Mahler 9 at NEC, 2008, Rehearsal 3

4/8/2008 9:10 AM

I rushed into Jordan Hall just as it was due to begin - the plane from Toronto had been delayed by fog. My ears didn't clear for fully fifteen minutes and I was probably feeling the effects of a 4.15 a.m. wake-up call, a few hours after the late-night post-concert party. I was thrown off by the totally different sound of the orchestra in Jordan Hall after our two wonderful and very concentrated rehearsals in Brown Hall.

Jordan Hall is a great space for music (the Budapest Quartet claimed it was the greatest hall for chamber music in the world), but the acoustics don't favor a large orchestra, especially in a piece as thickly scored as Mahler 9. When the hall is empty, the sound tends to swim about and people cannot hear each other easily across the stage. One of the cellists had found he had to wear ear-plugs and still found the sound of the tutti sections too much to bear. Clearly we are going to have to do some careful work to readjust the balances.

In Toronto's Roy Thompson Hall, where I had conducted Mahler 5th the night before, every note is crystal-clear and there is no balance problem whatsoever. Now I was working with a student orchestra still struggling with the notes of Mahler 9, one of the most complex works in the repertoire. No wonder that when he did this piece for the first time, with the Halle Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli took 50 hours of rehearsal!

We were dealing with an additional problem, which was that I had decided to seat the first and second violins on separate sides of the stage, the way it was done in Mahler's day. Since around 1935 conductors have placed the first and second violins together on the left of the stage. The sound created by having them all together is definitely richer and there is also some comfort and security, as well as ease of ensemble, gained by this arrangement. However, what tends to be lost is the clarity of the contrapuntal textures, especially in music in which, like Mahler 9th, the first and second violins are independent much of the time. It's only when the violins are separated across the stage that one can hear the amazing antiphonal writing between the violins - after all, the piece begins with an extended solo for the second violins and the first violins enter for the first time in bar 17. How can such an effect have be perceived if the violins are lumped all together?

In all my Telarc recordings with the London (not NEC) Philharmonia, the orchestra is seated with the violins separated and the cellists and basses off to the left of the stage, but the London Philharmonia is used to playing in that figuration. For an orchestra unfamiliar with that seating, it presents real problems. On the Jordan Hall stage, with its limited space, it also makes for very cramped conditions for the basses and percussion, and the already difficult acoustical situation is exacerbated.

I started to wonder if we should switch back to the traditional set-up and asked the players to comment on their white sheets, in case they had formed an opinion.

I got several replies:

One of them was from the much revered teacher of several of the bass players, Jim Orleans from the Boston Symphony, who had slipped into the back of the bass section, on his one free morning from the BSO!

"prefer basses to conductor's left as they are today" J Orleans

He added "Thanks for letting me sit in"

Thank me? What a privilege for all of us to have such a musician sit in on a rehearsal!

One of the violinists also wrote that she favored the new seating, even if it added to the difficulties:

"Keep the setting. Any complicated preparation is worth to do to prepare this great concert. I am very expecting for that"

Yu-Wen Chen

I am very expecting for that too, Yu-Wen

Nate, the principal bass player and a passionate and knowledgeable Mahlerian, concurred.

"I think we should keep the set-up as it is. I think it helps the basses a lot, even if we are a bit squeezed for space. The stereophonic placement of the violins is important."

"I really love the 2nds at the front, opposite from the firsts. I love feeling the power of the cellos pushing out." Will Knuth, second violin

OK. Let's do it. It goes against what we are used to and it presents problems of space and ensemble, but it's exciting to try something new, and something true to Mahler's musical vision.

I found I had to make a mental adjustment to go from Mahler 5th to Mahler 9th - it's like driving a totally different kind of vehicle or going from riding one kind of horse to another. Mahler 5th is so powerful in its forward motion - it's like a torrent of passion and intensity. It's also, by now, very familiar to our ears. The Ninth remains an enigma even after many performances. Phrases started are suddenly interrupted, negating what went before; burning passion is replaced with stark immobility; harmonies seem to tear themselves apart.

As we worked through the Finale the music gradually began to work its magic and the playing settled, though I didn't myself feel, and therefore didn't quite convey, the rapt, sublime, other-worldly evanescence of the end. But I decided that instead of spending more time working on the end of the symphony to make it as beautiful as possible, we should move on to the third movement - the one movement in which everybody plays. Its tremendous momentum and virtuosic demands would give everybody a lift.

We managed to get through the third movement, for the first time, though the playing was rather scrappy in the fast sections.

"I think we need more sectional rehearsals. It will help us a lot." Hyunjung Kim (violin).

The gentle Trio section, with its exquisite trumpet and oboe solos, was especially beautiful in the hands of Greg Smith, who manages to make his trumpet sound like the most sweet-toned oboe, and Joe Camper, both of whom have discovered that special Mahlerian freedom of timing that pulls on your heartstrings. The strings were glowing with Elgarian warmth in their great tune. My heart began to sing at last.

Two people, both horn players, wrote on their white sheets that they thought the third movement was too slow. Joe Walker wrote "I think the Rondo loses energy because of the slower tempo" and his colleague Michael Winter: "Could we try the third movement a little faster? I feel like it might give a little extra spark that we are lacking."

This touches on something very central to this movement. It is usually played as fast as possible, but I have found that the complex counterpoint tends to be muddied at that break-neck speed. The only movement on my Telarc CD of the Ninth that has come in for criticism is the third, because of the unusually steady tempo, while other critics have praised the clarity of the textures and bite (see recordings) to view some of the critical discussion of Mahler 9th). I am definitely willing to try it "a little faster" than I did on that recording, to get the "extra spark," but I am loath to risk losing the clarity of the contrapuntal lines which can be achieved at the slightly more held tempo. Also the demonic brutality and savagely nihilistic energy can be lost if it's too fast. Most important of all, the final accelerando is even more terrifying if it has been held back before.

In the final twenty minutes, we ran through the first movement as far as the great climax of the Development - the passage (at bar 308) in which Alban Berg said "in the midst of the highest power of almost painful joy in life, death itself is announced." It was a terrible feeling to have to stop the orchestra in mid-stream, but the second hand of the Jordan Hall clock had reached exactly 11.45.
As I walked away from the rehearsal, exhausted and, I confess, somewhat discouraged, I was wondering if we would really able to pull off this mammoth task - an hour and a half of the most difficult and spiritually challenging music ever written. Would the players show the kind of determination and devotion to spend the hours of practice on their individual parts? Would we have the time to make it all cohere?

Perhaps it would have been better to work carefully on a few parts, instead of running through so much music.

I then glanced at a white sheet that had been left on my conducting podium:

"It is nice that we get the opportunity to run through large chunks - because the music is constantly changing and we have to learn to get used to this changing and learn to maintain the intensity, which is another challenge. You can probably see that my hand is still shaking now. So, if you could, keep doing that." Unsigned

Mary-Kathryn Stevens, that wonderful passionate human being, sitting in the very last stand of the viola section wrote:

"I'm having such a fabulous time in rehearsal today! Thank you for coming back from Toronto. Mm 49-87 in the 4th movement! This is why I play the viola!"

And Molly Gebrian, another extraordinary person sitting in the front stand of the violas:

"Thank you for coming back for our rehearsal today. I know it would have been much easier for you to stay in Toronto. I appreciate that you feel committed enough to this piece and to US, a student orchestra, to come all the way back. I think it will inspire us and make us work harder."

Of COURSE they will be able to do it, I thought. Why should I ever doubt these wonderful people? Imagine if Martin Luther King had said "I have a dream...but I wonder if they will be up to it?"

As I walked to my car, I met Nathan Burke, yet another amazing violist.

He was literally shaking with excitement. "Let me walk you to your car," he said breathlessly. And then he began to tell me what he had discovered about Mahler that morning: the incredible sense that Mahler was making thousands of choices at every moment and with each choice he was affirming life and what it meant to be a human being. "Write something down about it," I told him as I got into my car. "I did, on my white sheet," he shouted.

When I got home I read his white sheet:

"Mr Zander,

"I feel like Mahler is still alive. When we play this music, I listen to every note, every chord as a choice by Mahler. What comes out is personality and LIFE. My gosh, the CHARACTER!!!!!"

Then I knew that we would be able to bring off this great task on April 16th and, of COURSE, it had been worthwhile to fly back from Toronto for the rehearsal.

When I got back to my hotel in Toronto I found a note from a player in the Toronto Symphony who sits in the back desk of, you guessed it, the violas:

Thank you so much for this week with Mahler. Your work and understanding is appreciated not only by myself, but many others. (and some of those others are unlikely candidates to be heard expressing appreciation).

I have spent much of my life working with organizations to solve problems by finding new approaches to situations, which generate new ideas... In a recent Gallup poll, one of the first truly 'global' polls ever taken, it was found that the grievance at the top of the list ('What is the worst thing that can happen to you or hurt you') is not murder, theft or defeat in battle. It is humiliation! This grievance lasts for centuries.

You provided me with a moment of insight this week. It is my contention that the right to self determination and self empowerment is crucial in our political development. And how voices are kept silent is often hidden from our view and understanding.

Your work this week, it seems, was to bring every musician to their own personal point of feeling how the music 'goes.' To be transported in some way to another time, another world, another sensibility (I loved your image of 'skating after tea').

I look forward to working with you again. It goes without saying, but I will say it, that your way with Mahler is by far the most human approach I have experienced to date. And, as we are finally coming to understand, humanity is all that matters.

Sincerely and with Best Wishes,

Douglas Perry"

I will take up this idea in the next blog.

BZ