In the great pantheon of German Romanticism there is a natural association of certain poets with certain composers: Heine and Schumann or Mörike and Wolf, for instance. Friedrich Rückert is a lesser name among poets, but he published some six thousand poems during his lifetime and there are 121 settings of his work, including by Schubert, the two Schumanns, Brahms, Bruch, Reger and Richard Strauss. However, he will be forever associated with the name of Mahler in two of his great song-cycles, Kindertotenlieder and the five songs that make up the set referred to as the Rückert-Lieder.
From an early age Mahler was an avid reader and surrounded himself with books. He was fully cognisant with all the major literature, but apart from the final part of his Eighth Symphony, where he draws on the closing scene of Goethe’s Faust, he deliberately avoided making use of it in his works. Unlike Schumann, who felt that only the finest poetry could be put to music, otherwise it would be tainted by the harness of mediocrity, Mahler argued the exact opposite. Doing what Schumann did was tantamount to barbarism, like taking a perfectly sculpted marble statue and then covering it with paint. That said, Rückert’s finest poems reveal an intensely lyrical vein; the familiar Romantic theme of withdrawal into a deeply personal world of love, art and nature married with secure rhymes and frequent alliteration provided a rich source of inspiration for a composer like Mahler.
The five songs written in 1901-02 were originally for voice and piano and were not intended as a set, though with the exception of “Liebst du um Schönheit” they were orchestrated by the composer and first performed together in 1905. It later fell to Max Puttmann to complete the cycle for orchestra. Essential qualities needed in any interpreter are ardour, inner anguish and vulnerability as well as that special quality of German Innigkeit which is difficult to convey within large performing spaces. Because of the chamber-like character and intimacy of the songs the orchestral accompaniment needs to deal in subtlety rather than full-fat saturation.
The order in which the Rückert-Lieder are to be performed was not specified by the composer, though nearly all interpreters choose to end the cycle with “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”. Accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and its Principal Guest Conductor, Dalia Stasevska, Jamie Barton began with “Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft”. Barton has a voice of sufficient amplitude to fill the Royal Albert Hall and had few problems with the wide tessitura in these songs, requiring deep chest tones and the ability to soar above the stave. I was, however, troubled by the absence of a true legato in the opening line of “Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft”. This has an almost lullaby-like quality, reinforced by the gossamer textures and without the darkening character of the lower strings. The voice needs to draw the listener in slowly, like a gentle summer breeze which wafts into the salon from afar and caresses you. Long, absolutely even breaths, mirroring the words, matter perhaps more than anything else. Already in this opening song there were signs of too emphatic an accompaniment from Stasevska, with oboe and horn solos given undue prominence. Pastel shades, not primary colours, are the defining characteristic here.
In February 1901, a major haemorrhage almost led to Mahler’s death, almost certainly occasioned by over-work. A sense of his own mortality pervades “Liebst du um Schönheit”, the last to be composed, written during the first summer holiday that Gustav and Alma spent together in 1902, and dedicated to her. It carries a warning against the attraction of superficial values like beauty, youth and riches and an invocation to true love. Here, Barton’s voice was under pressure in the final stanza, especially in the key line “O ja, mich liebe!” (then yes, love me!).
It might be argued that the third song in Barton’s succession, “Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!“, is just a bit of playful ribbing, the composer teasing about excessive curiosity surrounding work still in progress, but that would be to confine it to mere coquettishness. The reference to treachery in “Deine Neugier ist Verrat!” needed to carry the all-important element of menace in Mahler’s music.
Barton was more successful in the concluding two songs. She had the right degree of desolation at the start of “Um Mitternacht”, with all the echoes of the fourth movement of Mahler’s Third Symphony, the agonising awareness of deep regret in the line “Nicht konnt’ ich sie entscheiden” (I could not resolve it), and the voice opened out magnificently for “Herr! Über Tod und Leben” (Lord, over death and life). Right at the end, however, Stasevska’s too forceful woodwind and brass drowned out the soloist.
The opening of “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen“ was graced by a beguiling oboe d’amore solo, and it was perfectly clear that this song is closer to Barton’s heart than any of the others. She found an ideal sense of consolation for the final stanza and her voice soared magically for the concluding line of “In meinem Leben, in meinem Lied” (In my loving, in my song). Here, too, Stasevska matched Barton’s tenderness in soft and sensitive shaping of the string lines.
What is a symphony, some might ask, and others might answer with one of the lines from Humpty Dumpty’s conversation with Alice, namely, whatever you choose to make it. Sad though it is to read about the circumstances which led to the premature death aged forty-nine of Julius Eastman, addicted to drugs and living in destitution, I can’t help feeling that his Symphony No. 2, subtitled “The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend’s Love for the Beloved”, is more of a symphonic poem than a symphony. In this UK premiere the one-movement work lasted for just eleven minutes. It has a haunting lament on unison violins at the start and a quite deafening climax for four timpanists giving their absolute all and drowning out all the other orchestral textures. Apart from the same basic pulse plus swelling and subsiding as a structural feature, there is too much gloom unalleviated by any rays of sunlight.
Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony has long had a special place in the hearts of audiences, notably in the UK. Is it because of its many pastoral qualities and its organic transition to a triumphant, life-affirming close? That would be one explanation. Yet there as many different approaches to this work as there are Finnish conductors. Stasevska placed a lot of emphasis on sheer teeming energy, nature breaking forth from an ice-subdued period of hibernation. The first movement had a restless quality, the woodwind and brass often unduly assertive and pushing out any elements of repose and reflection. What I missed in the second movement was a hint of mystery: each melodic fragment was turned into a micro-cell of potential explosive force. Stealing the thunder of the horns in the Finale is also questionable. They were simply too loud in the passage for plucked strings. Come the final movement itself, I yearned for more majesty than we were given, the brass – with three strident trumpets behaving like warriors issuing a call-to-arms – and over-loud woodwind frequently swamping the strings. And then that unique close with six sledgehammer chords: Stasevska dispatched them with a note of defiance and not a hint of enigma, all done and dusted with those crucial silences in less than fifteen seconds.
Alexander Hall
Julius Eastman – Symphony No. 2; Mahler – Rückert-Lieder; Sibelius Symphony No. 5
Jamie Barton – mezzo-soprano; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Dalia Stasevska – conductor
Royal Albert Hall, London, 24 August 2024
All photos by BBC/Chris Christodoulou.