BBCSSO: Mahler ‘The Song of the Earth’
City Halls, Glasgow - 16/11/23
Alpesh Chauhan, conductor | Karen Cargill, mezzo-soprano | Brenden Gunnell, tenor
“Escape into The Beauty of Nature” – a programme tagline referring to Mahler’s bittersweet and strangely dispassionate exploration of the pleasure, pain and paradoxes of existence in ‘Das Lied von der Erde’, heralded the return, after a hiatus of 5 weeks, of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to the City Halls in Glasgow on the night of 16th November, under the baton of Alpesh Chauhan. Alpesh is always welcome to the City Halls, where his evident rapport with the BBCSSO and his insightful interpretations of Late Romantic and 20th-Century repertoire have, in just the last year, given us memorable performances of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Shostakovich’s Symphony No.5. The programme opened with Richard Strauss’ Symphonic Fantasy from his opera ‘Die Frau ohne Schatten’ (The Woman without a Shadow). For the Mahler, the orchestra was joined by Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill and American tenor Brenden Gunnell. The concert was broadcast live on Radio 3 and introduced for auditorium and radio audiences by Tom McKinney. It will be available as a podcast on BBC Sounds for 30 days after the performance. The huge orchestra (with variously triple and quadruple winds and 14 first violinists, for example) was led by Kanako Ito, though the programmes still show Laura Samuel as the official leader. The concert was well attended (though only a few minutes before the start the turnout still looked worryingly sparse – thankfully the Mahlerians emerged from somewhere).
The Strauss piece, in the character of a single-movement tone poem, opened with epic deep brass and timpani, evoking a realm whose fairy Empress, without a shadow, is doomed to childlessness and the petrification of her mortal husband. She plans to purchase the shadow of the poor ill-tempered wife of a cheerful dyer in exchange for riches and a life of pleasure but relents when she realises that this will visit childlessness on the couple, deciding to accept her own doom instead. This act of kindness breaks the spell and they all live happily ever after. The scoring and orchestration are Strauss at his most sumptuous, especially the passage denoting the transformation of the poor couple’s hovel into a palace, with glorious use of the harps. Memorable too was a sonic portrait of the good-natured dyer in a trombone solo from Simon Johnson. After a huge, prolonged climax on full orchestra, with organ, the happy ending unfolded in music of great tenderness, with a lovely violin solo from Kanako, subsiding to a warm afterglow, the grim timpani strokes of the beginning transformed to gentle taps sounding the final cadence. A first hearing for me of a super piece, and I cannot imagine a finer realisation of it. Alpesh yet again showed his talent as a painter of sonic pictures, the orchestra his skilful and ever-willing accomplices.
Mahler’s Lied uses much the same orchestral forces as the Strauss and alternates tenor and mezzo in 6 poems that juxtapose an appreciation of natural beauty with the harsh reality of mortality. The first, for tenor, ‘Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde’ (Drinking Song of Earth’s Misery) is full of angst and irony, with a recurring macabre motto ‘Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod’ (Dark is life; dark is death). Despite the heavy scoring, Brenden communicated its dark message with expressive clarity and characterful vocal tone. A lovely clarinet solo from Yann Ghiro added a melancholy beauty. Karen’s first song ‘Der Einsame im Herbst’ (The Lonely One in Autumn) held the mood with added stabbing heartache from oboe, horn and clarinet, but a less laden orchestral texture, kinder to a vocal soloist. What a glorious voice! I knew immediately then that I was going to shed tears at the Abschied. The mood lightens for the next two songs. Brenden’s ‘Von der Jugend’’ (On Youth) was playful, delightfully describing an oriental garden with happy young people of both sexes (though it becomes clear that the poet is describing the happy scene as an outsider). Oriental tropes grace the melody too, as do a few typically Mahlerian klezmer elements. Brenden and Alpesh danced around each other in this happy gleeful interlude. No less playful was Karen’s ‘Von der Schönheit’ (On Beauty), but with added Viennese schmaltz. A celebration of the joys of romantic love and the good life. Super. Brenden’s last song depicted ‘Der Trunkene im Frühling’ (The Drunkard in Spring), a boozy inarticulate conversation with a bird before relapsing into a stupor. Hilarious but detached, tragically unaware of the beauty of Spring. Beautifully performed. The final song, ‘Abschied’’ (Farewell) is by far the longest and the most moving. Sleep as a metaphor for death pervades the music, as does a persistent heartache on solo oboe (Stella McCracken) and guest principal horn (Lauren Reeve Rawlings). The words depict a progressive withdrawal from the world, the alienation of friends, and the irresistible pull of sleep. As the poet gives up the struggle, the music changes, the celeste enters and I start to cry. Every time. And yes, wonderful Karen pushed my buttons magically. The last bars feature that great Mahler trick of prolonging a cadence indefinitely as if it might delay the end forever. “Ewig, ewig …”. Absolutely perfect.
A big thank you from me to Alpesh, Karen, Brenden and the RSNO for a perfect Lied.