At the RSNO performance of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony in Glasgow on Saturday evening, a lady two rows in front of me was knitting, I think, a scarf. Dark blue. Is it just me? I found it incredibly distracting. Knitting is the ultimate fidget. Knit 1, purl 1… It never stopped. The mood of the music never affected the tempo of the flashing knitting needles. Loud, soft, reflective, anguished, or, to borrow Mahler’s annotations, leisurely (gemächlich), clumsy (täppisch), coarse (derb), defiant (trotzig) or reserved (zurückhaltend) the progress of the garment was inexorable, the response of the tricoteuse to the orchestra’s performance apparently as indifferent and implacable as the sang froid of Madame Defarge sitting at the foot of the guillotine. Mahler symphonies are notoriously long, so I think by the end she must have just about completed the scarf. I tried to avert my gaze, but somehow I was drawn back, with sickly fascination. I couldn’t concentrate, and inevitably my mind began to wander, darting about in chaotic fashion.
Andante comodo
(Now that the President of the United States is no longer the leader of the Free World, now that, as Tony Blair said after 9/11, “the kaleidoscope has been shaken”, how is this Brave New World going to shape up? I heard on the news that the air traffic crossing the Tasman Sea is diverting, because the Chinese Navy are on exercises below, and firing live ammunition. In the Tasman!) I’ve been very fond of Mahler 9 ever since I was a teenager, which is slightly odd because I wouldn’t think of myself as a “Mahlarian”. I played viola in Mahler 1, and I even managed to conduct the Rückert-Lieder in rehearsal. The final song of the Rückert-Lieder, sometimes sung penultimately, Ich bin der Weld abhandengekommen, is very famous. I wondered at the time if it were saccharine. Even then I thought, cut out the schmaltz. Play it, sing it, as if it were Schubert. I was youthfully critical. I thought the opening to Mahler 1 was a steal from the opening to Beethoven 4, and I thought the opening to Mahler 3 was a steal from the opening to the last movement of Brahms 1. Check them out. The Second Symphony, the Resurrection, I admired, but I wondered if its huge finale was a bit portentous. I recall Dame Janet Baker sang in a (then) SNO performance and that was very special and perhaps had something of the quality of Ferrier singing Das Lied von der Erde under the direction of Bruno Walter. Dr Walter said that the two greatest experiences of his life, were knowing Kathleen Ferrier, and Gustav Mahler, in that order.
Im Tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers
(I went to the Goethe Institut in Glasgow on Thursday – seventy mile round trip – to find my class had been cancelled. I would have known if I’d been on WhatsApp but I’m trying to eschew these enormous fat cat conglomerates. I suppose I can save up the homework for next week. We’d had to compose a slogan advertising ourselves, something like “because I’m worth it”. I borrowed something off one of my fridge magnets: Don’t trust a doctor whose office plants are dead. Vertrauen Sie keinem Arzt dessen Praxispflanzen tot sind.)
Rondo-Burleske: Allegro assai
(Trump seems to be firing all his generals, or at least the ones who happen to reflect a diverse society, who happen, for example, to be black, or female. They say he has brought Winston’s bust back into the Oval Office. Winston listened to his military chiefs. The CIGS, First Viscount Alanbrooke, stood up to him. “Now Prime Minster, I’m going to tell you what I think of your wasting my staff’s time preparing a madcap invasion across the Pyrenees…” Winston backed down. But I dare say Mr Trump would “double down”. He seems to take criticism very badly. Meanwhile “diversity”, and “wokism”, seem to be taking a bit of a hit in the USA. What’s that quote from Pastor Niemöller? “First they came for the Socialists…” There seems to be a lot of slashing and burning going on. I wonder how the Arts will fare. I’m not sure culture will be a top priority. After all, it doesn’t pay. The current US administration reminds me of a remark of Reichsmarschall Göring: “Whenever I hear the world culture, I reach for my revolver.”) Mahler 4 I liked. I found the famous adagietto from the fifth again a tad schmaltzy. Six, seven, and eight were a closed book to me, but I liked 9 immediately. I had Dr Walter’s recording with the Columbia Symphony and listened to it endlessly. Of course Bruno Walter was a direct link to the great man himself. I always associate the last movement of Mahler 9 with my last day at school. It happened to coincide with the funeral of my maternal grandmother in Skye, which I could not attend, basically because I had to make a speech at prize-giving. So my family went north, and I stayed in Glasgow and went to school. After we broke up, the principal maths teacher, Miss Watson, offered me a cigarette, which I declined, a decision I now regret. But the girl vice-captain asked me back to her place and we sat on the floor and played Beatles records, which was sweet and poignant, and which I certainly don’t regret. Then I went home to an empty house and played Dr Walter’s recording of the last movement of Mahler 9. Of course, sad music is an indulgence to the young. It is only later that some sadnesses acquire a particularity. There are irreversible sadnesses.
Adagio
So I suppose all of this baggage made me a tad fretful on Saturday evening. Actually for the most part the audience was very attentive. There was no clapping between movements, which I have to say I appreciate. I like the span of a long symphony to be uninterrupted. And Maestro Sondergard created and sustained a prolonged silence across the hall when the last movement faded to silence. I suspect it was a magnificent performance, but in some sense I wasn’t there. I got into a mood. I don’t wish to be sanctimonious. Maybe it is just me. I need to chill out. After all, the knitting needles flashed in silence. Silence is golden, but should I really in addition expect everybody to sit absolutely still? Am I a musical snob? You decide.
I still think we should play Mahler like Schubert. Cut out the glissandi. Incidentally, the close of Mahler 9 is – I won’t this time say a steal – but is inspired by the close of Schubert 8, the Unfinished, albeit somewhat more protractedly. Check it out.
jamescalumcampbell 