Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Symphony No 6 (1903-1904)
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Sir Simon Rattle
rec. live, September 2023, The Isarphilharmonie Concert Hall, The Gasteig, Munich, Germany
BR Klassik 900217 [82]
This must have been a memorable concert. Sir Simon Rattle distilled a lifetime of conducting experience into directing the superb Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s sixth symphony, I believe the greatest of his symphonic works. At the time he wrote it, he had a happy family life and an artistically successful conducting career at the Vienna Court Opera, never mind antisemitic naysayers. He was also being recognised as a composer of considerable gifts.
Perhaps, though, he let his inner worries, maybe even foreboding of the familial and professional upheavals, figure in the Sixth. A year later, his daughter died of scarlet fever, his wife was to begin an extra-marital affair, and he was to be diagnosed with heart disease. He behaved rather dictatorially in directing the Opera Company, and that made him few friends.
The symphony is a dark work. Even the lyrical slow movement, played second here, cannot really compare with the soothing adagietto of the Fifth, rising as it does to a climax with anguished undertones. The opening movement of marches proceeds with inexorable beats, until it seemingly shatters gradually. Then it fades away into the second subject, in which Alma Mahler said her husband had portrayed her. Not immediately calm, it does gradually become lyrical. The Alma theme retreats, and cowbells can be heard in the distance. But the marching has to return, and does so with increased force. Only at the movement’s end does the Alma theme return, and the first part of this epic work ends in peace.
The astonishingly apocalyptic last movement, its disturbing marches complemented with two thunderous hammer blows, can truly wring the emotions of the listener. Rattle pulls no punches, neither here nor in other parts of the work. It seems to me that he has a vision of the symphony in its completeness. He follows it through with a driving logic, right up to and including the dying moments of the finale. The orchestra play as if possessed, and are accorded a splendidly spacious recording. The audience only disturb things with two coughs.
Mahler’s Sixth Symphony has been recorded many times. I have grown used to Karajan’s 1978 performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, a recording which still sounds magnificent today. This new recording has almost identical timings. By 1978, Karajan had honed the BPO into the magnificent orchestra with which he made numerous recordings, many of them bestsellers. The orchestra was particularly renowned for its strings, and they can be heard in their refulgence in the slow movement of the Sixth. I mention this because, superb though the BRSO are, they do not achieve the same almost miraculous unanimity and weight in the strings. This may be of less consequence to Rattle, who perhaps conceives the work as a ‘classical’ symphony, where clarity of line and transparency of overall orchestral sound are most important. He only became chief conductor in 2023, so has probably not had enough time to forge them to his own vision.
I have been most impressed by this performance. I allowed the music to wash over me, buffet me with its mood swings, its relaxations and surges. It is superbly recorded in a generous yet clear acoustic. That lets every facet of the orchestra shine through, enabling a full enjoyment of Mahler’s extraordinary imagination and orchestration.
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