BBCSSO: Opening Night: Mahler 4
City Halls, Glasgow - 21/09/23
Ryan Wigglesworth, conductor | Steven Osborne, piano | Sally Matthews, soprano
“Escape into a Vision of Heaven” – the tagline of the opening concert of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s 2023-24 season, a clear reference to the finale of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, depicting in song a child’s vision of the delights of Heaven, launching a season where every concert promises an ‘escape’, exemplifying the power of orchestral music to transport us beyond the limits of our everyday experience. Operatic soprano Sally Matthews joined the orchestra after the interval to share this vision. Before the interval, the same musical collaboration that had delivered an inspired interpretation of Tippett’s Piano Concerto a mere 3 days prior in the closing concert of the Lammermuir Festival, pianist Steven Osborne with the BBCSSO under their Chief Conductor, Ryan Wigglesworth, delivered afresh, with the added dimension that it was Wigglesworth’s own 2019 Piano Concerto in a Scottish premiere. The concert opened with an unfamiliar piece, the 1914 ‘Heroic Overture’ by Viennese contemporary of Mahler, Johanna Müller-Hermann. The concert, which was recorded for broadcast on Radio 3 (26th October at 7:30 pm), after which it will be available on BBC Sounds for 30 days, was introduced by Kate Molleson. It was also very well attended.
Müller-Hermann’s overture is in the character of a non-programmatic tone poem, very evocative of moods in a late Romantic style, not unlike those of Richard Strauss, though the more obvious direct influence is that of Wagner, with very satisfying writing for the horns and some pleasing solos for violin, viola, cello, trumpet and clarinet. I found it quite filmic and well worth a listen. Guest leader David Alberman, seen already in the Haddington concert, played the violin solos warmly and I mean no adverse criticism by saying that I miss Laura Samuel already.
Wigglesworth’s Concerto is a substantial 4-movement work, the titles of the movements suggesting a neo-classical vibe: Arioso, Scherzo, Notturno and Gigue. If Tippett’s Concerto is about conciliation and accord between soloist and orchestra, Wigglesworth’s focusses more on an uneasy coexistence of implacably independent identities. In the arch-shaped Arioso, a nervous figure on flutes is countered by calm chording on the piano, building to a climax with very satisfying string harmonies, subsiding again to the opening music, with hints of Webern. The extended Scherzo, fast, syncopated and virtuosic, reminded me of the ‘party’ movement from Bernstein’s ‘Age of Anxiety’ Second Symphony, with hints of Bartók, quite thrilling. Its two-part Trio section was more surreal, a dreamscape with a bizarre copycat game followed by a soporific waltzlike dance, witty and characterful. The Nocturne, very reminiscent of Bartók’s ‘night music’ style, with the orchestra pared down to strings and harp, featured a simple Polish folk tune, with a slightly macabre uneasiness hinting at unseen malevolence. The Gigue, with displaced stresses and a touch of hemiolic mischief, caused the 6/8 to be pulled by a tug-of-war between the soloist and the orchestra. The two themes of the Arioso were revisited competitively. The piano’s virtuosic cadenza is responded to by the final tutti from the orchestra. The piano, abandoned, has the last forlorn word. A super piece and, whatever about my speculations about influences, it displays a highly individual compositional voice. No less than the Tippett, Steven Osborne owned the piece giving it the utmost advocacy. Thumbs up from me and the Glasgow audience, cheering as conductor and soloist embraced.
The theme that will represent the child scampering from delight to celestial delight between the verses of the finale opens Mahler’s Fourth Symphony in a more leisurely tempo. The first movement, a somewhat kitsch portrayal of innocent joie-de-vivre with slightly arch Viennese gemütlichkeit, is, I must confess, a guilty pleasure, and Wigglesworth and the BBCSSO served it up with the most deliciously teasing rubato and charm. The second movement, where klezmer-coloured grotesques dance a surreal ländler somewhere between this world and the next, was as archly characterful as I have heard. The Ruhevoll slow movement, squarely in the afterlife, caught the duality perfectly: the tranquillity and the release from the pain and woes of this life, but also the pain of separation were vividly portrayed. Wigglesworth is a true Mahlerian. The glorious shift to E-major which opens the finale was Sally Matthews’ cue to enter and she came to the stage. So, did she transport me to the Elysian Fields and the vision of pure joy and abundance revealed through the words of von Arnim and Brentano? Well, no she didn’t. Dynamically, her vocal line had prominences and dells: I caught the prominences but strained unsuccessfully for the dells. So, the words were lost. Timbrally too, there was no sense of youthful breathless delight, more a honed mature operatic instrument with flawless breath control. Mahler’s finale demands an illusion and a stroke of magic. It was in the orchestral playing as before, but absent from the overphrased vocal line. I must add that the Glasgow audience did not seem to share my disappointment as the applause was thunderous.
The applause was rewarded with an encore, more Mahler: ‘Liebst du um Schönheit’ from his ‘Rückert-Lieder’, the orchestral setting of a poem by Friedrich Rückert (also set earlier by Clara Schumann), the beloved advising her admirer to love her not for impermanent beauty, youth or riches, but for love itself, as her love is eternal. It was truly exquisite and left me wistfully thinking: “Oh, but if only …?”