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Mahler 9 at NEC, 2008, Rehearsal 1
3/29/2008 12:10 PM
People are always asking me what is my favorite piece of music. Of course, I always respond that I can't say which is my favorite piece, any more than a parent will admit to having a favorite child. But I sometimes say that if you turn the question around and ask me "If you could only conduct one piece of music before you die, what would it be, I would answer: Mahler's #9.
We just set off on a journey to prepare a performance of Mahler's 9th with the Philharmonia, the top orchestra at NEC, which will take place on April 16th. I told the orchestra at the first rehearsal that I want the hall to be full. The NEC orchestra concerts, which are free, used often to be filled, but as the years have gone by, audiences have fallen off. It is now not uncommon to be at an absolutely brilliant orchestra concert with 300 or 400 people in the hall. The level of playing at NEC has skyrocketed in recent years, so that the Philharmonia is now playing at the level of, and often better than, orchestras from major cities here and in Europe, but with all our best efforts, the word hasn't got out into the community. Part of my purpose in keeping this blog is to grab the attention of people out there, who might, because of it, be drawn into the magical world of Mahler. Then they will come to the concert on April 16th and make it a worthy end of the year for these amazing young artists, many of whom are ending their formal musical training with this performance and stepping out into their professional lives. The Graduation ceremonies in May will be the formal, institutional end, but the performance of Mahler's 9th on April 16th will be, for many of them, the artistic end, and we want to make it very special indeed by having a full house to share in and celebrate their remarkable achievements.
At the first rehearsal I gave each player, as I always do, a white sheet of paper, to write any comments, questions or requests. I also told them about my plan to write this blog and that I would add some of their comments about their experience. I had dragged along to the rehearsal, the final volume of the Mahler biography by the great biographer Henri-Louis de La Grange, which had arrived at my house the day before, twenty years in the writing! At 1758 pages it covers the last 4 years of Mahler's life!! I told them that no composer wrote so much about music or had such an incredibly intense verbal relationship to music. I invited them to write as much as they could, as another means - a truly Mahlerian means - of getting inside the music.
First I asked them how many people had played Mahler's 9th before. Only five out of the total number of players (90) had played it before, though some reported that they had studied the piece for years and were dying for this opportunity to perform it.
"I haven't played this piece but I have studied and listened to it for years, because there just isn't anything else like it." Nathanial Chase 1st bass
Another one, who had played it before wrote:
"This is one of my favorite pieces of all time! It ranges from the furious Rondo full of and resembling merciless anger, to the timeless ethereal beauty of the Adagio. Mahler is able to pull together all the range of sound and creates some of the most beautiful harmonies that exist in music. I am not sure that there is another piece that expresses the fullest sound an orchestra can make, while also treading the line between silence and sound" Kacy Clooton, cellist
She knows what's in store for us!
We started by reading through the whole exposition. It was altogether remarkable that from the very beginning it had confidence and sweep and that special Mahlerian feeling, as if they all knew it. But of course none of the special details were there.
So we went back to the beginning. We worked with the cellos on the a-rhythmic heart-beat with which the symphony begins. I told them that Mahler had just been told by his doctor that he had a heart condition that could threaten his life. Suddenly he was conscious that he might have a very short time to live and was to pour all his fears, longings and aspirations into this symphony - the last one he was to complete. As if by magic, the sound of the cellos became immediately dead and hollow. And the answering 4th horn call, so treacherous to play, appeared as if from afar, disembodied.
(I didn't tell Jessica Black, the 4th horn, that on my Telarc recording with the Philharmonia of London, which had been made at a live performance, the 4th horn hadn't been able to play it correctly - so hard to play soft enough and in tune - I don't want her to become too anxious about it - she is doing just fine!).
I told the harpist that the low notes, played near the bridge were like the cruel tolling of a fateful bell and sure enough, instantaneously Ina was able to bring that thought to life. The 2nd horn has a proud figure marked to be played forte but stopped by putting the hand in the bell. It's like nobility trying to get out. "Play it more", I asked, so that the sense of regret that life must be given up, but the hope that meaning can be found will be fully expressed. Meredith Gangler couldn't get it quite right at first but on the third try it hit the bull's eye.
One detail after another - the shuddering, gentle figure in the violas "wie ein Hauch" - like a breath - What a wonderful viola section we have! Their leader, Yi Yin, is like a conductor, he feels every moment of the music through his whole body and conveys it to the rest of the section.
And the amazing effect of the second horn going from stopped sound to regular sound.
And then the second violins. Ah, the second violins!
The seconds have a bigger part to play in this symphony than in other in the repertoire and it is to them that Mahler gave the first yearning, heartbreaking theme. I have returned them to their rightful place on the right of the stage where the cellos usually are, because that is where Mahler would have had them, so that their sound can be clearly distinguished from the 1sts. I told them that the falling, resigned phrase, was a direct quotation from the end of Das Lied von der Erde, where the mezzo soprano sings over and over, for the last 6 pages of the score, the word "ewig", eternally, on that same falling interval. It's as if Mahler is saying: All my symphonies are as one - and they move seamlessly from one to another. The effect, of course, for those that know the music of the previous symphony, is to bring all the deep experiences of Das Lied "everywhere and eternally the distance shines bright and blue. Eternally, eternally" to bear on the opening of the Ninth.
The second violins - the most amazing group of extraordinary young artists that you could hope to find, poured their collective souls into that first phrase and we worked until we had achieved that special Mahlerian timing (or rubato) that expresses, possibly better than any other music, infinite love and deep regret. Over the score Mahler wrote these words "O vanished days of youth. Love flowing away. Farewell, love, beauty, love, Farewell, world Farewell.!" After we worked out the other voices with the delicate sigh in the violas (wie ein Hauch) and the gorgeous counter melody in the second horn (Meredith now in full voice), the whole opening statement sounded incredibly, heartbreakingly beautiful.
I knew then that this could be a great performance.
"This piece rocks" Najib Wong 2nd tpt
"It's my first time playing Mahler 9th. It's such a beautiful piece! There are a lot of complexions in emotion, and I love how he put them all together in one picture, His orchestration is amazing! Thankful to play this masterpiece!" Ahrim Kim cello. Not perfect English maybe, but imagine what it must be like for someone brought up in the far East to be given the chance of playing this glorious work.
The first entrance of the first violins led by the exquisitely musical Sasha Kazovsky, so tender, so soft, brought a new mood of quiet, world-weary nostalgia. I told them that the Mahlerian pp is a very special sound - delicate, but incredibly intense and rapt. It took several minutes of work to make sure that every voice was playing their music that way.
"If a late Beethoven Quartet talks about eternity and transcendence, Mahler describes what is beyond that." Sasha Kazovsky, (leader of the Ariel quartet)
By the time we reached the first big climax with the whole orchestra playing, about 45 minutes had passed. That is one of the problems of working on a piece that is so incredibly intricate. Some people have to sit for long periods without playing.
"Thank you for bringing a perspective to the rehearsal. It makes all the resting bearable" Robert Myers Piccolo. And from the 4th flute Seung Yeon Oh "I had so much fun with you!" We forget sometimes how important it is to have fun at rehearsals. She added "It will be a great concert!"
In my excitement as each phrase began to come magically to life, I got carried away and went on rehearsing past the hour and a half point where musicians tend to get tired (a good reason why union rules preclude going beyond 1-1/2 hours without break).
"It's great to work on details before we put it all together. It's a little hard to focus for more than an hour and a half without a break. Maybe it's a good idea to divide the rehearsal into two equal halves." Yoni Etzion cello
I was grateful for that reminder. Just because we are not bound by union rules when we work in a school setting, I think it is wiser to stick to those rules: most of them are based on a collective wisdom that comes down from many generations.
I won't do that again.
"Mr Zander, I am blown away by this symphony already! The music is so tender and so vulnerable - I am excited about our journey through this amazing work together!" Mary Kathryn Stevens
The rest of the rehearsal was at the same level of intensity, though it is not possible to keep up such detailed work for every phrase - we'd take three months to prepare the piece. I did that when I prepared it for the first time with the Civic Symphony - we had 22 rehearsals! But, of course, with an orchestra as sophisticated and trained as this it isn't necessary, because as soon as they learn the style they quickly make connections in other places.
I told them that Mahler asks us to go to extremes, and often asks different instruments to do different things at the same time - I call that emotional counterpoint. We will be working on that till the day of the concert, since it is counter-intuitive.
I like to tell stories in the rehearsals because it sets the context for the kind of music that we are playing. I told of the time Mahler told his timpani player to play louder. "More, More" he cried. Each time the timpani played louder, but each time Mahler said it wasn't enough. Finally the poor timpanist broke through the calf-skin top of his drum. "Is that enough" he shouted sarcastically. "Almost!" was Mahler's response.
It is stories like that that give us courage to go to the extremes, like the passage marked "Schattenhaft", marked with 3 ppp's where Mahler is seemingly asking not for a real sound, but for a shadow of a sound. It was simply amazing how otherworldly were the sounds that came out of the strings, harp and trombones yesterday - at the very brink of silence - menace and sorrow mixed in a stunned awe, as if Death is stalking in the shadows.
I told them of the 5 climaxes in the first movement how each one is bigger than the last and when we worked on the final one, I told them what Alban Berg has said about the Mahler: "The whole first movement is permeated with the premonition of death...Again and again it crops up; all the elements of terrestrial dreaming culminate in it...most potently, of course, in the colossal passage (bar 308) where premonition becomes certainty - where in the midst of the highest power of almost painful joy in life, death itself is announced 'with greatest force'."
"I really enjoy the way you give us what Mahler's idea was behind writing the symphony. It really helps us to play it to its fullest." Kristin Leiterman oboe 2.
Even though this was the first rehearsal, it was clear that this music had by now taken everyone by the throat. From then on, we just played to the end of the movement, stopping only to clear up the amazing passage where the flute, beautifully played by Laura Hendrichs, who brings an echt Mahlerian earthy sound to the part and the impeccable and dazzling horn of Mike Winter, intertwine in an almost Schoenbergian passage of disorientated improvisation. And then again at the magical moment when, like a miracle, the despairing hate motive, first heard in the trumpets, is finally tamed and transformed into the lovely D major horn duet showing us that hate and love represent two aspects of the same thing. "Despair is an inevitable accompaniment of hope and love - they are finally resolved in the horn melody, which combines elements of each and we are taken beyond both into a sublime reconciliation, a glimpse of bliss at the very end of the movement". (from my "reflections on Mahler 9th" in the booklet of the Telarc recording)
The clock was nearing 11.45 at this point and everyone was tired. We couldn't get all the intricate and incredibly demanding soft passages at the end quite right. But we will have plenty of time to work on all that. The intonation was all over the place and as Laura said the pitch had risen a quarter tone. But what a beginning! We had traversed and plumbed the 30 minutes of arguably the greatest movement that Mahler ever wrote and reached the end.
"How much people around me love the music influences how much I love the music.....In this piece I have to listen 5 times harder to what others are playing than to what I am playing" Tzu-chi Tsai 2nd flute
"I am glad to have a chance to finally play this piece.
Wonderful choice for the end of the year! Ina Zdorovetchi harp
"The first movement is so tender, I look forward to getting a more brushed or painted atmosphere, one that is delicate and tender in its unassuming, breathless passion...passion in whispers rather than projection."
Will Knuth violin
"It is great to break down these big masses of sound and identify and relate the individual voices and textures." Beautiful Saw pong violin
"Bravo on conducting the music and not the conducting!!" Nathan Burke viola
We spent the whole rehearsal on just the first movement
"Just the first movement and so exhausting, but extremely intense and beautiful!
Can't wait to play it again." Kenji White
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