MADRID / Imponente ‘Séptima’ de Mahler por Järvi y la Tonhalle
Scherzo
01/11/2024 /
Rafael Ortega Basagoiti
MADRID / Imposing Mahler ‘Seventh’ by Järvi and the Tonhalle
Madrid. Auditorio Nacional. 30-X-2024. Ibermúsica 24-25. Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. Conductor: Paavo Järvi. Mahler: Symphony No. 7.
The second concert of the Tonhalle -Orchester Zurich's visit to Madrid coincided with the day when Spain was overwhelmed by the tragedy that occurred as a consequence of Tuesday's floods. The Swiss ensemble had the kind gesture of dedicating the concert to the memory of the victims and opening it with a minute's silence in their memory.
On the music stands was a work quite different from anything heard yesterday, Mahler's Seventh Symphony. Arturo Reverter is, I think, quite right in his excellent notes, and I fully agree with him, when he points to it as ‘a composition so difficult, so intricate, so original, so experimental, perhaps Mahler's most radical from a structural, architectural, instrumental and harmonic point of view’. I agree with him when he points out that its five movements ‘reveal to us the wealth of material that the composer handles, from the most diverse origins: poetic, autobiographical elements - as always in him - ironic, sarcastic, tragic... A mixture that contributes to forge a singular form and to provide questions of the most diverse sign’.
As so often, or perhaps more than most, Mahler is here particularly kaleidoscopic, elusive in expressing his ultimate message with clarity, something that is furthermore especially confirmed by a final movement that seems the culmination of a relative (intended? one would say surely) bewilderment. In plainer language, I expressed it at the time as the sensation of being faced with a continuous back-and-forth, a symphony that plays on the fudge, the ‘it seems I'm going in this direction, but in the end I'm going in that one’. The Bohemian threatens with a dark beginning by the B flat horn (the so-called ‘tenorhorn’), and at that moment, as in many of the following ones, there is little foreshadowing that the dramatic darkness of that beginning is going to end in a festive finale (and in many moments with open and no doubt intentionally vulgar overtones), nor the scherzo, aptly described in his day by the late José Luis Pérez de Arteaga as a particularly sarcastic parody of the Viennese waltz.
The march rhythm is fateful in the first half, and serene, but not without a certain ominous tinge, in the first of the nocturnal music (second movement), but after the Scherzo, well defined by Reverter as phantasmagoric, the poetic, luminous and serene lyricism of the second of the nocturnal music (fourth movement) is unexpectedly surprising, luminous and serene lyricism of the second of the nocturnal musics (fourth movement), whose tenderness is well adorned by the (rare in the symphonic world, not to say openly unusual) presence of guitar and mandolin among the instrumental panoply.
And yet none of it prepares us for that unexpected rondo in the fifth movement. Decidedly jubilant, but at the same time it is also a great sarcasm, with its nods to Wagner (the most obvious of all, specifically to the Master Singers). Jubilant and festive sarcasm that is the culmination of the recital of feints with a new dribble that is clearly not expected. Unexpected, and therefore disconcerting, but at the same time, endowed with unquestionable fascination. One must once again recall Bernstein: ‘Mahler was split down the middle, with the curious result that any perceptible and definable quality in his music also finds in it the diametrically opposite quality’.
A work, like all those of its composer, of fearsome difficulty for the orchestra and the conductor, because in addition to the technical pitfalls, the compromised expositions of many soloists and the intricate texture, there is a conceptual thread that is not easy to explain. What Mahler wanted to portray in his particular and always kaleidoscopic descriptive capacity is, in the absence of more concrete clues from the composer himself, open to multiple interpretations... and it has had them. Reverter quotes Chamouard, for whom the work, like Couperin's Lessons in Darkness ‘evokes the pathos of mortal man on earth with his doubts and questions, in the first instance, to proclaim, in the second, hope and confidence in a better life’. Substitute the pathos of mortal man for the decadence of fin-de-siècle Vienna or the approaching European debacle (the play predates the First World War by a mere 13 years), and you have an equally plausible hypothesis... even if the latter tense remains (intentionally?) puzzling.
In such complex waters, Paavo Järvi once again demonstrated his enormous class and his clear-headed intelligence. He constructed a solid, fluid, logical, well-ordered discourse to coherently draw that conceptual thread in which, without defining a specific subject for what is portrayed, it comes across clearly that the matter, in any case, is about an unfortunate and pathetic decadence, its ups and downs and its hope, perhaps utopian or not, in a better future. Or perhaps, a wink of bitterly sarcastic resignation that leans towards a jubilation in which one does not quite believe, and which is therefore often drawn in a vulgar manner.
With the invaluable help of an orchestra that once again demonstrated its formidable class (it is, I have no doubt, one of the best that has passed through this cycle, and that puts it among the best in Europe, with all that that means), the Estonian maestro laid the foundations from that initial call of the aforementioned horn in B flat. He always drew accents, nuances and inflections, so abundant in Mahler (who was full of indications in this respect), with fine and well used rubato, and always excellent handling of the transitions, so important in generating the right tension, such as the one observed just before the subito allegro I in the first movement, or the one (with the help of exceptional double basses and trombone) in the return of the opening Langsam. The dramatic charge of this movement was emphatically affirmed in the resolute finale.
In a performance that I cannot resist describing as exceptional, it was perhaps the second movement, the first of the two Musiques nocturnes, which offered some of the most beautiful moments of the concert. The two horn soloists were superb at the beginning, as were the clarinets and the English horn, or the magnificent trio of bassoons and contrabassoons (all of them with honours). But you have to know how to handle these extraordinary instruments. Järvi did so with truly formidable phrasing and rhythm. The beautiful singing of the cellos also shone (the two soloists in this section, also superb), in a reading of exceptional clarity of textures (another merit of the Estonian's ever-facilitating and crisp baton), but always endowed with a wealth of contrasts and that contrasting flavour (what wonderful sf and subito piano) which paints a smile that in reality ends, as did the movement, evaporating into an evanescent unknown.
The Scherzo seemed light enough, with the tempo brought down to one, good dance rhythm, lovely string playing (the concertmaster, Julia Becker, was superb). It could have acquired a little more grotesque character with more accentuated rubato, but instead we had sarcasm to spare in the incisive, well-highlighted accents of the bassoons. Järvi's kaleidoscope showed yet another facet in a second Nachtmusik of tenderness as patent and well-sung as it was apparently unexpected. Once again, Järvi's superb handling of rubato stood out, and once again the two cello soloists, as well as the mandolin and guitar soloists, shone. The Tonhalle's conductor once again showed his fine handling of tempo inflections, and his maximum use of the exceptional century he had at his command. The evanescent finale of this tempo, with a long trill in pp from the clarinets, of implausible lightness, speaks for itself.
The aforementioned virtues of inflection, rubato, accents and contrasts shone through in a final tempo in which Järvi spared no expense in his translation of that festive, jubilant and, let's face it, even vulgar atmosphere at more than one point. Even in a finale of effective, but also gimmicky, forcefulness, which only deepens a bewilderment that, in the end, seems to be intended.
The summary couldn't be simpler: a superbly conceived and best-judged performance from a truly exceptional orchestra with a conductor who deserves the same accolade. Imposing Mahler in a marvellous concert. There was no encore. It was simply not appropriate. It was to savour the exquisite delicacy we had just enjoyed.
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