Germany has many orchestras, just as it should, given the history of music. The No. 1 orchestra in Germany, undoubtedly, is the Berlin Philharmonic. What is No. 2? I will not hazard to rank (beyond the first position). But the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is a very good orchestra. It is a young one, too, as these things go: founded in 1949. Its conductors have been first-class ones: Eugen Jochum, Rafael Kubelík, Sir Colin Davis, Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons—and now Sir Simon Rattle.
Sir Simon has been the music director of the Berlin Phil., too: from 2002 to 2018. This boy from Liverpool has bestridden Germany.
Last night, he came to Carnegie Hall with the BRSO. The main work on the program was Mahler’s Symphony No. 6—which lasts about an hour and twenty minutes. That is an awkward length. What I mean is, should the Sixth be an entire program? A whole concert? Or should there be a first half?
This matter can go either way. Last night, there was a first half, relatively brief.
Sir Simon and the Bavarians began with a novelty—a brainy novelty—by Paul Hindemith: Ragtime (Well-Tempered). The composer penned this in 1921. It is both brainy and joyous—and the orchestra played it just that way.
Next came a work by Alexander Zemlinsky, Symphonische Gesänge, which appeared in 1929. The work comprises seven songs, which set poems of black-American poets, chiefly Langston Hughes. The songs, the poems, are in German translation.
A quick aside: In late March, Ema Nikolovska, a Canadian mezzo-soprano, sang a program in Weill Recital Hall. That program included a cycle by Margaret Bonds—Songs of the Seasons—setting poems by Hughes. (The composer and the poet were close friends.)
Last night, our soloist was Lester Lynch, an American baritone. His singing was very “human,” I want to say—direct, sincere, no-nonsense. There was a dignity about that singing, too, which served the work well.
About the Mahler Sixth, I had a concern. Sometimes, Maestro Rattle is relaxed to a fault. Too laidback. The music he is conducting could use more intensity, more energy, more spine. More of a pulse. More oomph, more strength.
The maestro allayed my concern in the opening measures. Indeed, he made me feel a bit sheepish about it.
We heard the right jolts. The right bristling. The music was tight, in a good sense. You know how some of these phrases should sound “carved out”—as from rock? They did. Amid the tumult, there was clarity. And dynamics were observed. Louds were loud, softs were soft. The contrasts were right.
This seems too elementary to mention. It is elementary, I grant—but not too elementary to mention. Insufficiency of dynamic variation, or an exaggeration of dynamic variation, can mar a performance.
Sir Simon was on. (He had been on in the Hindemith and the Zemlinsky, too.) At the end of the first movement, a woman in the audience said, “Yes.” “Yes” was right.
And I reflected: Rattle has lived with Mahler for a long, long time. He conducted Mahler very well way back, when he was leading the CBSO, i.e., the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
After the opening movement came the Andante (Andante moderato, to be precise). There is a debate about what should come after the first movement: the Andante or the Scherzo. That debate need not detain us now. The symphony works (and how) either way.
Again, dynamics were observed. So were the contours of this “song.” Principal players sang beautifully, and meaningfully.
And do you want to know something? The principal clarinet of the BRSO is Stefan Schilling. And the principal oboe is Stefan Schilli. I kid you not.
After the Andante, Sir Simon stepped off the podium to drink water from a bottle. The orchestra tuned, or re-tuned.
The Scherzo, ideally, is raucous, impudent, biting, etc. We heard those qualities last night. Also, the Bavarians’ accuracy could be taken for granted, which is a bonus. The Finale is full of distress—but a self-aware distress, if you will. The distress has to be disciplined. It was. The stability of the horn playing—and the brass playing in general—was gratifying. And the hammer blows had their desired effect.
You are familiar with the expression “Timing is everything.” Timing means a lot in the final measures. Sir Simon got it right.
American audiences are notorious for a brief burst of applause—then a bolt to the exits. Last night, the audience applauded as if in Europe: on and on and on.
One critic left quickly, however. He said to me, “He’s a terrible conductor, you know. Terrible.” Oh?
I walked down Memory Lane. In the late 1970s, the Bavarian orchestra came to my hometown, Ann Arbor, Michigan, under Kubelík. They played Mahler 9. That was maybe the first great Mahler experience of my life. (I was about fourteen.) Last night was another one.