Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony was performed at the St. Petersburg Philharmonic

Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony, conducted by Briton Jan Latham-König, who conducted the orchestra and chorus of the New Opera, was performed at the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Why the miracle that was expected by the audience that filled the Great Hall did not happen, I tried to figure it out Georgy Kovalevsky.

Mahler’s Second is one of the tough nuts to crack in the orchestral repertoire. The same age as Tchaikovsky’s late masterpieces—it was during the writing of this score that Mahler personally met the Russian genius, having conducted the opera “Eugene Onegin” in Hamburg—the symphony became the fruit of the composer’s serious reflection on the most important questions of existence: “Why did you live? Why did you suffer? Mahler, who has read Dostoevsky, finds the answer to them in the religious idea of ​​resurrection and eternal life. The choir sounding in the finale glows with Easter joy (“I will die to live. Resurrect, yes!”), the path to which is thorny and filled with all sorts of doubts. The whimsical dramaturgy of the work is replete with unexpected stops, turns, changes of plan and almost cinematic cuts. To perform the symphony, an impressive cast of about 200 people is required, to whom listeners must listen for an hour and a half. And if the conductor and musicians manage to pass through rocks and reefs on the way to a jubilant finale, then the same catharsis occurs that St. Petersburg and capital music lovers witnessed, for example, ten years ago, during the performance of this symphony by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the baton of Maris Jansons.

Jan Latham-König, who has been collaborating with the Novaya Opera since 2008 and served as the theater’s musical director for several years, is one of the few Western artists who has not severed ties with Russia. His opportunity to bring Mahler’s Second to St. Petersburg is a very correct gesture. In these times of confrontation and instability, reminding us of resurrection and joy is important and necessary. However, the interpretation proposed by the conductor, in which the specificity of individual details and mosaic fragmentation were in the foreground, was very controversial. It’s as if everyday little things have swallowed up a lofty idea, and pathetic gestures have replaced the inner meaning.

Brief, literally a few seconds, tempo shifts, accelerations and decelerations, created not impressive waves, but a kind of ripples, among which suddenly thunderous climaxes arose. Nicking brass, a constant problem in our orchestras, blurred an important theme literally in the first minutes and then made itself felt in a number of poignant moments. The symphony stubbornly refused to “stick together” into a single whole, sparkling with truly successful fragments of varying degrees of duration.

Thus, the chorales of the strings sounded subtly and reverently in the first part, after which the maestro, as prescribed by the author, made a long pause – timid claps were even heard in the hall, although the audience as a whole was quite sophisticated. The stereo balance was perfectly built between the first, leading the theme, and the second, weaving figurations, violins in the second movement. In the circles of the third part, bitter humor was emphasized, acquiring a tinge of toyiness and unreality. The song “Primordial Light” (“Urlicht”), which stands on the eve of the finale, was performed by mezzo Valeria Pfister calmly and evenly, with the necessary degree of restraint and nobility. In general, the vocal casting turned out to be successful; soprano Kristina Ponomareva, who participated in the last part of the symphony, also integrated very well into the overall sound.

The final chorus, whose members were placed in stereo on the balcony of the Great Hall on both sides of the stage, entered not as a result of previous painful thoughts and painful doubts, but as a kind of surprise, albeit a pleasant one. It was as if angelic voices were heard from above, and it became immediately clear, simple and easy for everyone. And there is no longer sadness, grief and evil, but there is only jubilation and delight. The speed of transition from “darkness to light” was so rapid that there was a feeling of unnaturalness, and the final acceleration even added the effect of some surrealism. It’s as if the film was put on fast forward, in which natural movements begin to take on a cartoonish tint. Probably, in this you can feel the inherent dream of many to “take it and cancel it”, but the path to a happy ending must be honestly completed to the end.