RSNO Mahler Two Usher Hall Edinburgh 4th October 2024 Review
RSNO Mahler Two at the Usher Hall Edinburgh tonight was a classic opener to the new 2024/25 concert season, and with an expanded orchestra line-up plus Julie Roset (Soprano), Linda Watson (Mezzo-soprano) and the RSNO Chorus, there was truly little room left on stage for the performance of this huge showcase of Mahler’s exceptional creativity. Everything about Mahler Two / Resurrection Symphony is on a grand scale, including its performance time tonight of 85 minutes with no interval.
How do you even start to review this work/performance? That is a question that I asked myself more than a few times here as so much has already been written about it over the years and it has been analysed by musicologists in minute detail many times. The answer to that, for me anyhow, is to respond to this work at a purely emotional level and try to fathom what Mahler is himself questioning here and seeking answers to, or at least some insight into them.
The questions that Mahler is asking and exploring in sound and music are the big ones that underpin so much of what we are as human beings – life, death, possible resurrection (in one form or another), and the meaning of our existence, if there is one at all.
This symphony is far more than just a work of music and, fortunately Mahler, did give us some insights into his thoughts as they progressed through the five movements of this monumental work and tonight I saw Thomas Søndergård, Conductor more of a teller of narrative and the RSNO as the pictures (in music) to accompany this inspired story arc. Here too, every musician, every instrument in the RSNO orchestra has their own part in an ever shifting kaleidoscope of sound to play. No one voice is more important than the other here. There are moments where Symphony Two appears to be more of a gigantic tone poem than a symphony.
Here in the five movements below Mahler through the RSNO takes a broad canvas to paint his pictures on.
1. This represents a funeral and asking that age old question “Is there Life after death”?
2. Here happy times in the life of the deceased are remembered.
3. Asking the big question of “Is there actually any meaning at all to our lives”?
4. A final release to a life without meaning.
5. Revisiting some of the earlier questions, the hope for a transcendental life after death.
Often the darkest of moments in life are met with unexpected humour and sometimes mockery. Life and death are filled with the space in between the two that we call life as waltzes mingle with folk music, laughter turns to tears, joy turns to sorrow and back to joy again. This is after all an endless cycle of life, death and renewal.
It took Mahler over five years to complete the five different movements of this work (1889-94) and when it was premiered in 1895 it must have raised just as many emotions and questions as it did tonight. This work does not feel dated in the slightest. In fact it feels like it could be the soundtrack to a monumental film and is endlessly contemporary.
Mahler Two is something very special in music. If there is a space beyond where the technical aspects creating and composing music lies, a space where something outside our normal perceptions of inspiration comes from, then Mahler appears to have been granted access to it for this work and the RSNO gave us all a glimpse of what Mahler first heard himself tonight – pure inspiration.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
How do you even start to review this work/performance? That is a question that I asked myself more than a few times here as so much has already been written about it over the years and it has been analysed by musicologists in minute detail many times. The answer to that, for me anyhow, is to respond to this work at a purely emotional level and try to fathom what Mahler is himself questioning here and seeking answers to, or at least some insight into them.
The questions that Mahler is asking and exploring in sound and music are the big ones that underpin so much of what we are as human beings – life, death, possible resurrection (in one form or another), and the meaning of our existence, if there is one at all.
This symphony is far more than just a work of music and, fortunately Mahler, did give us some insights into his thoughts as they progressed through the five movements of this monumental work and tonight I saw Thomas Søndergård, Conductor more of a teller of narrative and the RSNO as the pictures (in music) to accompany this inspired story arc. Here too, every musician, every instrument in the RSNO orchestra has their own part in an ever shifting kaleidoscope of sound to play. No one voice is more important than the other here. There are moments where Symphony Two appears to be more of a gigantic tone poem than a symphony.
Here in the five movements below Mahler through the RSNO takes a broad canvas to paint his pictures on.
1. This represents a funeral and asking that age old question “Is there Life after death”?
2. Here happy times in the life of the deceased are remembered.
3. Asking the big question of “Is there actually any meaning at all to our lives”?
4. A final release to a life without meaning.
5. Revisiting some of the earlier questions, the hope for a transcendental life after death.
Often the darkest of moments in life are met with unexpected humour and sometimes mockery. Life and death are filled with the space in between the two that we call life as waltzes mingle with folk music, laughter turns to tears, joy turns to sorrow and back to joy again. This is after all an endless cycle of life, death and renewal.
It took Mahler over five years to complete the five different movements of this work (1889-94) and when it was premiered in 1895 it must have raised just as many emotions and questions as it did tonight. This work does not feel dated in the slightest. In fact it feels like it could be the soundtrack to a monumental film and is endlessly contemporary.
Mahler Two is something very special in music. If there is a space beyond where the technical aspects creating and composing music lies, a space where something outside our normal perceptions of inspiration comes from, then Mahler appears to have been granted access to it for this work and the RSNO gave us all a glimpse of what Mahler first heard himself tonight – pure inspiration.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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