RSNO: Mahler’s Song of the Earth

Usher Hall

This should have been a sure-fire winner of a concert with Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and Mahler's Song of the Earth, two big attractions. Sadly for me it was spoiled by a technical problem which I have commented on before and indeed raised with the Usher Hall, the RSNO and the SCO. This is the issue of understanding of words in music. To truly understand choral music, opera or lieder it's my view and that of most other music critics and indeed composers, that you must understand the words. I took part in research for the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden to consider the issue of surtitles over the opera stage.The traditionalists opposed it saying it would ruin the spectacle, and anyway we all know the stories don't we? However, after running a season which had half the operas with and half without surtitles, they consulted the audience and we voted 80% in favour of surtitles. Now no-one takes exception, and even English National Opera, who sing in English, have surtitles; opera singers’ words can't always be heard!

So when I saw Mahler's Song of the Earth on the programme I thought we would encounter problems but hoped that the organisations had learnt the lessons of the RSNO concert on 17th October 2019 with Karen Cargill singing unusual Berg songs which I reviewed for The Wee Review. In this I pointed out the problems of lighting and lack of surtitles to the chair of the board of the RSNO and the Usher Hall; they reported back that surtitles were too expensive at around £500 per concert.(Maybe one of the RSNO sponsors could helpfully pick up the bill!) However they agreed the lighting could be improved so I was surprised when we were plunged into darkness tonight. Of course I've heard Song of the Earth many times before but I still value reading the libretto when listening to it and for those people with a programme it must have been very frustrating; indeed I met a number of discontented members of the audience at the end of the concert. Moreover only about a quarter of the audience have a programme so there remains a problem for the rest. My co-editor at the Edinburgh Music Review was at the Glasgow concert at the Concert Hall and she reports that the lights were kept on and people were busily reading their programmes. I’m sending this review to the RSNO, the Usher Hall and the SCO and hope that this problem might be at least lessened next time.

So apart from this, how was the concert? Good in parts is the answer. In his programme notes Robert Thicknesse notes that both Strauss and Mahler were writing their works towards the end of the great Austrian Hungarian Empire which broke up in the First World War. Having recently been to Vienna (see Blog in the Edinburgh Music Review), I saw the monuments to this empire, the great art galleries, symphony halls and opera houses. I also have a personal connection to the old Empire as one of my friends and colleagues in the European Parliament was Otto Von Hapsburg the last direct link to the Hapsburg Empire.When I told Otto in 1998 that I had been to the opera in Vienna and had dinner with the opera director in the Emperor’s Dining Room, he asked "How are they looking after it Hugh, I’m not allowed to go to Vienna?” Until just before his death he was banned from Vienna as the last remnant of the old order.

Strauss's music was scored for a really big orchestra so there were getting on for 100 musicians on the Usher Hall stage with 8 double bass, a huge brass section with 2 tubas, and two harps, producing a very big sound particularly from the brass section. The music is based on the ideas behind Nietsche’s philosophical works which explored the idea of the superman replacing God. Strauss said "I did not intend to write philosophical music nor to portray in music Nietzsche's great work, I meant to convey by means of music an idea of the development of the human race from its origin through the various phases of its development, religious and scientific, up to Nietzsche's idea of the Superman" Did he succeed? Well it certainly was monumental particularly the opening passage made famous by the film 2001, the RSNO under Thomas Sondergard's lively conducting gave a great performance.

Mahler's Song of the Earth after the interval was a different story. First of course the problem with the lighting and the programmes lessened the impact of the music. Second I felt there was an imbalance between the orchestra and the singers, particularly in the opening passages. The tenor was Simon O'Neill who Festival goers will remember for a fine Siegmund in 2017; however I felt his voice was struggling a little tonight, partly because the orchestra was too loud particularly the brass in the opening section. It is a very tough sing, a heroic ‘heldentenor’ voice is required and certainly Simon O'Neill has had that in the past.Tonight it wasn't quite as convincing. Simon has been ill recently and has cancelled concerts. Was he fully recovered tonight or was he just drowned out by the orchestra? He did better in the later quieter sections where the orchestra let us hear him better. Jane Irwin the mezzo soprano came off rather better, partly because her parts were typically quieter and she sang most of the final section, The Farewell, which is the most special music of the work, and her lingering delivery of Ewig Ewig (Forever Forever) hung through the Usher Hall as Thomas Sondergard held the audience silent with his raised hands for at least a minute before their warm response.The audience enjoyed it, but they might have enjoyed it better if they could have understood the anguished poetry of the work!