Mahler 10/BBCSSO/Runnicles/recorded at Usher Hall/R3 19:30 29/09/15

[jayne lee wilson]

Not much comment on Performance threads these days, but many more hits than comments, so someone's still interested...

This will be third performance in 4 days by Runnicles and the BBCSSO....

[Bryn]

Not much comment on Performance threads these days, but many more hits than comments, so someone's still interested...

This will be third performance in 4 days by Runnicles and the BBCSSO....

The fourth in 6 days if one was to believe the online schedule, which one should not.

[Bryn]

Listening via DAB there is some strange beating in the massed strings. Engineering or orchestral acoustics? I will check the HD Sound option via 'Listen Again' later.

[jayne lee wilson]

A fine Mahler 10 from Runnicles and the BBCSSO. Not many artworks put you through so much, drawing you back, moth to the flame of one's own agonised response to such intensity; such pain and joy - such truth. For me, only Suk's Asrael Symphony is comparable.

A performance of extremes: of texture, dynamics, rubato. With this wonderful orchestra's string-drenched warmth and richness in the outer movements, and those cushioning, echt-Romantic horns, Runnicles underlined the contrast between Romantic Passion and the spikier, more "modernist", often chamber-musical transparencies elsewhere (Mahler, as ever, janus-faced between two centuries). In the second scherzo especially, his tempo variation was daring - those delicacies almost stilled between ferocious climaxes. But the overarching shape of the piece, the 5th movement answering the 1st after the aspirations, energies and nightmares of the three quicker movements have dissipated in bleak emptiness, was always clear - and overwhelming in its final effect ( a dizzying sweep of a glissando up to that last chord!).

It is such a different music, such a different symphony from the 9th, and vital to an understanding of Mahler's visionary metamorphosis: the richness and harmonic fulfilments of the outer movements are songs of love rather than death; even their climaxes, for all their Goya-esque sonic images, seem to speak of a living, rather than a dying, agony. The terror of loss, the yearning to live on, rather than resignation-unto-death, or facing the bleak courts of the afterlife.

***
HDs sound was generally fine, with a good sense of space and hall signature, and an often fearsome dynamic range - some startlingly full and powerful peaks in Scherzo II! Shame then to note some fading-up of pp strings before the adagio's climax, and in the same movement's coda, which was beautifully played but, as broadcast, too loud. At least it didn't persist.

Some musical anomalies too: the db pizzicato was absent from the end of the adagio, and we heard two drum-thwacks, one softer, one louder, before the tuba enters at the start of the finale. (I must admit I do miss the shattering blows we used to hear at this point, as in the first Rattle recording..).

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes Jayne - it was a tremendous performance - full of so many wonderful touches from Runnicles and his band . Also made me think how much the presence of Deryck Cooke's musical intelligence would have enhanced this week's 'Why Music? ' experience.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Some musical anomalies too: the db pizzicato was absent from the end of the adagio

No excuse for this - the full score manuscript clearly shows pizz for all lower (ie Violas downwards) strings.

and we heard two drum-thwacks, one softer, one louder, before the tuba enters at the start of the finale. (I must admit I do miss the shattering blows we used to hear at this point, as in the first Rattle recording..).

This is a legitimate reading of the draft - Cooke and chums put the ff marking at the end of the Fourth Movement and added sempre ff to the Bass drum part at the start of the Finale; the manuscript just has f for the end of the 4th Movt and sf for each of the drum strokes throughout the entire first section of the 5th Movt. It's not unreasonable to understand sf as louder than f. "Shattering blows" don't follow Mahler's clear instructions "heavily muffled drum" - vollstandige gedämpfte trommel - and the f and sf markings.

[jayne lee wilson]

It's hard not to miss the missing pizz, but...

FHG - can you grab a recording to compare with Runnicles? In most of the ones I checked - Rattle 1&2, Gielen, Sanderling** - there is just the one drum stroke (of varying loudness), i.e., the scherzo winds down eerily with very quiet percussion & basses; then silence; then the drum stroke; then the tuba solo.
But in the Runnicles performance, you hear: eerie perc. & basses; silence; quieter drum stroke; silence; louder drum stroke; tuba solo. It did sound unfamiliar to me as I've mostly played Rattle or Sanderling... then, I went back to Ormandy in 1965 - TWO drum strokes, softer then louder as per the BBCSSO. Most intriguing!

What's exactly in the score here? Is there a choice offered?

**Even more intriguing - the recent Japanese reissue of Sanderling has two at the same level - but separated by a null silence between tracks/movements. It sounds like the identical stroke to me & I suspect the remasterers chose to "restore" it themselves...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - in both Rattle recordings there is just the one drum stroke. In the score (the Cooke & co performing version and the manuscript sources) there is no ambiguity and no choice sanctioned by the manuscript: there are two drum strokes; one (marked f) concluding the 4th movement, the next (following in tempo after two beats in the manuscript, after a "lang" caesura in Cooke) starting the 5th movt (and marked sf). Nothing in the manuscript sources provided (nor in the editorial comments) suggest a segue between the movements, incidentally. (Editorial removal of flippant suggestion that Cooke wanted to prevent audience applause.)



There is editorial comment on the adjustments to the manuscript dynamics for the drum, however: practical experience with the [large military drum which Mahler would have heard at the fireman's funeral in New York] showed that such a sound could be ineffectual unless the drum were hit with all the performer's strength, in which case the result had the tragic intensity which Mahler intended.

[Roehre]

It's hard not to miss the missing pizz, but...

FHG - can you grab a recording to compare with Runnicles? In most of the ones I checked - Rattle 1&2, Gielen, Sanderling** - there is just the one drum stroke (of varying loudness), i.e., the scherzo winds down eerily with very quiet percussion & basses; then silence; then the drum stroke; then the tuba solo.
But in the Runnicles performance, you hear: eerie perc. & basses; silence; quieter drum stroke; silence; louder drum stroke; tuba solo. It did sound unfamiliar to me as I've mostly played Rattle or Sanderling... then, I went back to Ormandy in 1965 - TWO drum strokes, softer then louder as per the BBCSSO. Most intriguing!

What's exactly in the score here? Is there a choice offered?

**Even more intriguing - the recent Japanese reissue of Sanderling has two at the same level - but separated by a null silence between tracks/movements. It sounds like the identical stroke to me & I suspect the remasterers chose to "restore" it themselves...

As FHG already confirmed, this is the way Mahler indicated the drum : vollstàndig gedämpfte Trommel, which Cooke et al have interpreted as Grosse Militärtrommel - immer gedàmpft). The first drum stroke is the place in Mahler's continuuity draft where he writes "Du allein weisst was es bedeutet" (only you know what it means [or: where it comes from], a funeral procession in New York, observed by the Mahlers from their hotel room, of a fireman who was killed doing his duty. One drum announced the cortège).
Cooke et all defend the marking ff in stead of f as "practical experience with the instrument showed that such a sound could be ineffectual unless the drum were hit with all the player's strength, in which case the result had the tragic intensity which Mahler intended"

Conductors however interpret the differences in ff and sf differently.
So exists a recording from the Holland Festival 1976 with The Hague Residentie Orkest/Jean Martinon where the final drum in mvt.4 is immediately followed by a drum stroke at the beginning of the Finale, again immediately followed by a second one, 3 strokes therefore in short succession, without a pause between iv and v.