“This symphony speaks of today’s most important things”

On February 1, the State Orchestra of Tatarstan under the baton of maestro Alexander Sladkovsky will perform in the Concert Hall. P. I. Tchaikovsky The Second Symphony (“Resurrection”) by Gustav Mahler, which he will dedicate to the memory of Maris Jansons. Alexander Sladkovsky, whose symphony group is the only regional orchestra that conducts its own season ticket at the Moscow Philharmonic, said Vladimir Dudin about how to understand a symphony without words and why the handle of Mahler’s hut is more important than a thousand scientific works.

— This concert season passes under the sign of Mahler. At the end of last year, you performed his Seventh Symphony, rare for the Russian stage, in Kazan, St. Petersburg and Moscow, and you are entering the new year with the grandiose Second. Why did it happen? Does it have something to do with the current wildly complicated times?

Mahler’s choice was not accidental. Our orchestra has had its own subscription to the Moscow Philharmonic for several years, the programs of which we discuss with Aleksey Alekseevich Shalashov, a unique person, equal to whom in terms of the scale of thoughts, vision of the future, I do not know today. We played a lot of German programs at the Philharmonic, which is very important for me, because my mother is German, they played the music of Richard Strauss, Bruckner. Aleksey Alekseevich came up with the idea of ​​performing the Second Mahler, and without hesitation I agreed. It will be a premiere for the orchestra and for me. Since 2010, as the chief conductor of the symphony orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan, I have taken a course on all Mahler’s symphonies, realizing that a self-respecting orchestra cannot but play this music. Over the past twelve years, we have mastered almost the entire cycle of his symphonies, only the Second, Third and Tenth have remained. The founder of this orchestra, Nathan Rakhlin, performed only Mahler’s First, laying the foundation for me, as the current artistic director, to build this building. For me, this is a top priority.

– As in many other symphonies, Mahler included a program in the Second, linking the music with the word, inscribing detailed quotes from his own songs, one of which – “The Sermon of Anthony of Padua to the Fishes” – is used in the third movement: the saint reads it to the fish, which they listen to listen, but continue to devour each other. Are people still able to hear something important in a symphony?

— For me, the Second Symphony, like any other of the ten symphonies, is, of course, a separate universe. I believe that no matter how hard it is now, we will rise again. I think this sign is the most important of all that Mahler sent us. This symphony speaks of today’s most important things. Despite the horrors and catastrophes, the struggle not for life, but for death, expressed in music in tonal collapses, at the end there is a hope for revival. “You will rise again”, “we will rise again”, the composer tells us. This is the “most-most” symphony, which today will sound like never before. Now it is absolutely necessary to play. Those who have ears, let them hear everything they need here, just as people used to listen to Shostakovich’s symphony.

— A lot of interesting musicological literature has been written about Mahler. Does she help you prepare?

– I will disappoint you, but I try not to read anything, except for the music in which everything is written. I read and study all Mahler’s remarks in great detail, under a magnifying glass, I read German as well as Russian, I absorb all the information from the score. There are such tiny details that sometimes seem even a little strange. The music speaks for itself. Just like with Shostakovich, when they ask me if I have read the studies of so-and-so. Of course, I know about all this and respect the opinion of experts. But any other person’s opinion knocks you down from speed, pace. You know what is sacred to me? I was on the Wörthersee in Mahler’s hunting lodge, known as the “composer’s hut”, holding on to a brass handle that had not been changed since the composer died. The hand still remembers the smell of a copper pen.

— You dedicate the performance to the great maestro Maris Jansons, whose interpretations of Mahler entered the golden fund of sound recordings. But you are also connected by the St. Petersburg conducting school.

This man is infinitely dear to me. When he passed away, a day later we performed the last triad of Rachmaninoff at the KZCh – the Third Symphony, “Symphonic Dances” and “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”, which I dedicated to the memory of the great maestro. And I still remember the performance of his father Arvid with a well-deserved team, he came to Moscow in 1983, when I was sitting in the front row and listened to the Seventh. Maris is gone, but he lives on in his recordings – recordings of amazing, reference interpretations of a wide variety of music. Including the Second Mahler performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra – one of the best recordings. It can be compared with Claudio Abbado, but I think Maris turned out much thinner than Abbado, whom I also adore. Maris outplayed everyone, first of all, in the finest lyrical parts that a Latvian with a Russian soul and a Jewish mother could do.

— Has your experience of working with the Tatarstan orchestra convinced you that it is impossible to create a high-class ensemble without a hard hand?

“Twelve years ago I was a terrible dictator, terrible, terrible, even with horns. And now I go out to my orchestra and say: “Children, I adore you, you are the best,” which is exactly what it is. Of course, I demand and get them to do what I would like to hear. But the difference is that today’s situation in the orchestra is not comparable to what it was twelve years ago. I am not a dictator – I am their father. For me, the most important thing is that they are protected and feel like real artists. I think I succeed.

— How calmly do you build far-reaching strategies with your orchestra today?

— We recorded all of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, three ballets by Stravinsky, all of Shostakovich, all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies, we have a huge anthology. My next most grandiose plans are to record all of Mahler’s symphonies. I’m slowly getting close to Bruckner, in 2024 we will play his Ninth at Zaryadye, which we have already recorded on Mezzo, but its broadcast is temporarily suspended there. Bruckner is a special planet for me, Karajan came to his music at the end of his life. I think I will also come to him sooner or later.