Animal instincts : Gatti RCOA Mahler 4 Haydn Prom

Daniele Gatti, Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, credit Annedokter

 Danielle Gatti and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam  with Haydn Symphony No. 82 in C major, 'The Bear' and Mahler Symphony no 4 at Prom 66 at the Royal Albert Hall.  A combination which enhanced both parts of the programme.  A lively, agile Haydn bringing out its warm hearted humour.  Two hundred and fifty years ago, people thought bear dancing was entertainment. Wild animals tamed and controlled by man!  Nowadays, we realize that the wild animals were the men and the bears victims of torture.  Since bears can't actually dance, the music they danced to was  bucolic. Hence the Dudelsack (bagpipes) with its earthy drone. A top-flight composer, writing for rich folks, (who probably laughed at the peasants, too)  and now, a top-flight  orchestra playing for the Proms. What irony!  But better that than reality.

And so to Mahler's Symphony no 4, the last true Wunderhorn symphony,  which connects to a world long past, where barbarism against people was normal, even admired. It's often assumed that this symphony is cheerful and sunny, and in some contexts it does work very well that way. But beneath the bucolic charm, there's horror. Elftausend Jungfrauen zu tanzen sich trauen, Sankt Ursula selbst dazu Lacht. But St. Ursula caused the death of 11,000 virgins, who followed her in a Crusade across Europe. Most never got to the Holy Land, and even if they had, for what purpose? More irony - sainthood and delusion, the message still relevant in our supposedly more enlightened times.  But it's OK ! the dead kids are singing in Heaven, and there's lots to eat. The animals, like the children,  are happy to die. Wir führen ein geduldig's, Unschuldig's, geduldig's, Ein liebliches Lämmlein zu Tod.  (Please see my article Why Greedy Kids in Mahler 4) 

Mahler, Mengelberg and Diepenbrook, 1904

The interpretation of the final movement in this symphony has a bearing on performance, though there are many possible ways of doing it. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam have been doing it since 1904, when it was radical New Music. Yet music is endlessly reborn anew in each performance - different players, different listeners, always something new to discover.  That's yet another hidden message embedded in Mahler's Fourth Symphony.  Das himmlisches Leben  connects to Das irdische Leben, where a child starves because its mother keeps promising to feed it, but doesn't.  And so the dilemma of being an artist with integrity, who creates whether the public gets it or not.  Mahler's sympathies lie with the artist..  

Fortunately some listeners do get it.  Gatti's approach to the symphony is refined but purposeful, never losing sight of the ultimate goal. Bedächtig. Nicht eilen and In gemächlicher bewungen. Ohne hast :  No need to rush, but rather linger in the present, or more accurately, perhaps, in memories of a sunnier past.  Because good things will end. Just as in  Mahler's Symphony no 2, we linger as long as possible, resisting the inevitable. Gatti doesn't drag though, and his pace is sunlit. The Ländler rhythms suggest folk music, peasants - and peasant children - dancing. The RCOA can do rustic with elegance. For all we know, to a Dudelsack or similar middle-European instrument : nothing sophisticated.  Mahler pushes forth with the theme for solo violin, a reference to Freund Hein, the Fiddler whose presence leads to Death.  The Pied Piper, like St Ursula, leading the innocent to doom.  Thus the macabre scordatura tuning.  In deliberate contrast, the third movement, marked Ruhevoll, was particularly well defined. The cataclysmic final section, with its blazing trumpets, timpani and cymbals resolving back to the gentler theme highlighted with harps was good too, preparing the way for the all-important last movement.  

The soloist here was Chen Reiss. A pleasant voice, on the lighter side, which often works well in this part.  though it's not essential, since it can support quite  a lot of sensuality, which is important, since the text refers to earthly, earthy pleasures, like red meat.  It has been done extremely well by heftier voices and even by mezzos.  Gatti and the orchestra supplied the humour. Wonderful "animal" noises like the bleating of sheep and the wailing of oxen.  The orchestra also supplied the colour and drama - sharp, focused playing, reminding us that the knife-like edge is never far away, even in this pastoral vision. 


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Gatti Berlin Phil : French Modernism Honegger

"Masterworks of French Modernism", the title of Daniele Gatti's concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Debussy La Mer, the key piece that opened new horizons, a magical work which, like the ocean keeps changing, revealing its depths in good performance. "God is in the detail" said Gatti in the interval interview, explaining how the arc of a performance is built upon many layers of detail.  The term "Impressionism" is a tag that's stuck because it does describe the idea of creating a whole made up of tiny cells of pure colour.  Impressionist paintings shocked viewers because they seemed to shine from within, because each stroke of paint seemed to glow with inner light.   Now, perhaps The Shock of The New has worn off with millions of reproductions on coffee mugs, t shirts and so on.  But in music, every good performance is new, an original recreation in its own right.    Daniele Gatti is too good to do routine, and with an orchestra as good as the Berliner Philharmoniker, there was no way this performance would fail.  There are so many brilliant La Mers around that we've all heard better, but also even more that are infinitely worse, and that's something to be glad about in a world where mediocrity is increasingly prized over excellence. Not a "coffee mug" performance by any means, even if the real revelations on this occasion came in Honegger and Dutilleux.

Arthur Honegger's Symphony no 3 and Henri Dutilleux Métaboles have both been part of the Berlin Philharmonic's repertoire for some years. Simon Rattle conducted Métaboles as recently as 2013, with more or less the same musicians.  Although much of Dutilleux's best work lies in miniatures and chamber pieces, Métaboles  is scored for large orchestra.  It flows over five movements each wiuth a distinctive personality : not variations but a series of developments, characterized by meticulous detail - a kind of refined embroidery.  To borrow metaphors from painting, Pointillism, as opposed to Impressionism.  Gatti's approach is softer grained than Rattle's, which may be more authentic but which might appeal to the already converted than to those coming new to the composer.  There is a powerful Dutilleux lobby, so influential that it could demand chapters on Dutilleux in books about Messiaen.  A bit petty, since both composers are very different indeed, and there's no need to play silly status games. Better to absorb the music on its own terms.  A few years ago, I attended a Dutilleux recital at the Wigmore Hall (read more here). The composer, then aged 92, was present, enjoying himself hugely because Jan Pascal Tortelier's father was a close personal friend.  Afterwards, my friend and I had a long dinner, leaving close to midnight. And who should we see but Henri Dutilleux, walking back to his hotel around the block. We waved. He beamed.

Herbert Karajan conducted Honegger's Symphony no 3 (Symphonie Liturgique)  with the Berliners in 1969, so long ago that it's pointless to compare.  Whoever uploaded the performance to YT knew what they were doing by illustrating it with a drawing by George Rouault. Connections to painting again.  No pretty pointillism for Rouault : his work is marked by ferocious dark outlines, defining the images within . The colours in his famous series of paintings of Christ seem to glow like stained glass even though they are oppressed by savage framework, which is utterly appropriate.

Written in the winter of 1945/6, Honegger's piece deals explicitly with the horrors of war, and the challenges of a new era. The Dies Irae with its ferocious outcries, expresses anguish.  Rouault's suffering Christ, depicted in sound.   Honegger, being Swiss was a neutral in occupied France, but no less involved with what was going on around him.  The second movement, De profundis clamavi, is a slow, but not peaceful meditation. What must we do that to counter violence and hate ?  Slower, more amorphous figures, long lines that seem to float on a stream of mysterious detail.  Gatti's unhurried attentiveness works well: we cannot afford to gloss over these complexities. This is the dark soul of the whole symphony.  The movement concludes with intense outbursts from the brass, angular shapes against the horizontal keening in the strings. The last movement, Dona Nobis Pacem, doesn't, however, "grant us peace". Instead, it moves in the form of a solemn procession, lit with violent alarums from brass.  One could visualize a cortege marching at night,  the darkness broken by malevolent flames, whipped by turbulent winds. Obvious connections with Honegger's masterpiece Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher written in 1938, when Honegger was well aware of the threat posed by Hitler.  Joan of Arc stands up to invaders, but is martyred.  As the flames rise round her, though, she sees visions of saints and angels, and the voices who lead her return at last, taking  her up to heaven. Peace, of a sort, is achieved but only through confronting evil and suffering : no avoidance, no prettying up.  Honegger's Symphony no 3 isn't just a masterwork of modernism but a powerful document of how music can inspire the mind and soul.  Please read my other work on Honegger and especially on  Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher by following the links below and on the right.

Listen - Daniele Gatti dirigeert Mahler 9

Listen HERE to a live recording of  the opening concert of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, from August 2013. It's Mahler Symphony no 9, conducted by Daniele Gatti, who was confirmed lasst week as the new Chief Conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam. The news was hardly "news" in the sense of being unexpected, since orchestras tend to appoint conductors whom they know well, and who are good in their core repertoire. Gatti is also high profile , which matters in an ultra-prestige appointment like the Concertgebouw. Gatti is reliable, with enough flair to make an imprint.

The more intriguing story is what may be going on behind the scenes. Earlier this year, Bernard Haitink decided that he'd never again conduct  the RCO, with whom he's been associated so closely for half a century. (Read my article here)  Pointedly, he marked his 60th anniversary as conductor by conducting the RFO, with whom he started as a young man. Haitink's been emeritus for a long time, so it was even more of a shock when Mariss Jansons suddenly announced his departure from the RCO, while continuing as chief of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, where he's contracted until 2018. There's some evidence that the RCO is running into financial trouble, but that alone wouldn't deter anyone from an orchestra with the RCO's prestige and reputation  Read more here.

And HERE another Gatti concert, from 2010 - Prokofiev, Brahms and Richard Strauss.