Conductor Arjan Tien
Conductor Arjan Tien

CPO CONCERT REVIEW. Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. Conducted by Arjan Tien. On 19 September. At Cape Town City Hall. Gustave Mahler (1860-1911, Symphony No. 7. I. Langsam Allegro risoluto, ma non troppo. II. Nachtmusik I – Allegro moderato. Molto moderato (Andante). III. Scherzo – Schattenhaft. Fließend aber nicht zu schnell. IV. Nachtmusik II – Andante amoroso. V. Rondo Finale – Allegro ordinario. ALBERT COMBRINK reviews.

This symphony was premiered on 19 September, 1908, in Prague, exactly 116 years ago to the day, with the composer on the podium, at the festival marking the Diamond Jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph (Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the ruler of the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until his death in 1916.)

Audiences were confused: The wildness and decadence that Richard Strauss had unleashed in “Salome” had opened the door to modernism, the blood-curdling tightrope of tonality pushed to the edge of dissonance in “Elektra” was already in rehearsal, and the primitivism of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” lay round the corner.

A serious man

The Mahler that people knew, was a serious man who wrote serious music, and some of it can even be called depressed. Songs about the deaths of children – his own or those of others – or soldiers slain in war, or travellers lost to the world and floating off into an ethereal “ever-after”. Expansive and unhurried explorations of the gentle act of becoming unwound, dissolved and returning your energy to nature. His symphonies to date had all been inspired by “about” something – the resurrection, the innocence of childhood, a child’s dream of heaven where only St Martha could be the master chef and mothers never scolded their children.

Cowbells had conjured up romanticised nature that personified deep emotional states and an existential crisis that would soon erupt into a World War. He was a Jewish man that would tap into his Jewish musical roots for humour or tragedy as easily as he did into Christian philosophy of the afterlife, German folk poetry and even Chinese poets Li Bo (or Li Bai), Wang Wei and Qian Qi, floating on deep and tragic music that explored the very essence of a human existence that had recently discovered psychoanalysis and were open to mind-altering substances.

Two slow movements

The only hints at programmatic content and extra-musical reference in this work, comes from the two slow movements: Night Music 1 and Night Music 2. These are neither the midnight musings of Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” and her obsession with the moon, nor the dreamy Chopin Nocturnes. Instead, Mahler gives us some animal sounds, even birdsong and crickets. But we also get taverns with mandolins and guitars playing polkas and tangos. A tempo indication “Andante Amoroso” hints at a love-song, but the music never becomes erotic like Tristan. In fact, some of the “Night Music” seems deliberately playful, and even innocent

We are left with a brilliantly orchestrated arch – Fast, Slow, Fast, Slow, Fast – which nevertheless build to an overwhelming finale. When interest starts to wane, some surprise change of tempo or orchestration smacks the audience back to attention. Mahler was very proud of this symphony, but it has fallen into the shadow of some of his other works, more popular with audiences.

Arjan Tien and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra – augmented by a bus-load of extra players and instruments including cowbells and cowbell-players, guitar and mandolin, tenor horn (in this case a brilliantly played Euphonium which rang out triumphantly across the City Hall), 2 Harps and triple woodwinds and 4 flutes – as usual, put the work together in what must be a record three days.

Colourful orchestration

Some wondered, if perhaps another day would not have made for more secure playing. At roughly 80 minutes, the work is almost three times as long as the extremely difficult “Firebird” Suite by Stravinsky, which the orchestra played so magnificently last week. Make no mistake, the orchestra played the living daylights out of the work.

The orchestration is so colourful and occasionally bizarre, that one took the odd double-take to determine if a sound was an accident or a deliberate choice from the available palette. Woodwind intonation (with 3 or 4 players to each instrument-type) was a challenge and the trumpet section in particular, seemed to have a wild ride in what sounded like extremely virtuosic writing.

That said, the stirring swagger of the CPO brass section in the finale was exciting to the very end. Gustav Mahler must have had a spectacular horn section at his disposal in Prague, as his demands on the instrument are extreme – solo after solo and long, sustained passages which are extremely taxing, provided apparently little trouble for the CPO players. The sleek and slithery Scherzo flew by at breakneck speed and provided all the excitement required.

Presenting just one work on the programme is a risk: putting all the eggs in one basket raises the stakes. Will audiences book tickets? And will they receive the product positively? The CPO have built up a regular, dedicated following, which has seen huge growth in range of age and diversity, and for most of us – myself included – this was the first Mahler 7th any of us had ever seen live. Tonight’s audience at the City Hall loved it, and were undaunted by 80 uninterrupted minutes of Viennese High Art without an interval. Plus, the value-added bonus free pre-concert talk by John Woodland was packed and the bars stayed open after the concert. So there clearly is a market for the lesser-played repertoire in Cape Town. There is a space for risk-programming. There is space for a budget-stretching special event that augments the regular players with ad-hoc musicians. The Cape Town audience is happy to be presented with a rarity, off the beaten track, if played with gusto and conviction.

Give-and-take

As with his absolutely delightful Mahler 4th on his last visit, conductor Arjan Tien managed to walk the line between very tight control of the orchestra, and giving the individuals space to phrase and shape solo passages to their own instincts – a give-and-take that avoids tension-creating micro-management. The result is an unfussy Mahler, clear and easy to follow. For my personal taste, I like a bit less “Gemütlichkeit” in my Mahler and could do with a bit more of the darker theatrical possibilities of his writing. But whether it is because that his how Mahler wrote this work, or how Mr Tien conducted it, I would be hesitant to say.

Let’s hear the work a few more times with a few more conductors, let the orchestra get super-familiar with the piece, and then have this discussion again. I appreciate that Tien did not try to sanitise the wild aspects of the score, for example, the raucous humour of the finale. Mahler might have given the tempo indication as “Allegro Ordinario”, but there was nothing ordinary about this brave and gutsy performance.

Book for the CPO’s Spring Symphonies programme here.

What: CPO conducted by Arjan Tien
Reviewer: Albert Combrink – pianist, educator, vocal coach, piano teacher, presenter
WS