gemma New have shown that they are a major symphonic force, particularly with their performances of Mahler’s symphonies.

Mahler composed his Symphony No. 6, Tragic between 1903 and 1904 at the peak of his professional life as a conductor, at a time when Europe was experiencing a significant political and social upheaval, with tensions building up to World War I, Mahler’s personal life was marked by turmoil, including strained relationships and health issues. However, this was also a period of intense creativity for Mahler, having just completed his Symphony No. 5 a year prior. Mahler drew inspiration from philosophical and literary sources such as Friedrich Nietzsche and the Austrian poet Heinrich Leopold Wagner, whose themes of destiny and human suffering resonated with Mahler. The symphony’s title, Tragic, reflects Mahler’s engagement with the tragic nature of the times as well as huis own fraught life.

The title of The Tragic, has been given to the work in part because the work has often been considered prophetic as the composer suffered several tragic events after he had composed the work. But the tragic element of the work is only part of the complex work.

As with most of the composers works there is a personal element in their work and his output can be seen as a series of autobiographical symphonies, charting his reactions to his evolving development, physically, artistically and emotionally. The sixth symphony looks back over his life as well as looking forward and envisaging a life full of drama, excitement and tragedy.

It is these personal and psychological issues the fears, anxieties and pleasures of his life which form the basis of the work, and we are presented with the man and his attempts to understand and explore his inner psychological struggles, endeavouring to express himself through his music in a way few other composers have managed to achieve.

While it is an autobiographical work exploring the composer’s personality, there are parallel themes as he depicts narratives, landscapes and other emotional states.

The work opens with a martial march with strong beats which suggest the relentless march of time, a feature which recurs throughout the work. After that dramatic opening there is a sublime lyrical passage which expresses contentment and even  jollity. It is these contrasting elements which fill the symphony, a series of encounters and emotions which are musical metaphors for the incidents in the passage of life.

Throughout the symphony, Mahler weaves this recurring musical motif known as the “Alma theme,” named after his wife. This haunting melody, first introduced in the opening movement, serves as a motif representing Mahler’s conflicted feelings towards Alma and provides a layer of autobiographical depth to the work.

The final movement opens with some magical sounds produced by the strings and bells as though one was entering a dream world with several of the instruments seeming to be out of key, giving the work a surreal, disconnected feel.

New’s conducting is always dynamic and with this work she showed her approach to be focused with attention to detail. While she always appears to be in total control there were times when  she appeared to be demanding more of the players,  exhorting them to greater efforts.

Her conducting was generally strict with firm directions and hand gestures carefully controlling the orchestra but then there would be passages when she seemed like a choreographer / dancer, more concerned with the spontaneity, the arc and flow of the music.

The work was full of the composer’s favourite percussion instruments – cymbals, bass drums and gongs, but in his Sixth Symphony he added two timpanists, snare drum, celeste, xylophone, glockenspiel, church bells and cowbells. He added one other dramatic instrument  – a giant hammer designed to create a dull thump, a fatal blow which occurs twice in the final movement of the symphony.

In that final movement the music becomes exalted and inspiring, the harps and strings producing a transcendental sound before the fateful surges which turn the music into tragedy, ending not with a bang but a whimper.

Categories
Reviews, News and Commentary

The NZSO’s Mahler 5

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Gemma New

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Mahler 5

Auckland Town Hall

April 6

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The opening work on the Mahler  programme was Salina Fisher’s “Kintsugi” which was originally commissioned  by the NZ trio. This augmented work relates to the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery and dusting the new work with gold.

The music focussed on the gaps in the pottery and the broken fragments of the pieces, highlighting the delicacy of the process as the pieces were slowly assembled.

The music seemed to describe the colours, textures and contours of the bowl or vase with Bridget Douglas’s flute describing curvaceous shapes. The orchestra then picked out the seams of the material bonding the broken shards and the shimmering gold.

While describing the physical changes in the pottery the work with its delicate, brittle sounds acted as a metaphor the ability of humans to mends broken bodies and damaged minds.

The American composer Adam Schoenberg’s Percussion Concerto “Losing Earth” was a dazzling  work inspired the climate catastrophe threatening our natural world with musical images of cities being inundated by rising oceans.

Jacob Nissly Image NZSO/Jono Tucker

The work opened with the sounds of gunshots from drums which were placed around the auditorium. These sporadic salvos, warnings of a present danger were followed by subterranean groaning of the horns which also suggested looming disaster. This was followed by collisions of the strings and horns against the percussion section.

The audiences was then treated  to a remarkable display from Jacob Nissly the soloist who is the San Francisco Symphony’s Principal Percussionist. From  his first appearance at the front  of the hall playing a snare drum he combined the style of a professional percussion player and that of an outlandish rock band drummer.

At his disposal was an array of instruments; drums, gongs marimba, wood blocks and cymbals with which he and the orchestra created the images of an encroaching ocean with the murmuring strings and brass backgrounding Nissly’s s sonic wonderland. This all ended with his making one final display using a spinning Roto Sound cymbal which emitted an eerie sound as the earth-like globe spun to its whispering end.

Where “Losing Earth” addressed a crucial time in the physical nature of our world , Mahler’s Fifth Symphony addressed a crucial time in the composer’s personal world. The work was written at time when he had  a near death experience, his career was blossoming but there many detractors and it was also the time he met future wife.  It is these personal and psychological issues the fears, anxieties and pleasures of his life which form the basis of the work and we were presented with the man and his attempts to understand and explore his inner psychological struggles, endeavourimg to express himself through his music in a way few other composers have  managed to achieve.

While it is an autobiographical work exploring the composer’s personality, there are parallel themes as he depicts narratives, landscapes and other emotion states.

The measure of a great performance is the way in which these aspects of the composer’s life are realized by the conductor and the orchestra. Conductor Gemma New and the NZSO certainly achieved it with an intelligent and emotional performance.

From the opening trumpet blast to the final triumphant conclusion New was firmly in control of the orchestra, understanding the drama, inventions and contrasts of the music. She seemed by turns, a battling duellist, a lithe dancers and meticulous guide. Subtle nuances were made evident and individual instruments were allowed to shine. Even the long silences between the movements became part of the music, allowing the audience to reflect on each of the previous movements.

New managed to give the blaring, brass opening funereal march a sense of desolation while the singing strings provided a sense of optimism. This  romantic reflective mood depicted the man trapped between despair and hope.

In the second movement New seemed to be battling the ferocious sounds of the orchestra and the nightmarish, reckless drama of the music before it morphed into quiet reverie, bringing out nuances and subtleties that seemed to explore the tragedy and triumphs of human and personal history and she allowed the interweaving of the solo violin, the brass and the strings to give the work an intense melancholy.

The final two movements, which included the famous adagio for strings which is considered to be something of a love letter to his wife Alma Schindler, were delivered perfectly filled with an aching sense of love and loss.

The final movement was filled with changing moods, alive with bright woodwinds and brass. New led the orchestra  in a brilliantly controlled finale where the doors of perception open and the funeral tones of much of the work are replaced by more exultant sounds offering hope and renewal.