Prague 1908: Mahler with Bruno Walter (right) who conducted the posthumous premiere of Das Lied von der Erde on November 20, 1911, in Munich. Much later, for CBS, Walter made a great recording of it: New York Philharmonic with Ernst Haefliger and Mildred Miller…
Saturday, May 10, 2025
Berliner Philharmonie, Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, Berlin
Replacing Daniel Barenboim, while retaining the original programme, Sakari Oramo led the opening Adagio from Mahler’s left-unfinished Tenth Symphony, the movement of the five that he got closest to completing while still needing editing, initially by Berg and Krenek, and then others when the work was being made wholly performable (thanks to the composer’s A-Z draft), especially by Deryck Cooke, as chosen here. Placed centre-left (violins antiphonal), the carefully nuanced violas’ threnody promised much, which was delivered through a breadth sustained by intensity and sonority, with spiky dance-like rhythms offering contrast yet integrated to the (here) twenty-six minutes that was searingly and dissonantly climaxed, the remaining music numbed and poignant.
Following the interval, a superb Das Lied, a Symphony said Mahler (written between numbers Eight and Nine), setting Chinese texts translated into German. Two wonderful singers, an orchestra in top form, the various subjects – including drunkenness and loneliness – vividly presented, not least the runaway destructive horses during ‘Of Beauty’, and the extended final movement, ‘Der Abschied’, here a ‘farewell’ of destabilising power, on the edge of insanity, Dorottya Láng musically and emotionally involved to an unnerving degree. Throughout, Oramo’s interpretative judgement was beyond reproach, any balance problems between the singers and the orchestra, or within the ensemble, had been solved, and impetuous passages, such as the very opening, were poised and precise without inhibiting headiness, leaving many solo contributions as the epitome of sensitivity. Benjamin Bruns was a heroic tenor and also inviting, and Láng alluring with the vernal forecasts of the ‘goodbye’.