Editor’s note: This is the second report for The Edge that Michael Marcus is filing from the world-renowned Mahler Festival taking place in Amsterdam. You can see Michael’s introductory column here. Michael, best known in the Berkshires as owner and head sushi chef at Bizen Restaurant in Great Barrington, is also a lover and serious student of Mahler’s music.
“What has Mahler done to me?” I gasp, as the first notes of Mahler’s First Symphony conducted by Klaus Mäkelä at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, explode on my ears like a cosmic awakening or perhaps an asteroid strike. From this primeval mist, an eerie sound comes forth like a searing breath in a vast void. The pastoral themes shimmer like a death rattle on a forgotten battleground. Is it the cry of ravens or the orgiastic moans of entwined lovers: ancient, immense beauty and dread inextricably combined? The teeming ocean swarms with unknown creatures dying and birthing in the primordial ooze as God commands “Let there be life.” This has become my front seat to the birth of creation.
There is absolutely nothing I can say, nothing I can confer to you that will inspire you to listen to Mahler’s First Symphony. I can’t hum the melodies in your ear, I can’t whistle the love songs, I can’t beat the drum beat of the funeral march for the fallen cuckoo.
I came to Amsterdam to listen to all of Gustav Mahler’s 10 symphonies by some of the world’s greatest orchestras, one each day, consecutively, and his ‘Song of the Earth’, but especially the four movements that comprise his First Symphony, because it’s about what Mahler had to personally overcome to put pen to paper, to vanquish his own demons and still have the self- confidence and musical chops to express himself on the level of a Mozart or Beethoven.
Mahler was born a Jew in a Christian world without much hope for a promising career. Despite being a virtuoso piano player, he had to resist the hateful antisemitism of fin de siècle Vienna. He lost eight of his siblings to disease and suicide. He had to endure the horrible quarrels of his parents while growing up in poverty and war. He was unlucky in love with Marion von Weber, who left him alone at the railroad station as he waited for a rendezvous that would never come. Yet he became the musical exponent of the deeply intellectual world of Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud.
So, you guessed right. Mahler talks about our own life’s challenges: despair, tragedy, death and unmitigated grief at the same time he rises above it all and embraces the Nietzschean tragic world view from ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’: the redemptive courage to persevere, to love and to transcend by creating sublime musical compositions.
The ‘simultaneity of opposites’ is the one theme that repeats itself throughout Mahler’s oeuvre. This concept creates a gut-wrenching tension in Mahler’s music as we see him stumble and then rise again without sentimentality. He has created a contemporary hero who faced with adversity will succeed, who without judgement will have the opportunity to enter the pearly gates of secular heaven, never extinguishing the thread of hope he needs to exist.
Mahler has a musical bag of tricks he uses in his symphonic workshop. He will show you a concept of ‘Nature’ you have never heard, as you are surrounded by a forest of ominous creatures. Then somewhere in the distance, off-stage instruments sound the notes of an attacking army, as you tremble in the trenches. Cowbells, church gongs switch rods, tam tams, wood blocks and other never-before-used percussive instruments are vital parts of Mahler’s immense instrumentation. Mahler paints his everyday world of folk tunes and military bands, never hesitating to quote his musical forebears Wagner and Beethoven.
I have never witnessed a conductor more exhausted at the end of conducting a symphonic work than Klaus Mäkelä after conducting Mahler’s breakthrough symphony, “The Titan”, at the Concertgebouw on May 8. He conducted what the audience viscerally experienced: the titanic struggle of humanity to overcome the relentless tides of adversity with unbreakable will, forging hope and meaning in the face of overwhelming odds; to persevere and attain ultimate, spiritual transcendence.
This is Mäkelä’s Concertgebouw orchestra in its very own home. He understands very well that it reverberates sound mercilessly. This performance was a high-octane rendition of Mahler One without regard to unforgiving acoustics. The orchestra was loud and showed little modulation to the subtle volume contrasts written in the score. Perhaps they were pacing themselves. The funeral march was sluggish, the Landler dances lacked bounce, the cohesion of the orchestra seemed out of synch as they collectively struggled to attain a cohesive identity.
Then miraculously a transformation occurred as the Maestro rallied his forces. It happened in the gorgeous Adagio love music portion that Mahler so excels in. The orchestra found its groove and played like two lovers in perfect harmony. Without warning, the funeral march in a minor key turned the familiar into the grotesque. ‘Frere Jacques’, a children’s tune played soulfully by the double bass player, turned morbid and sarcastic, parodying the sentimentality of human grief, mocking and sublime. Finally, Mäkelä takes us brilliantly through a storm of anguish, conflict and chaos. A radiant return of the D Major key theme bursts forth. The trombones literally stand and deliver a bold, victorious fanfare. It’s a moment of overwhelming catharsis as the soul has survived suffering and stands reborn. The chrysalis opens to reveal a new, exalted self.
The only question is: After already experiencing the emotional rollercoaster ride of this first symphony, can we endure the even more monumental outbursts that await?
