Jaime conducts Mahler 3

CONCERT PROGRAM

JAIME CONDUCTS MAHLER 3

14 & 16 MARCH

Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

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ARTISTS

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Jaime Martín conductor

Raehann Bryce-Davis mezzo-soprano

Upper voices of the MSO Chorus

Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus director

Young Voices of Melbourne

Young Voices of Melbourne is joined by singers from St Catherine’s School, prepared by Juliana Kay.

PROGRAM

MAHLER Symphony No.3

Our musical Acknowledgment of Country, Long Time Living Here by Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO, will be performed at these concerts.

CONCERT EVENTS

14 & 16 March at 6.45pm in the Stalls Foyer on Level 2 at Hamer Hall.

Want to learn more about the music being performed? Arrive early for an informative and entertaining pre-concert talk by composer and multidisciplinary artist Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe.

These concerts may be recorded for future broadcast on MSO.LIVE

Duration

100 minutes, no interval

In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone.

ACKNOWLEDGING COUNTRY

In the first project of its kind in Australia, the MSO has developed a musical Acknowledgment of Country with music composed by Yorta Yorta composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO, featuring Indigenous languages from across Victoria. Generously supported by Helen Macpherson Smith Trust and the Commonwealth Government through the Australian National Commission for UNESCO, the MSO is working in partnership with Short Black Opera and Indigenous language custodians who are generously sharing their cultural knowledge.

The Acknowledgement of Country allows us to pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land on which we perform in the language of that country and in the orchestral language of

About Long Time Living Here

In all the world, only Australia can lay claim to the longest continuing cultures and we celebrate this more today than in any other time since our shared history began. We live each day drawing energy from a land which has been nurtured by the traditional owners for more than 2000 generations. When we acknowledge country we pay respect to the land and to the people in equal measure. As a composer I have specialised in coupling the beauty and diversity of our Indigenous languages with the power and intensity of classical music. In order to compose the music for this Acknowledgement of Country Project I have had the great privilege of working with no fewer than eleven ancient languages from the state of Victoria, including the language of my late Grandmother, Yorta Yorta woman Frances McGee. I pay my deepest respects to the elders and ancestors who are represented in these songs of acknowledgement and to the language custodians who have shared their knowledge and expertise in providing each text.

I am so proud of the MSO for initiating this landmark project and grateful that they afforded me the opportunity to make this contribution to the ongoing quest of understanding our belonging in this land.

— Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO

MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Committed to shaping and serving the state it inhabits, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is Australia’s preeminent orchestra and a cornerstone of Victoria’s rich, cultural heritage.

Each year, the MSO and MSO Chorus present more than 180 public events across live performances, TV, radio and online broadcasts, and via its online concert hall, MSO.LIVE, engaging an audience of more than five million people in 56 countries. In 2024 the organisation will release its first two albums on the newly established MSO recording label.

With an international reputation for excellence, versatility and innovation, the MSO works with culturally diverse and First Nations artists to build community and deliver music to people across Melbourne, the state of Victoria and around the world.

In 2024, Jaime Martín leads the Orchestra for his third year as MSO Chief Conductor. Maestro Martín leads an Artistic Family that includes Principal Conductor in Residence Benjamin Northey, Cybec Assistant Conductor Leonard Weiss, MSO Chorus Director Warren Trevelyan-Jones, Composer in Residence Katy Abbott, Artist in Residence

Erin Helyard, MSO First Nations Creative Chair Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO, Young Cybec Young Composer in Residence Naomi Dodd, and Artist in Association Christian Li.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra respectfully acknowledges the people of the Eastern Kulin Nations, on whose un‑ceded lands we honour the continuation of the oldest music practice in the world.

MUSICIANS PERFORMING IN THIS CONCERT

FIRST VIOLINS

Dale Barltrop*

Guest Concertmaster

Tair Khisambeev

Acting Associate Concertmaster

Di Jameson and Frank Mercurio#

Anne-Marie Johnson

Acting Assistant Concertmaster

David Horowicz#

Peter Edwards

Assistant Principal

Margaret Billson and the late Ted Billson#

Kirsty Bremner

Sarah Curro

Dr Harry Imber#

Peter Fellin

Deborah Goodall

Karla Hanna

Lorraine Hook

Kirstin Kenny

Mark Mogilevski

Kathryn Taylor

Michael Loftus-Hills*

Oksana Thompson*

SECOND VIOLINS

Matthew Tomkins

Principal

The Gross Foundation#

Robert Macindoe

Associate Principal

Monica Curro

Assistant Principal

Dr Mary Jane Gething AO#

Mary Allison

Isin Cakmakçioglu

Freya Franzen

Cong Gu

Newton Family in memory of Rae Rothfield#

Andrew Hall

Isy Wasserman

Philippa West

Andrew Dudgeon AM#

Patrick Wong

Roger Young

Shane Buggle and Rosie Callanan#

Clare Carrick*

VIOLAS

Christopher Moore

Principal

Di Jameson and Frank Mercurio#

Lauren Brigden

Katharine Brockman

Anthony Chataway

The late Dr Elizabeth E Lewis AM#

William Clark

Gabrielle Halloran

Jenny Khafagi

Fiona Sargeant

Karen Columbine*

Ceridwen Davies*

Isabel Morse*

CELLOS

David Berlin

Principal

Rachael Tobin

Associate Principal

Anonymous#

Rohan de Korte

Andrew Dudgeon AM#

Angela Sargeant

Caleb Wong

Michelle Wood

Andrew and Judy Rogers#

Jonathan Chim*

Alexandra Partridge*

Anna Pokorny*

DOUBLE BASSES

Jonathan Coco

Principal

Stephen Newton

Acting Associate Principal

Sophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser#

Rohan Dasika

Acting Assistant Principal

Suzanne Lee

Caitlin Bass*

Siyuan Vivian Qu*

Emma Sullivan*

FLUTES

Prudence Davis Principal Anonymous#

Wendy Clarke

Associate Principal

Sarah Beggs

PICCOLO

Andrew Macleod Principal

OBOES

Michael Pisani

Acting Associate Principal

Ann Blackburn

The Rosemary Norman Foundation#

Emmanuel Cassimatis*

COR ANGLAIS

Rachel Curkpatrick* Acting Principal

CLARINETS

David Thomas Principal

Philip Arkinstall Associate Principal

Craig Hill

Rosemary and the late Douglas Meagher#

Oliver Crofts*

BASS CLARINET

Mitchell Berick* Guest Principal

BASSOONS

Jack Schiller

Principal Dr Harry Imber#

Elise Millman

Associate Principal

Tasman Compton^

CONTRABASSOON

Brock Imison

Principal

HORNS

Nicolas Fleury

Principal

Margaret Jackson AC#

Andrew Young

Associate Principal

Saul Lewis

Principal Third

The late Hon Michael Watt KC and Cecilie Hall#

Abbey Edlin

Nereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AM#

Josiah Kop

Rachel Shaw

Gary McPherson#

Aidan Gabriels*

Rebecca Luton*

Ian Wildsmith*

TRUMPETS

Owen Morris

Principal

Shane Hooton

Associate Principal

Glenn Sedgwick and Dr Anita Willaton#

Rosie Turner

John and Diana Frew#

Callum G’Froerer*

Tim Keenihan*

TROMBONES

Mark Davidson

Principal

Richard Shirley

Mike Szabo

Principal Bass Trombone

TUBA

Timothy Buzbee Principal

TENOR TUBA

Brett Page*

Guest Principal

TIMPANI

Matthew Thomas

Principal

John Arcaro

Tim and Lyn Edward#

PERCUSSION

Shaun Trubiano Principal

Robert Cossom

Drs Rhyl Wade and Clem Gruen#

Kevin Man*

Peter Neville*

Greg Sully*

Hugh Tidy*

HARP

Yinuo Mu

Principal

Delyth Stafford*

* Denotes Guest Musician

^ Denotes MSO Academy

# Position supported by

JAIME MARTÍN CONDUCTOR

Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra since 2022, Jaime Martín is also Chief Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland) and Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (Spanish National Orchestra) for the 22/23 season and was Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Gävle Symphony Orchestra from 2013 to 2022.

Having spent many years as a highly regarded flautist, Jaime turned to conducting full-time in 2013, and has become very quickly sought after at the highest level. Recent and future engagements include appearances with the London Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Colorado Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Antwerp Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica y Coro de RTVE (ORTVE) and Galicia Symphony orchestras, as well as a nine-city European tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Martín is the Artistic Advisor and previous Artistic Director of the Santander Festival. He was also a founding member of the Orquestra de Cadaqués, where he was Chief Conductor from 2012 to 2019.

JAIME

RAEHANN BRYCE-DAVIS MEZZO-SOPRANO

Raehann Bryce-Davis is hailed by The New York Times as a “striking mezzo soprano” and by the San Francisco Chronicle for her “electrifying sense of fearlessness.”

In the 2023–2024 season, she debuts at Santa Fe Opera as Ježibaba in Rusalka in a new production directed by Sir David Pountney and conducted by Lidiya Yankovskaya, and at Opera Philadelphia as Lizzie in the world premiere of 10 Days in a Madhouse. Raehann returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Ella in X: The Life and Times of Malcom X and Dutch National Opera to sing La Zia Principessa in Il Trittico a new Barrie Kosky production conducted by Lorenzo Viotti.

As a producer/performer, her second digital short, Brown Sounds, was co-produced with Los Angeles Opera and Aural Compass Projects. It won Best Music Video at film festivals including the New York International Film Awards, New York Cinematography Awards, Hollywood Boulevard Film Awards, and the Silk Road Film Awards – Cannes.

Ms. Bryce-Davis is a recipient of the George London; the 1st Place and Audience Prize-winner of the Concorso Lirico Internazionale di Portofino, chaired by Dominique Meyer; winner of the 2016 Richard F. Gold Career Grant at the Merola Opera Program; winner of the 2015 Hilde Zadek Competition at the Musikverein in Vienna; and the 2015 Sedat Gürel – Güzin Gürel International Voice Competition in Istanbul. She holds a Master of Music and Professional Studies certificate from the Manhattan School of Music and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Texas at Arlington.

UPPER VOICES OF THE MSO CHORUS

For more than 50 years the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus has been the unstinting voice of the Orchestra’s choral repertoire. The MSO Chorus sings with the finest conductors including Sir Andrew Davis, Edward Gardner, Mark Wigglesworth, Bernard Labadie, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Manfred Honeck, Xian Zhang and Nodoko Okisawa, and is committed to developing and performing new Australian and international choral repertoire.

Commissions include Brett Dean’s Katz und Spatz, Ross Edwards’ Mountain Chant, and Paul Stanhope’s Exile Lamentations. Recordings by the MSO Chorus have received critical acclaim. It has performed across Brazil and at the Cultura Inglese Festival in Sao Paolo, with The Australian Ballet, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, at the AFL Grand Final and at the Anzac Day commemorative ceremonies.

The MSO Chorus is always welcoming new members. If you would like to audition, please visit mso.com.au/chorus for more information.

WARREN TREVELYAN-JONES CHORUS DIRECTOR

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus Director Warren Trevelyan-Jones is the Head of Music at St James’, King Street in Sydney and is regarded as one of the leading choral conductors and choir trainers in Australia. Warren has had an extensive singing career as a soloist and ensemble singer in Europe, including nine years in the Choir of Westminster Abbey, and regular work with the Gabrieli Consort, Collegium Vocale (Ghent), the Taverner Consort, The Kings Consort, Dunedin Consort, The Sixteen and the Tallis Scholars. Warren is also Director of the Parsons Affayre, Founder and Co-Director of The Consort of Melbourne and, in 2001 with Dr Michael Noone, founded the Gramophone award-winning group Ensemble Plus Ultra. Warren is also a qualified music therapist.

MSO CHORUS PERFORMING IN THIS CONCERT

SOPRANO

Shirin Albert

Philippa Allen

Sheila Baker

Anne-Marie Brownhill

Aliz Cole

Laura Fahey

Rita Fitzgerald

Catherine Folley

Susan Fone

Penny Huggett

Gwen Kennelly

Amanda Powell

Tanja Redl

Danielle Rosenfeld-Lovell

Jodi Samartgis

Jemima Sim

Chiara Stebbing

Rachel Sztanski

Tara Zamin

ALTO

Judy Anderson

Cecilia Björkegren

Kate Bramley

Mari Eleanor-Rapp

Nicola Eveleigh

Debbie Griffiths

Ros Harbison

Helen Hill

Helen MacLean

Charlotte Midson

Alison Ralph

Helen Rommelaar

Melvin Tan

Libby Timcke

Natasha Pracejus

Yvonne Ho

Juliarna Clark

YOUNG VOICES OF MELBOURNE

Young Voices of Melbourne was founded by Mark O’Leary OAM in 1990, and is now regarded as one of Australia’s finest choral programs for young singers. Its choirs are admired for their passionate performances, engaging repertoire and outstanding Kodály based music education program (Sight Singing School) which is now used in over 50 countries.

Young Voices of Melbourne performs regularly in and around Melbourne, and has released 13 recordings. The choir has performed for major events such as the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006, as well as at popular events such as the National Folk Festival in Canberra, and Festival of Voices in Hobart.

It regularly hosts visiting choirs from overseas and interstate, and its voice was widely heard singing the theme song of Chris Lilley’s popular television shows We Can be Heroes, and Summer Heights High.

The choir has a proud history of touring, having undertaken 40 tours to all states and territories of Australia as well as to Europe, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, the USA, Ireland, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Samoa, New Zealand and Japan.

JAIME CONDUCTS MAHLER

YOUNG VOICES OF MELBOURNE PERFORMING IN THIS CONCERT

Adele Finn

Alex Brown

Arielle Dekterev

Ava Loke

Beatrice Langley

Bella Xie

Benjamin Fullarton

Carson Mott

Celia Langley

Chloe Close

Claire Leibel

Dorothea Moore

Gabrielle Scully

Hailey Wu

Hilary Dennis

Isabella Moore

Kian Carter-Fourcroy

Leo McKaskill

Lila Chatfield

Lulu Chiappi

Madeleine Caruso

Marcus Harders

Marianne Panas

Nyah Trewin

Oliver Yeo

Pascal Franco Sageman

Pearl Lee

Qian-Yi Dawson

Ryan Carter-Fourcroy

Sabrina Mott

Sophie Mallet

Teresa Anthony

Xanthe Bowden

Zoe Kalanis

ST CATHERINE’S SCHOOL SINGERS PERFORMING IN THIS CONCERT

Kathrina Ang

Phoebe Butterfield

Alexis Chew

Pernilla Coleman

Asha d’Souza

Millie Esposito

Jennifer Gao

Olivia Grasso

Annabelle Hou

Gladys Lam

Isabel Lu

Sahara Pender

Alison Prendergast

Adele Wu

Helen Yu

Elsa Zhou

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PROGRAM NOTES

GUSTAV MAHLER (1860–1911)

Symphony No.3 in D minor

I. Kräftig. Entschieden [Vigorous, decisive]

II. Tempo di menuetto. Sehr mässig [Very moderately]

III. Comodo. Scherzando. Ohne Hast [Without haste]

IV. Sehr langsam. Misterioso [Very slowly, mysteriously] –

V. Lustig im tempo und keck im Ausdruck [Lively in tempo and jaunty in expression] –

VI. Langsam. Ruhevoll. Empfunden [Slowly, with serenity, expressively]

Raehann Bryce-Davis mezzo-soprano

Upper voices of the MSO Chorus

Young Voices of Melbourne

Mahler’s Second, Third and Fourth Symphonies form a trilogy depicting the composer’s search for spiritual meaning in a tragi-comic universe. Each of them employs vocal texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn) and lunges back and forth between the most profound philosophical insights and absurd banality, as they attempt to achieve Mahler’s stated symphonic ambition of ‘embracing the world’.

Dating from the 1890s, they were all composed at a time of great spiritual uncertainty, both for Mahler himself and for European society in general. Reflecting the broader cultural trends, that final decade of the 19 th century was a time of innovation and anxiety in the arts. The Expressionist movement in the visual arts (characterised by Edvard Munch’s lithograph The Scream which was directly contemporary with

Mahler’s Third Symphony) and in drama (Wedekind’s Lulu plays and Strindberg’s most extreme symbolist works date from around this time) was at its height, and in the heady post-Romantic musical era the young Arnold Schoenberg was just beginning to push the boundaries of tonal harmony.

All this was in response to a world in which increasing mechanisation was seen as dehumanising – the whited-out faces in the visual arts and the theatre sought to dramatise this condition – and where the increasing decay of corrupt 19 th century political institutions was to result in the first Russian Revolution of 1905.

Dreams and the role of the unconscious became means of establishing a higher truth within the arts. And as reality and the world of illusion collided (never more dramatically than in Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening where a character appears carrying his head under his arm), nightmare visions became mixedup with nostalgic reminiscences of innocence. Death became the only philosophical certainty.

Owing to his personal circumstances, Mahler felt particularly keenly these psychological and spiritual crises of alienation and anxiety deriving from the prevailing Zeitgeist. The second of 12 children, as a child he witnessed the death in infancy of five of his brothers and sisters. He grew up treating every moment as if it were his last, terrorised those who wasted his time, and was relentless in his quest to discover a greater order within the universe.

Although he was born and raised Jewish, he converted to Catholicism around the time the Third Symphony was completed. While this conversion was ostensibly to secure his conducting post at the Vienna State Opera, there is no doubt that in his later years Mahler became genuinely attracted to the fundamental principles of Christian

mysticism. Throughout his life he had been plagued by spiritual doubt and a fear of death – a fear that was amply justified by his declining health during his forties and eventually his premature death at the age of 50.

Like so many of his scores, Mahler’s Second, Third and Fourth Symphonies contain all the symptoms of his anxieties – the death-obsession and the paradoxical but understandable celebrations of life and the innocence of childhood, the virtual worship of nature, and the desire to depict all human experience within the confines of the symphonic form. Within the Third Symphony, these ambitions are encapsulated in a massive journey which effectively retraces human spiritual evolution, beginning deep in the primeval dust, working its way up through vegetation and the animal world, on to humanity and then finally up to the angels and heaven, existing within the broader category of absolute love.

It’s no small ambition, which is why the Third Symphony takes more than an hour and a half to perform. (It has its own entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest regularly-programmed symphony ever composed.) Indeed just the first of its six movements by itself is longer than most ‘normal’ symphonies by composers of the Classical era. In fact the symphony was going to be even longer, but Mahler removed the seventh and final movement, saving it for the finale of his Fourth Symphony instead.

Writing the symphony

Mahler never felt comfortable with ‘programs’ being attributed to his nine symphonies, but in many ways he was his own worst enemy in this regard. To maintain intellectual control of the massive architecture of the symphonies, he himself often created ‘programs’ which he described in detail to friends. Then, when the works came to be

published, he removed the programs altogether and denied that they had any role to play in audiences’ appreciation of the music.

Perhaps because of the size of the Third Symphony, it received more in-depth programmatic analysis by Mahler than any of his other works. It went through countless changes of title and subtitle: at various times he referred to it as Pan, The Happy Life, The Happy Science, My Happy Science, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Midsummer Noonday’s Dream, A Summer Morning Dream, and further variations on these themes. In the end, he chose to call it Symphony No.3 in D minor. But even that uncomplicated title failed to satisfy him completely. He wrote to Natalie Bauer-Lechner, ‘Calling it a symphony is actually incorrect because in no way does it adhere to the usual form. But, in my opinion, creating a symphony means to construct a world with all manner of techniques available. The constantly new and changing content determines its own form.’

So perhaps the modern shorthand of ‘Mahler 3’ is the best solution of all.

Aside from the overall title, each of the movements also went through a variety of name and program changes, with Mahler eventually settling on a structure which addressed the awakening of Pan, the flowers, the animals, mankind, the angels and love – in that order. Mahler wrote to Friedrich Löhr at the end of August 1895 telling him: ‘My new symphony…is all in large symphonic form. The emphasis on my personal emotional life (in the form of “what things tell me”) is appropriate to the work’s singular intellectual content.’ He then went on to characterise the movements:

1. Pan awakes – Summer marches in

2. What the flowers in the meadow tell me

3. What the beasts in the wood tell me

JAIME CONDUCTS MAHLER

4. What Man tells me

5. What the angels tell me

6. What love tells me

None of these descriptive titles would end up in the published score. Evidently, Mahler needed them intellectually as he structured the magnificent edifice of the symphony, but they are unnecessary for an audience for whom the entire sound world of the symphony is narrative enough. As Mahler himself said, ‘Just as it seems trivial to me to invent music to a preconceived program, I find it unsatisfactory and sterile to add one to an existing musical composition; notwithstanding the fact that the creative urge for a musical organism certainly springs from an experience of its author.’

In other words, he wasn’t Richard Strauss. Mahler knew that whatever its origins in personal experience, and whatever its ability to create spiritual exaltation, music ultimately remained an abstract construct.

Mahler may have begun working on the Third Symphony as early as 1892. In typical fashion he worked backwards on it, completing the first movement last (he did the same with his Fourth Symphony). The bulk of the final five movements, together with some sketches for the first, were written during the summer of 1895 in Steinbach – his Alpine summer retreat near Salzburg, where he found peace after his gruelling winter seasons as musical director of the Hamburg Opera.

Those same opera commitments in Hamburg kept him from completing the first movement until the following summer of 1896, when once more he returned to Steinbach. But unfortunately he’d left the sketches for the first movement behind. So he sent an urgent letter to a friend to break into his Hamburg apartment and retrieve the sketches, which were duly delivered to him. ‘To you those few sheets of music

must have seemed quite unimportant,’ he wrote back to his friend in gratitude, ‘but in fact they contained (according to my way of sketching) all the seeds for the now fully grown tree.’ Once in possession of those few pages of sketches, Mahler completed the massive 40-minute first movement in just a few weeks.

The symphony’s final structure is bizarre. It is effectively divided into two parts. The gargantuan first movement alone forms the first part and the final five movements the second. That first movement itself, however, is a combination of two individual movements (the difference in tone is still evident), while the final three movements run on without a break, before ending, unusually, with a slow movement. There had been precedents of course – Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony also ends with a slow movement, and many previous symphonies had run their movements into each other. But no one had ever previously conceived a symphony on such a grand scale and with such an apparent disregard for traditional symphonic form.

Not only the form, but the orchestra too was inflated. The score calls for four flutes, four oboes (plus cor anglais), five clarinets with bass clarinet, four bassoons (plus contrabassoon), eight horns, four trumpets, four trombones with tuba, two harps, a myriad of percussion, large forces of strings to balance them all, not to mention a solo contralto, choirs of women and boys – and a conductor. Small wonder then that it took some years before the work was first performed in its entirety. While Mahler’s conducting mentor Artur Nikisch and also Felix Weingartner conducted individual movements of the work soon after its completion (the audience was bewildered and unappreciative), the work was first performed in its entirety at a music

festival in Crefeld only in 1902, with Mahler himself conducting. And it took much longer than that for it to reach the ‘outside’ world. It was only premiered in England in 1961 and in Australia in 1967 –a phenomenal demonstration of neglect, particularly given that more than 30 commercial recordings of it are now available. But then Mahler always did say that it would be some time before his music was understood.

The Symphony – musical analysis

The Third is a ‘nature’ symphony. Shortly after its completion, Mahler’s student and great champion Bruno Walter visited him at Steinbach. As Walter gazed at the magnificent Alpine scenery Mahler told him, ‘No need to look. I have composed all this already.’

The opening movement is Mahler’s own ‘rite of spring’, composed nearly two decades before Stravinsky’s masterpiece. As he was composing it, Mahler wrote to Natalie Bauer-Lechner: ‘This almost ceases to be music, containing mostly sounds from nature. And it is eerie how from lifeless matter… life gradually breaks forth, developing step by step into ever-higher forms of life.’ In another context he wrote, ‘Here it is the world, nature as a whole, that is awakened out of unfathomable silence and sings and rings.’

Nature’s singing and ringing begins with a call to attention by the eight horns, and indeed the opening minutes of the symphony as a whole are decidedly ‘brass-heavy’, with trombones and tuba depicting the darkness before the arrival of life on earth. Of course no matter how primeval the subject matter, it wouldn’t be a large-scale Mahler movement if it didn’t have a marching band thrown in – and here one duly appears, as if emerging unconcerned from the prehistoric swamp.

This is summer coming in, and its arrival corresponds with what would

be regarded as ‘the opening Allegro proper’ in a traditional symphony. Richard Strauss was unkind enough to suggest that the marching band, which he found ‘tasteless’, reminded him of the procession of socialist workers through Vienna on May Day. In any case, the ‘rite of spring’ primitive quality never leaves the movement entirely and the marching band is soon swallowed up once more by the primordial swamp, as Mahler’s evolving world continues its process of creation and decay.

It’s such a massive movement, both in size and spiritual concerns, that even Mahler himself was frightened by it. He said that he was grateful he composed it last, because if he hadn’t, he would never have dared to finish the symphony as a whole! In the score, he directed that there should be a long pause following its conclusion, clearly delineating the end of the first part of the symphony.

The second part of the symphony begins a world away from the first –purportedly with the flowers in the meadow, but musically very much within the confines of the Viennese salons, not to mention in a similar sound-world to parts of the Fourth Symphony. For the listener, this second movement (which was actually the first part of the symphony which Mahler composed) comes as quite a shock. But that in itself says a lot about the invigorating effect of Mahler’s music, for this otherwise innocuous little minuet remains somehow disturbing and unsettling in the context in which it appears.

Undoubtedly it was inspired in part by the beautiful summer displays of flowers in the meadows outside Mahler’s workroom in Steinbach (to which he referred in correspondence). But Mahler never just saw the beauty of nature divorced from its terror. As he himself wrote: ‘Suddenly a stormy wind blows across the meadow and shakes the leaves and flowers, which whimper

and moan on their stems as if begging for salvation.’ Perhaps this witnessing of beautiful flowers undergoing torture explains not just Mahler’s approach to this second movement of the symphony, but our acute appreciation of his music after the most violent century in history.

The third movement (in the world of animals now, according to Mahler’s correspondence) introduces an instrumental version of Mahler’s setting of ‘Ablösung im Sommer’ (Relief in Summer) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Opening with a jaunty little wind melody over pizzicato accompaniment in the strings, it forms a kind of scherzo and trio. Again, it’s superficially happy and playful – as if the animals are scurrying about in the summer warmth accompanied by chirping birdsong. But the darkness (and the minor tonality) is never far away. The trio section is famous for its beautiful solo for posthorn, an unusual brass instrument which lends its name to Mozart’s Serenade K.320. It appears in the distance and then gradually draws closer, ending with a bright fanfare. The dancing and play resume, but towards its end the movement relapses violently into the eerie, unformed sound-world of the symphony’s opening. Nothing ever remains unchallenged in Mahler’s world.

The final three movements then proceed without a break. The first of these (i.e. the fourth) introduces the human element into the symphony – and the human voice itself. There is a rapt stillness marking the contralto’s entry, as if humanity is rising from the ashes. The text is from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra, and the voice longs for eternity.

O Mensch, gib Acht!

Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht?

Ich schlief! Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht!

Die Welt ist tief!

Und tiefer, als der Tag gedacht!

Tief ist ihr Weh!

Lust tiefer noch als Herzeleid!

Weh spricht: Vergeh!

Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit, Will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit.

O Man, take heed!

What does the deep midnight say?

I slept. From deep dreaming I was wakened!

The world is deep, And deeper than the day imagined!

Deep is its grief!

Longing, deeper still than heartache!

Grief says: Go hence!

But all longing craves eternity, Craves deep, deep eternity.

We know from his correspondence that Mahler had read Nietzsche quite extensively – indeed one of the symphony’s original titles, The Happy Science, derived directly from him. But later in his life Mahler declared himself an opponent of Nietzsche’s godless philosophy. In any case, in this everso-slow slow movement he gives us one of his most sublime creations – a world where time stands still. Given the proximity of their sound worlds, and their mutually deep humanity, one can only wonder if Górecki modelled his own Third Symphony on this movement from Mahler’s Third.

After a return to the deep bass of the opening, the fifth movement then enters with astonishing contrast, marked by the voices of boys, the sound of bells and woodwind, and the setting of another poem from the Wunderhorn collection.

Es sungen drei Engel einen süssen Gesang;

Mit Freuden es selig in dem Himmel klang,

Sie jauchzten fröhlich auch dabei, Dass Petrus sei von Sünden frei, Und als der Herr Jesus zu Tische sass,

Mit seinen zwölf Jüngern das Abendmahl ass:

Da sprech der Herr Jesus: Was stehst du denn hier?

Wenn ich dich anseh’, so weinest du mir!

Und sollt’ ich nicht weinen, du gütiger Gott,

Ich hab’ übertreten die zehn Gebot.

Ich gehe une weine ja bitterlich.

Ach komm und erbarme dich über mich!

Hast du denn übertreten die zehen Gebot,

So fall auf die Knie und bete zu Gott!

Liebe nur Gott in alle Zeit!

So wirst du erlangen die himmlische Freud’.

Die himmlische Freud’ ist eine selige Stadt,

Die himmlische Freud’, die kein Ende mehr hat!

Die himmlische Freude war Petro bereit’t, Durch Jesum und Allen zur Seligkeit.

Three angels were singing a sweet song, With blessing and joy it rang in Heaven, They shouted for joy, too,

That Peter was set free from sin.

And as the Lord Jesus sat at table, With his twelve disciples at the evening meal,

Lord Jesus said: ‘Why stand you here?

When I look at you, you weep before me.’

‘And should I not weep, thou God of goodness,

I have broken the ten commandments.

I go my way and weep bitterly, Ah, come and have mercy on me!’

‘If you have broken the ten commandments

Then fall on your knee and pray to God, Love only God for all time!

So you will attain heavenly joy.’

Heavenly joy is a blessed city,

Heavenly joy, that knows no end!

Heavenly joy was granted to Peter,

Through Jesus, and for the delight of all.

It’s a radiant sound, soon joined by choral and solo women’s voices, harps, horns and trumpets. Those who know the Fourth Symphony will instantly recognise the descending melody from the soprano’s solo at the end of that symphony. This music was how Mahler imagined Heaven.

And then at last, as we head toward the hour-and-a-half mark, the finale emerges, and we are in the world of love. In speaking of his original idea for this movement, Mahler wrote: ‘It is the zenith, the highest level from which the world can be viewed. I could also name the movement something like “What God tells me”, in the sense that God can only be comprehended as “Love”.’

It’s a magnificent slow movement with the strings (whose role in the previous movement had been restricted) carrying the broad, achingly poignant melody, and solo wind instruments later taking it over. He based the movement on the words of Christian reconciliation and forgiveness – ‘Father, look on these my wounds – let not one creature be lost!’

The movement proceeds as a series of variations which occasionally touch on the drama of the symphony’s opening, but which ultimately lead to a climax in which fear is confronted with a steadfast faith. And here at last, at the conclusion of one of the truly monumental works of Western civilisation, that faith triumphs, and an absolute love wins out over all that would dare to destroy it.

Martin Buzacott © 1998

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Demetrio Zema

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