Prom 69 (2.9.12): Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra – Messiaen & Mahler

[jayne lee wilson]

I'm amazed no-one has yet commented on Messiaen's Et exspecto, which had an astounding immediacy, clarity and impact on the HD-Hi 320kbps stream. Musical and sonic judgement have to partner each other here, and Chailly paced it perfectly, allowing it to breathe, to state, restate, and then deliver its stunningly physical crescendi without restraint, but with a gleaming definitional edge. At the peaks of the biggest drum and tam-tam rolls in the 3rd section, I could feel the chair vibrate with the resonance itself, not just the power (I don't run floorstanders or subwoofer). Remarkable both as primordial music and sophisticated engineering.

In the Mahler 6 the balance changed to a smaller orchestral image in a more distanced perspective.
Chailly reminded me a little of Kubelik's way with Mahler in his Bavarian Radio cycle - eschewing late-Romantic rhetoric or rich sonorities for a swift, light and lithe momentum which reserves power for the truly significant moments in a far-sighted view of the symphony's architecture. So in (i), the sharpened blades of the brass made their point the more tellingly at the start of the development and in the coda, but Chailly was careful not to be too cock-a-hoop here, though it's easy to forgive those who are!

This approach was consistent through a flowing andante, the clear melodic streams tumbling into a great waterfall of a climax; the scherzo, at first almost unnervingly fast and lightweight, careering into devilish violence.

In the finale I did begin to miss greater textural presence - sheer guttiness - in the strings, which were sometimes lost in the huge climaxes either side of the hammer blows, but Chailly will never impose himself on the score with a surprise of tempo or quirk of phrase; his classically-disciplined approach is always about the formal unity, placing the main climaxes unerringly with a coolly ruthless power. The coda sounded properly ashen, exhausted; the silence after the close wholly a part of the experience.

Two details:
First, why do almost all conductors leave out the 3rd hammer-blow, despite Mahler's un-musical reasons for deleting it? He was traumatized by what was happening to his life, but it would respect his creation more to restore it. In place it is devastating - and true.

Personally, I feel at odds with the andante-scherzo order; it seems to impose a conventional shape on the piece which runs against its emotional trajectory. The scherzo belongs to the allegro as its distorting mirror; the andante says, "if only it could be like this"; the finale gives us the unconditional answer.

[amateur51]

Personally, I feel at odds with the andante-scherzo order; it seems to impose a conventional shape on the piece which runs against its emotional trajectory. The scherzo belongs to the allegro as its distorting mirror; the andante says, "if only it could be like this"; the finale gives us the unconditional answer.

Great review of an exhausting (in a good way ) concert, jlw!

Re the andante-scherzo issue, I feel the opposite is true. Yes, the scherzo belongs to the allegro, and what Mahler does is to lull the listener with the andante and then pulls you back into the maelstrom, the nightmare, with the scherzo, the andante as a parallel universe perhaps? For me this then leads logically and emotionally into the final movement, hammer blows and all. And I do agree about restoring the third blow. Horses for courses, endlessly fascinating

[edashtav]

I'm amazed no-one has yet commented on Messiaen's Et exspecto, which had an astounding immediacy, clarity and impact on the HD-Hi 320kbps stream.

Chailly reminded me a little of Kubelik's way with Mahler in his Bavarian Radio cycle - eschewing late-Romantic rhetoric or rich sonorities for a swift, light and lithe momentum which reserves power for the truly significant moments in a far-sighted view of the symphony's architecture. So in (i), the sharpened blades of the brass made their point the more tellingly at the start of the development and in the coda, but Chailly was careful not to be too cock-a-hoop here, though it's easy to forgive those who are!

This approach was consistent through a flowing andante, the clear melodic streams tumbling into a great waterfall of a climax; the scherzo, at first almost unnervingly fast and lightweight, careering into devilish violence.

In the finale I did begin to miss greater textural presence - sheer guttiness - in the strings, which were sometimes lost in the huge climaxes either side of the hammer blows, but Chailly will never impose himself on the score with a surprise of tempo or quirk of phrase; his classically-disciplined approach is always about the formal unity, placing the main climaxes unerringly with a coolly ruthless power. The coda sounded properly ashen, exhausted; the silence after the close wholly a part of the experience.

Two details:
First, why do almost all conductors leave out the 3rd hammer-blow, despite Mahler's un-musical reasons for deleting it? He was traumatized by what was happening to his life, but it would respect his creation more to restore it. In place it is devastating - and true.

Personally, I feel at odds with the andante-scherzo order; it seems to impose a conventional shape on the piece which runs against its emotional trajectory. The scherzo belongs to the allegro as its distorting mirror; the andante says, "if only it could be like this"; the finale gives us the unconditional answer.

Great review of an exhausting (in a good way ) concert, jlw!

Re the andante-scherzo issue, I feel the opposite is true. Yes, the scherzo belongs to the allegro, and what Mahler does is to lull the listener with the andante and then pulls you back into the maelstrom, the nightmare, with the scherzo, the andante as a parallel universe perhaps? For me this then leads logically and emotionally into the final movement, hammer blows and all. And I do agree about restoring the third blow. Horses for courses, endlessly fascinating

Yes, an excellent review, JLW, as amateur51 has affirmed, you hit the nail on the head with a great big hammer. I can't better the manner in which you've typified Chailly's approach and his orchestra's response. His restraint, respect for the score and revelatory balancing allowed in air as fresh as that on the mountain pastures that Mahler so lovingly sketched.

I'm with amateur51 over the question of order of the movements - for the same reason that he gives, but I'm 100% with both of you concerning the missing hammer blow. And.. JLW, you were spot on re the string balance around the 3 climaxes in the finale - although I put their lack of impact down to sheer exhaustion - in the pre-Prom talk Celia (Waterman?), 1st violin from the BBC SO, had told us what a full-on part the strings ( &, in particular the violins) have in this work.

I appreciated Chailly's way with the Messaien, he treated it with respect and didn't "go atomic" with the climaxes. I remember attending a Prom the other year in which Berlioz's Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale was the taster before the Eroica. [ In a way Berlioz's work has a similar relationship to his other works as Messaien's Et Exspecto... has to his main oeuvre.] Thierry and his big Welsh band went for broke, smashing upteem records in the Berlioz whilst Beethoven's 3rd was reduced to small beer, as if it were the Parents' Sack Race at the end of a Sportsday. Last night's thoughtful, structured approach to the Messaien made us think about ultimate things - and left us with some hope of resurrection - BUT NO CHEAP GUARANTEE! By golly, did Mahler smash that hope to smithereens! But, of course, it was clever and useful programming.

An orchestra and conductor in the prime of their musical lives playing a well-designed and satisfying programme. They and the BBC deserve our warm thanks and applause.

[fugophile]

I was delighted to hear a facet of Messiaen with which I had previously been unfamiliar (being that I associate him with birdsong, sophisticated rhythmic and isorhythmic techniques, and modes of limited transposition): the slow gestures; the hugely resonant percussion; the spaciousness; the sparsity of texture. It invited comparisons with composers as diverse as Stravinsky (block forms), Pärt (tintinabulism), and Webern (texture). It attained that meditative listening aesthetic so espoused by the minimalists, yet without the tedium almost invariably associated with latter.

Re the andante-scherzo issue, I feel the opposite is true. Yes, the scherzo belongs to the allegro, and what Mahler does is to lull the listener with the andante and then pulls you back into the maelstrom, the nightmare, with the scherzo, the andante as a parallel universe perhaps? For me this then leads logically and emotionally into the final movement, hammer blows and all. And I do agree about restoring the third blow. Horses for courses, endlessly fascinating

Regarding the syntax of the inner movements of Mahler 6, I must confess that for my part I am also more convinced by the Andante-Scherzo ordering, for reasons broadly similar to the programmatic ones suggested in the quotation above. After the vigorous pace of the first movement, rendered positively relentless by those repeating crotchets in the double basses, it is surely more rhetorically compelling to have the slow movement before the lightning of the Scherzo. I would not place too much credence in the argument that challenges this by citing "convention" as the reason for the syntax having been altered to Andante-Scherzo, since by the early-twentieth century an "unconventional" syntax was by no means unprecedented. Nonetheless, I will try and find time to track down and hear Chailly's recording in the Scherzo-Andante syntax.

First, why do almost all conductors leave out the 3rd hammer-blow, despite Mahler's un-musical reasons for deleting it? He was traumatized by what was happening to his life, but it would respect his creation more to restore it. In place it is devastating - and true.

Although I am personally inclined to prefer a third hammer-blow, I still found the peripeteia extremely compelling in yesterday's performance; Chailly harnessed a massive range of dynamics in all sections of the orchestra to mesmerising effect. The rest of the percussion section supplied the requisite volume, to the extent that I wondered — from my position in the middle of the arena — whether the hammer-blow would really have sounded so distinct as the first and second times, and if so, would it be desirable, or would it detract from the transmogrification of the coda?

And thank goodness the audience left a period of silence before applauding. Many a performance is ruined by the applause coming in too soon.

I completely agree; the feat of having obtained this silence is due in no small part to Chailly's physical gestures, slowly bringing down the baton to rest and resolutely facing his orchestra, before eventually lifting his head and turning round to accept the applause. His bow was the true model of a person dedicated to his art, holding his hands (and the baton) as though in prayer and maintaing a suitably solemn countenance.

If only all performances of all works of classical music could be followed by a comparable silence (as a minimum).

[jayne lee wilson]

Just thinking about this today - has anyone here changed their mind about the inner-movement order, after experience of different performances and recordings? My first LPs were Solti and Karajan, at a time when the subject was rarely discussed. Those overplayed recordings are bound to influence my feelings now, however I may try to rationalise it.

Given the documentary evidence, Mahler's uncertainty, all of our musical and emotional experiences of the piece, I guess it will always remain a performance choice. Would Mahler be upset by that? I suspect not.
"Mr Rattle and Mr. Chailly, you've played it andante-first for a while now, I hope you'll try scherzo-first next time! Tradition ist schlamperei!"

Even the overwhelming predominance of scherzo-3rd symphonies right up to the end of the 19th C. doesn't really help. But it's interesting how those few that place the scherzo (or scherzo-type) second, (eg Beethoven 8/9, Bruckner 2 (1872 text), 8&9) are all strikingly original creations even within the composer's own oeuvre).

...and I had no idea until Roehre mentioned it, that it had been first conceived as a 5-movement "arch" form with 2 scherzi. Fascinating! Just imagine a second scherzo obliquely "keyed" to the finale, or...?