Mu sic
Tingling pulses
Robin Holloway
Malheur' was Stravinslcy's private nickname for Mahler, though he took care in his published Conversations to adopt an emergently-correct appreciation of the then Zeitgeist (c. 1960). The Conversations also contain his contemptuous dismissal of Mahler's most conspicuous contemporary, Richard Strauss; during his glorious ascen- dance Mahler could only say 'my time will come'. Since the first stirrings of revival or discovery 40-odd years ago this prophecy has been fulfilled with a vengeance. In Hol- land, where he never needed revival, his music now fills halls and air-waves around the calendar — wall-to-wall, like muzac or Vivaldi or 'a better kind of Tchaikovsky'. This awful fate was not foreseen in his proud words. Nor has he exactly passed unheard in London of late, and the current season of Proms contains his almost com- plete larger ceuvre — ten symphonies, orchestral songs and cycles (oddly omitting the Kindertotenlieder, one of his most per- fect and affecting works), his fairy-tale can- tata, and a couple of rarities.
Can he take the exposure? This music is so personal and extreme. It would seem a clear case for the infrequent, special occa- sion. Hearing such extraordinary pieces as the 6th or 9th symphonies should be unusual — only once in a season, a year, a decade. Such hypertension is emphatically not for every day. Which is no reflection on its calibre — he is very uneven but the greatest in him is clearly up there in the heights; simply a tribute to its character.
Ironically (Mahler would have wryly smiled) it is in public-address affirmation that he shows to least advantage. The Res- urrection and the Holy Ghost are really not
his line. The latter is invoked with a metaphorical thousand performers in the half-hour first movement of the Eighth, which opened the Proms with a mighty splurge; but the wings of inspiration fail to flap. Stravinsky's view of the piece is caught in an early letter: 'all this, you understand [he's described the colossal apparatus] to demonstrate that 2 + 2 = 4.'
Actually Strauss and Mahler have plenty in common apart from an equivalent place in the same musical culture — for example total command of enormous orchestras and extended lengths which can sometimes fail to encompass exalted ambitions. They both bare their linen in their music — battles, ideals, passions, despairs, renunciations — be it Strauss's extraversion, Heldenleben and Domestica, Loving Partner and Baby in the Bathwater, or the introverted saga of self-exposure in the Mahler symphonies, every one drawn from his inner life though only the sixth has explicit labels. Mahler is the deeper artist (also the more suited to times of angst and alienation): there is a tensile strength and essentiality not often found in the well-covered, sometimes beery Strauss. But at bottom they give satisfaction in the same way, guaranteeing a marvellous ride, fraught with thrills and spills. They show the vast orchestra at its peak. So long as audiences can, unlike Stravinsky, relish both composers, the mammoth will survive.
Where new work is concerned, the vaunted far-reachingness of this centennial season looks on paper, and has up to now turned out in fact, to be somewhat under- done. Much is rechauffe — newish works by, inter alios, Ades, Anderson, P.M. Davies, Henze, already aired elsewhere. No complaint — good music needs a second, and a twentieth hearing. But it has taken the edge from actual 'world premieres'. They have on the whole been entrusted to the B or C team — specifically a duff choral piece by Judith Bingham, and duff concertos, for violin by John Casken, for viola by Sally Beamish. Heard once, leaving not a wrack behind.
Expectation ran high over Oliver ICnussen's Chiara for women's voices and orchestra — that it would not be finished in time! Sure enough, though the vocal portion had already been sung at a prom years ago, it wasn't: instead we were offered a completed torso from his more fecund youth, the impressively dark Corale for winds and percussion. Why does the simple penny not drop? Disappointment and frustration for planners, players, pub- lishers and public — let alone internal havoc for the composer — could be avoid- ed by letting this musician complete his pieces to his own time-scale and ensuring a complete premiere with no tears. Work so widely recognised will certainly not lack chances for prestigious placing.
The other new piece for which the pulses tingled in these first weeks was the new Judith Weir. Moon and Star, like Chiara, is concerned with light, radiance, gentleness. Also, coincidently, it includes wordless women's voices amidst the instrumental texture. Many hopes were fixed upon this night sky: the recent small-scale work of this enchanting composer has been lacklustre; nor, except in the opera-house, has the full orchestra yet been her forte. Gladly I report that Moon and Star is a ravisher. The language is Messiaen, the syntax, and the poetic aura, Weir's own entirely. It shines, twinkles and glows with a lovely light.
Most memorable of all — caught on steam radio in remote countryside — Bruckner's Ninth by (piquantly) the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under its inspir- ing founder Claudio Abbado. This is a dan- ger-area for your reviewer — my favourite work by my favourite composer, no less. I have never yet heard a performance which realises everything in it. Here, in spite of a few petty cavils, the eloquence, unstinting- ness and sonorous beauty swept me away in my rural fastness as it clearly did the audi- ence in the Big Top itself.
There is still nearly a month to run, and it includes actual, literal first-auditions by three of the International Greats — Elliott Carter, Luciano Berio and — greatly dar- ing — Harrison Birtwistle for the Last Night. More Bs and Cs. All As.
Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore: box office 0171 589 8212.
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