Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Southbank Centre, London – Royal Festival Hall
Guest Reviewer, Peter Reed
There was a line in the booklet for this Mahler ‘Resurrection’ – “Strauss’s programme is the result of a planned quota” (Mahler about his rival Richard Strauss) – that gave a clue to explaining misgivings about this performance. This was as micromanaged a reading as I’ve heard – Mahler 2, certainly, but also Mahler two-dimensional. Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s speeds were broadly in line with other timings, but there was little of that illusion of spontaneity that can only come from a state of mutual anticipation between conductor and orchestra. In an instruction-laden score, Rouvali’s meticulous attention to things such as emphatic accents, well-tailored rubato, and accelerandos without much sense of danger, had the effect of making the first movement sound more superlatively crafted rather than the expression of the Totenfeier (funeral rites) of Mahler’s hero, a life-and-death struggle mitigated here but transcendentally resolved in the choral Finale. The devil, as it were, was lost in the detail, and for all the Philharmonia Orchestra’s excellent playing, I was aware more of lightness than weight, of head more than heart. It was just as well that the eight double basses, placed to the conductor’s left away from the brass, applied some trenchant rhythmic bite and air to the unstoppable procession to the hero’s grave. The first movement plays reality against memory with rare accuracy, and that was glossed-over here.
After this, there was no five-minute break, as Mahler requested, just a vigorously shushed dribble of clapping, and then straight into the Ländler movement, taken at the faster end of Andante moderato with a slightly overdone Viennese smooch from the strings, and again with a problem getting a handle on Rouvali’s direction as the music lurches back to the violence of the first. Then there was a pause, to bring in the two soloists and to give time for a retune, which certainly sabotaged the disruptive start to the ‘Sermon to the fishes’ Scherzo, again putting pressure on speed, which in turn diluted the effect of the violent outburst towards the end of the movement. And once more, it was the finely engineered shaping of phrase and line from Rouvali’s precise hands and baton that made you wonder about the slickness of response from the Philharmonia.
There was, though, magic to come in Jennifer Johnston’s quietly authoritative entry into ‘Urlicht’, which at last suggested the possibility of a parallel realm. Beautifully supported by oboe and violin familiars, her mezzo had the necessary colour, depth and style of engagement to suggest angelic ambiguity. Things got even better with a superbly eruptive jump into the orchestral start of the Finale, but misgivings resurfaced with the off-stage horns. Rouvali, again with great precision, conducted this, when the whole point, anticipated in ‘Urlicht’, is to suggest the huge distance between reality and new possibilities, with a different music asserting itself.
And regarding the stage-management front, the distance collapsed even further when the Philharmonia Chorus stood at its first entry, so that visually you didn’t register the effect of the disembodied, whispered sound from a somewhere very far away that Mahler wanted. The choir was marvellous, the pianissimo words crystal-clear, the German ‘schhhh’ sounds like puffs of air elevating Mahler’s huge structure away from the gravity of the here and now to another realm. Both Johnston and soprano Mari Eriksmoen unfolded from the choral mass with barely perceptible finesse, and while Eriksmoen over-dramatised her angelic agency, the effect of her light, silvery voice curling round Johnston’s more centred mezzo was pitch-perfect. The release into the choral ‘Auferstehung’ peroration was thrilling and well-balanced regarding the organ, yet as the tutti died away before the culminating blaze of bells and orchestra without chorus, it was clear that Mahler’s vision had not been fully served.
***
Live on BBC Radio 3:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017tzr
Mahler
Symphony No.2 in C-minor (Resurrection)
Mari Eriksmoen (soprano) & Jennifer Johnston (mezzo-soprano)
Philharmonia Chorus
Philharmonia Orchestra
Santtu-Matias Rouvali
I listened on R3 and was also disappointed by this performance, incohesive and uncommunicative for the most part.
Recent Mahler 2s, thanks to the Internet:
http://www.colinscolumn.com/berliner-philharmoniker-gustavo-dudamel-conducts-mahlers-resurrection-symphony-live-digital-concert-hall-webcast/
http://www.colinscolumn.com/slatkin-in-spain-conducts-bilbao-orkestra-sinfonikoa-sociedad-coral-de-bilbao-in-mahlers-resurrection-symphony-live-eitb-eus-webcast/
Too many Resurrections? Yes! And there’s one coming at the Proms, even though Mahler 2 is not exactly new territory for Simon Rattle.
Yes, too much Mahler, and this No.2 failed in various areas. I listened on radio3 and was tempted to switch off, but as Reed says the choral parts were better. Might leave the Rattle prom alone; he’s done this work a lot.
I only want to listen to Mahler’s “Resurrection” once or twice a year, so having recently played Mehta’s recording I resisted Rouvali who can anyway be superficial. I might listen to Rattle’s prom but what will we get: a very familiar interpretation, great playing from the LSO no doubt, an audience that will cheer to the rafters and a chatty R3 announcer telling us how wonderful it was. I await the day when a 3 presenter says a performance was bad, knows why, and apologises for it.
I could not disagree more with these grumbling listeners and feel impelled to speak up.
I have heard many performances of the Resurrection. I have some 20 from various conductors on cds.
I found the performance on Thursday intensely powerful and very moving. Hard-hitting in the central section of the first movement as I’ve never heard before, beguiling and terrifying in other parts of the performances. I thought the point where the chorus stood was overwhelmingly effective and it did not detract from the hushed entry later. Their singng. loud; soft and truthful was a fitting end to one of the greatest performances I’ve heard of the work.
I don’t know what planet these detractors live on, not the same one as tbe audience who gave the performance a well-deserved, heart-felt, standing ovation.
From front centre of the balcony it sounded like everything this symphony should. The lack of depth referred to above surprises me. Details were managed superbly and the overall vision – musically and spiritually- wholly grasped and communicated.
My only very slight quibble might be that the first choral entry lacked a degree of hushed mystery but what followed was immensely satisfying.
I lool forward to more Mahler from this source in the autumn.
Mr Meyer, why is it that someone who liked this performance unconditionally takes issue with me who, to use your word, grumbles. As I said, I didn’t listen to the live relay but have since caught up. Not a great Resurrection by any means but interesting if mannered. But I don’t criticise you for being overwhelmed by it, you must have been as your calendar has become wonky, the performance was on Wednesday, but please allow me a different opinion, one that now finds Reed’s review to be very perceptive. You have 20 recordings of the Resurrection, I have 7. So what. I did have 10 but had a clear out of recordings a few months ago. Too many. As for which planet I am on, same as you mate, Earth. Hugh Jones, Monday June 13th 2022.
What a bunch of joyless miseries you all are! I was one of 2,700 in the hall that night and was profoundly moved by the music and the performance. The musicians have been through hell these last 2 years and deserved their ovation, however much you may sneer!
I read no sneering. If you enjoyed this Resurrection Symphony, that’s great, but some people have an experience of listening and an ability to write that encapsulates an opinion to be respected, agree or not. However, I tend to agree with Peter Reed given my own experience of this work, for this performance didn’t engulf me as others have done, and certainly this is music to listen to only occasionally.
As a Mahler 2 aficionado for nearly 50 years, having heard many different interpretations both live and recorded, and present in the RFH on the night, I agree with the reviewer that this was a reading that failed to escape its Earthly bonds to soar into the realm of disembodied spirituality. There was some excellent playing, no doubt (I thought the Landler was exquisitely done), but Rouvali didn’t seem able to grasp the enormous metaphysical impact of the work, as the great Mahler specialists do. Nothing was more indicative of this than getting the chorus to stand before its first entry, thus ruining one of the greatest coups de theatre in the repertory. Well worth a try, but Solti and Rattle remain my favourite interpreters of this Earth-shattering piece.
I was there on Wednesday too. I think this review’s a bit too harsh: I don’t think the Totenfeier was overly clinical—if anything, the prolonged caesuras that Rouvali introduced were interesting. The climax of the development (that fearsome Ⅴ¹³ chord) was certainly effective as well. Virtually no modern conductor follows the requested “Pause von mindestens 5 Minuten” between the first and second movements, alas. And while the retuning between the second and third movements was a minor distraction, there needed to be a pause there anyway for the soloists to enter.
One major blip was the cymbal player’s early entrance right when “Die Erde bebt, die Gräber springen auf” (see pp. 328-331 of https://d-nb.info/1219513741/34 for Mahler’s notes on this symphony). You can hear it at 1:03:55 at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0017tzr. Contrast that to 1:00:51-1:00:53 in https://youtu.be/QzYmvFinNs0 and you’ll hear (and see) the difference. It’s a demanding symphony for percussionists and I don’t want to blame the poor cymbal player, it only stuck out to me since it’s one of very few places in the symphonic canon where the Becken mit Tellern get to play a semiquaver dotted rhythm at a rapid tempo (and the effect is palpable if executed correctly).
Agreed re: the choir standing up too early. But overall I thought these were rather minor quibbles for a performance that was overall quite good indeed (albeit maybe not one for the ages, so to speak).
No-one writes a review saying, “the concert was great and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening”. The whole point of a review is to pick holes in the occasion. So I don’t mind the review. If I had an impression on the day, I suppose I might have said that the thing was a bit “staged” or “clinical” and lacking in … I dont know, something extra that a Rattle or a Zander could bring to it.
Like David and “Anonymous”, I was there too. It was the first concert we had been to since the pandemic was over. The place was packed and buzzing. Mahler’s second will always fill the place and rightly so too. Were there mistakes? Yes – this was live guys, so get over it. I recall one accident with an oboe (I think it was), there were some quibbles I personally had with some of the tempi, but so what?
I was there enjoying live music again served up by some of the best artists on the planet. Who cares if the choir stood up too soon? Close your eyes. Personally, I thought the mezzo-sop was off at times just a wee bit, and the soprano overacted the whole thing, but who cares? Who cares about anything but being there and experiencing this wonderful music: I tell people Mahler is not a concert but an experience that has to be lived, and that is how you have to approach it (in my view).
So my review is this: thank you to everyone involved in that concert. I was moved to tears at the end, not just at the beautiful performances and dedication and skill of all concerned, but it reinforced my faith in music and its ability to move and raise us all up. A true “resurrection” experience.
I completely agree with Yowlingcat’s review. For two years covid meant there was no chance of getting over 200 performers on the same stage. I thought I might never get to see this played again. It wasn’t perfect but I was also moved to tears at the end.
A fascinating collection of reviews; I guess ‘You had to be there’…..
Listening today to a recording (on Minidisc!!) of the BBC broadcast could, of course, not really do justice to what many of the correspondents above heard in the hall; and in any case, the broadcast sound balance was not ideal, in particular of the vocal soloists, recorded very close and looming – is that the word? – over the entire orchestra. A few tiny orchestral fluffs did not bother me – it was a live performance by living, breathing performers giving their very best to a remarkable, and very demanding, work of art. Rouvali’s direction irritated me at times with its seeming ‘micro-managing’ of tempi – his foot ‘on and off the accelerator’ more than I would like. But then, I wasn’t there, and perhaps I wasn’t quite in the mood either; however, I am glad that, post-Covid(?…..), a full hall WAS there to experience this extraordinary piece once again.
I am old enough to have heard, in 1963, Stokowski and the LSO, on the radio, give the first Proms performance of the Second (the time Stoky offered the finale as an encore!); and three years later I was in the RFH to hear the Second live for the first time: Solti, the LSO and the newly re-formed LS Chorus trained by my old music teacher John Alldis – an astonishing, overwhelming experience for a twenty year-old, and one that I remember clearly to this day. I am sure there were many in the audience last week for whom Rouvali’s performance was their first experience of the piece, and I hope that it will live with them for the rest of their concert going days.
PS I am so glad to have stumbled on this website; it may now be my go-to site for London concert reviews. Next year you may wish to sample the orchestral series up here in Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall – one of the best-sounding concert halls in the country; the Sinfonia of London and John Wilson in December will never have sounded finer!…..
The only grumblers here are those who don’t like to read a contrary opinion that counters their unbridled enthusiasm. I was in the hall for Rouvali’s Mahler and found his interpretation questionable, it didn’t add up. Peter Reed’s review gets to the heart of the matter as to why this performance was indeed two dimensional, if that. But then I had the great good fortune to hear the late Klaus Tennstedt conduct the “Resurrection”, a transcendental and life affirming performance also in the Festival Hall that Rouvali got nowhere near, as few have since.