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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
January 11, 2014
There have historically been a number of reasons for arrangements of pieces of music for forces other than those designated by the composer.
Among the commonest reasons was to enable works to be heard which otherwise would be too expensive or complex. Arnold Schoenberg's Society for Private Musical Performances featured a number of these, but folded before Schoenberg could complete his chamber arrangement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. (It was eventually completed in the 1980s by musicologist Rainer Riehn).
One thing that the arrangements often do, although this is rarely their raison-d'être, is reveal facets of the music rarely heard in the original. However, Mahler was one of the greatest orchestrators of all time and, in Das Lied he is at the peak of his powers, using his large orchestra as the source for an ever-varying series of chamber-like textures; the Schoenberg-Riehn arrangement reveals nothing new; and the less full sonorities mean that the music fails to open up the infinite vistas to which we are used.
None of which should be construed as criticism of Saturday's performance of the Schoenberg-Riehn Das Lied; not only was this a rare opportunity to hear the music at all (it will doubtless be some years before another orchestra in Victoria essays it), but the performance itself was, not to mince words, superb.
One of the genuine advantages of the Schoenberg-Riehn - perhaps the only artistic, as opposed to economic, advantage - is that it enables a tenor who is not a true Helden to sing the opening song, Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde, audibly. Alas, all too many genuine Heldentenors either do not understand Mahler or display little sympathy for his muse.
So we must be grateful for this opportunity to hear Benjamin Butterfield. His take on the opening movement was superb, the tragic sense of defiance, the inevitability of the thrice-repeated refrain "Dunkel is das Leben, ist der Tod" (Dark is life, as is Death). Von der Jugend (On Youth) was lively and outgoing (although I felt the basic tempo could have been a little quicker); and Der Trunkene im Fruehling (The Drunkard in Spring) was so convincing I hoped he did not intend to drive himself home afterwards.
The lower voice is more normally a contralto, but Mahler himself sanctioned the use of a baritone and, had he heard Nathaniel Watson on Saturday, I believe he would have felt the decision vindicated.
And while there is plenty of important music in the low voice's first two songs, there is no question that it is the long final song, Der Abschied, which will make or break the performance: settings of two poems separated by Mahler's last, and many would say greatest, funeral march.
From his opening phrases, woven round with exquisite arabesques courtesy of Suzanne Snizek's flute, to the final dying whispers of "Ewig, ewig", Watson was mesmerising; this was a farewell of true depth.
Working for the first five songs without a conductor and directed by Ajtony Csaba solely in Der Abschied, I do not expect to hear the accompaniment played better anytime soon.
Every movement brought marvellous detail from the ensemble and, if I single out one or two moments, please understand that I could as easily have selected numerous others as exemplars.
Alana Despins' opening horn call was splendidly confident and controlled; the violin and oboe duet (Ann Elliott Goldschmid and Alexandra Pohran Dawkins) which opens Der Einsame im Herbst (The Lonely One in Autumn) was beautifully wistful, as indeed was Pohran Dawkins' sinuous oboe at the opening of Der Abschied; and the long droning pedal notes in the same music - first from Pamela Highbaugh Aloni's cello, then from Alex Olson's bass - provided a wonderfully firm backdrop for the music's gradual unfolding.
All things considered this was a truly excellent performance; alas, for me (and I sincerely hope for few, if any, others) the very excellence of the performance merely served to underline how truly great Mahler's original orchestration is and how much I missed it. For example, in the original there is the contrast between full orchestra (or at least sections) and the chamber-like groups; frequently the string sections provide a backdrop for the more soloistic wind lines: unfortunately a single player, no matter how good, simply cannot imitate an entire section.
But the two players for whom I had the most sympathy were the keyboard players. At least Harald Krebs - as he pointed out in his pre-performance talk - got to play the celesta's magical arpeggios in the work's final moments, which presumably made up, at least to some extent, for the fact that his playing of the harmonium was totally inaudible; I heard not one single note from the instrument, despite sitting no more than a dozen feet away.
However, one's greatest commiserations must surely be reserved for Michelle Mares; the arrangement essentially uses the piano as a "backstop" filling in all the textures and sounds which cannot be imitated by the other instruments. Nor, of course, can they be imitated by the piano, but neither can they be left out (at least that seems to have been Riehn's opinion - he really needs to study some of Liszt's transcriptions, particularly of the Beethoven symphonies, for an object lesson in conveying the musical substance while not simply aping the actual notes themselves).
So, no matter how well Mares played (and she did) the piano's interjections always sound "wrong"; and I defy any pianist to play the harp's chords at the climax of Der Abschied (just after "Oh Schönheit!") without suggesting the "vamp 'til ready" of the music-hall accompanist (an insidious notion, which once lodged in the mind, is almost impossible to evict).
Despite all of my reservations about the arrangement, I must once more emphasise the sheer quality of this performance, which, as do all great performances, seemed considerably shorter than its actual length as measured by the clock.
I have an alternative reason for Schoenberg's abandoning the projected arrangement: perceptive composer that he was, he realised that he was, as they say in Britain, "on a hiding to nothing".
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