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Christ Church Cathedral
October 25, 2018
The history of transcriptions — arranging music originally composed for one instrument so that it may be played by another — is a long and honourable one. The reasons for doing it are manifold and have changed over the centuries: two hundred years ago the fashion for piano-four-hand arrangements was coming into vogue in order that orchestral works might be played and indeed heard in a domestic setting.
This was not, of course, the reason that Liszt, for example transcribed Beethoven's symphonies: he was probably the only pianist living who had the technique to play them.
More recently we have had the transcription for economic reasons, such as Arnold Schoenberg's chamber version of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and, of course, transcriptions to rescue music written for instruments no longer played; without these we should never, for example, hear Schubert's sonata for the long-defunct arpeggione, or Haydn's baryton trios (or, indeed, the original version of Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique with its ophicleide and serpent).
Today, with multiple recordings of many extremely large (and therefore costly to mount) works available and an active early music scene busily resurrecting obsolete instruments, one might wonder why anybody bothers with transcriptions any more.
And, in particular, one might well ask the purpose of transcribing a work, such as Mahler's Symphony No.2, for a single instrument, no matter that the instrument in question is the "King of instruments", the organ.
My own suspicion is that David Briggs transcribed the "Resurrection" symphony because he wanted to play it himself. And, to be perfectly frank, if I had one iota of his talent, it is a temptation I myself should probably not have been able to resist.
Let me say straight away, that Briggs clearly has the measure of the music, he gave a tightly-focused performance which, despite the length of the work, held the attention throughout.
And this in itself was no small feat: the symphony lasts well over an hour, with a finale which usually clocks in at over thirty minutes; moreover, without a firm hand on the tiller, the outer movements can tend to ramble.
So I enjoyed, even admired, Briggs' performance qua performance.
But what of the transcription itself?
I am certainly not averse to transcriptions and have many in my own record collection: Liszt's Beethoven symphonies, of course, but much else, even including two transcriptions of Mahler symphonies (the sixth and seventh) for two pianos.
And Lionel Rogg's transcription, for the organ, of Bruckner's eighth.
Which last, of course, is the most relevant for this discussion and I would suggest that the relative failure of Briggs' Mahler compared to Rogg's Bruckner has more to do with the symphonies themselves and, especially, their composers' styles of orchestration, than anything else.
Bruckner has often been accused of using the sections of the orchestra like the manuals of an organ, the instrument of which he was an internationally-acknowledged master. There is justice in this, but Bruckner's orchestral style is perfect for what he wanted to achieve in his music.
When we come to Mahler, in sharp contradistinction, we are dealing with one of musical history's greatest and most colourful orchestrators. A great conductor himself, Mahler understood the orchestra and the colours of which it was capable.
In this regard, then, we should probably be grateful to Briggs for underlining Mahler's orchestral supremacy; the organ is capable of many things and can produce many different tone-colours, but faced with the kaleidoscope that is a Mahler symphony, it sounds like what it really is: a massive collection of winds. In the hands of a Mahler, it is the orchestra which is the "King of instruments".
It was in those moments in the symphony where the wind and brass are not dominant, that the transcription, for me, lost its way. The organ has nothing to compare with the attack of the timpani, as at the opening of the third movement, here rendered somewhat flabbily. Nor can it convey the doom-laden cataclysm of the tam-tams (often, although erroneously, referred to as "gongs") in the first movement as the introduction reappears just before the shockingly-dissonant climax.
The rapid string passagework which figures at many points throughout the symphony was also, as I noted at the time "AWOL".
Overall, the sound had a far greater homogeneity than Mahler's orchestration and this resulted in lines and textures that I know should be present disappearing in the welter of sound at the big climaxes.
Although their initial, a capella, entry was arguably too loud, it was only when the choir made their appearance (Mahler, with even greater profligacy than Beethoven in his ninth, saves the choir until the last few minutes) that I felt the presence of the composer — or, to quote my notebook once more, "Mahler just walked in!".
The two soloists were very good: mezzo Rebecca Hass having, of course, the true vocal plum of the piece in "Urlicht", which she sang very well. Both she and soprano Jessica Wagner blended well and appropriately with the choir, their voices rising almost imperceptibly from the choral sound.
Indeed, in the final pages, from the choir's dramatic "sterben werd'ich und zu leben", everything came together and provided the glorious, almost overwhelming close that the symphony deserves,
There was one aspect of the transcription which did trouble me increasingly as the music progressed. The organ has one stop which includes the sound of a bell; unfortunately it sounded more like bicycle bells and Briggs seemed to use it in every movement, whether appropriate or not — and it was mostly not.
Oddly, the one point at which this stop was not used was in the final pages of the work, where Mahler actually specifies (three "deep unpitched") bells. I had entertained vague hopes that the cathedral's campanologists might be pressed into service (there is a sort of precedent in Eugene Ormandy's 1935 Minneapolis recording, for which five disused bells from the old St. Paul courthouse were transferred to the auditorium and played by striking them with sledgehammers). But it was not to be and, like the offstage brass, the bells at this point were missing in action.
I really wanted to like this and I would certainly admit to having enjoyed much of the performance, although I suspect that Briggs' musicality had more to do with that, but my ultimate verdict would be that the transcription is a glorious failure.
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