United Kingdom Mahler: Soloists, Tiffin Boys’ Choir (director: James Day), London Philharmonic Choir (artistic director: Neville Creed), London Symphony Chorus (chorus director: Mariana Rosas), London Philharmonic Orchestra / Edward Gardner (conductor), Royal Festival Hall, London, 26.4.2025. (JR)
Mahler – Symphony No.8
Sarah Wegener (soprano) – Magna Peccatrix
Emma Bell (soprano) – Una Poenitentum
Jennifer France (soprano) – Mater Gloriosa
Christine Rice (mezzo-soprano) – Mulier Samaritana
Jennifer Johnston (mezzo-soprano) – Maria Aegyptiaca
Andrew Staples (tenor) – Doctor Marianus
Tommi Hakala (bass-baritone) – Peter Ecstaticus
Derek Welton (bass-baritone) – Peter Profundus
The Southbank Centre has initiated a mini-festival under the title ‘Multitudes’, one assumes in the hope of attracting along multitudes for a series of inter-active concerts. In the programme note, Mark Ball, the Southbank Centre’s Artistic Director, explains they will present multi-sensory performances, which cannot be experienced at home on the radio. So this performance of Mahler’s gigantic and otherworldly Eighth Symphony had input from a director (Tom Morris), video artist (Tal Rosner), lighting designer (Ben Ormerod), as well as movement consultant (Tim Claydon), and dramaturgist (Gillian Moore). We entered the dimmed hall to see three screens in front of the organ pipes on which were then displayed, during the performance, moving images depicting planets, galaxies, oceans and forests: in Part II a crouching male figure (actor Tristan Sturrock) represented Faust, who came to life during Part II and crouched between the soloists who were placed behind the orchestra. Towards the end of the work, Faust and Gretchen proceeded up the steps through the stalls slowly, spotlit.
The printed programme (oddly £1.50 rather than free) did not contain the German and Latin texts, the screens giving a summary of the action in English. (I could not find a printed LPO information sheet, which contained all the words, in the hall before the concert). I would have preferred to see the actual words being sung, particularly as the choirs’ German diction was not all that clear.
The soloists were more than acceptable even if not star-studded. Andrew Staples stood out as Doctor Marianus, his is the leading role. His ‘Blicket auf zum Retterblick’ was impressive. Of the ladies, I was particularly taken by Sarah Wegener’s accurate and sparkling top notes. Emma Bell as Gretchen failed to make much impression. Jennifer France as Mater Gloriosa appeared first in the Royal Box, swaying her arms theatrically before singing, and then high up above the organ pipes – beautifully sung. Jennifer Johnston and Christine Rice also sang their parts well. Both basses impressed in their more minor roles, Tommi Hakala standing in at short notice for an indisposed Tomas Konieczny. I would have preferred the soloists at the front of the stage, for both vocal and visual reasons.
The choirs – in appropriately celestial white shirts rather than black – were all impressive. I could have done with more volume from the Tiffin School boys (though at one stage they cupped their hands in front of their mouths for added effect). It was a pity that the tenors and basses of the London Philharmonic and London Symphony choruses were all placed sideways, in the side stalls, so their voices did not project all that well into the main body of the hall. The problem is that this work is not really that well suited to the relatively narrow shape of the Royal Festival Hall; the Royal Albert Hall is the almost ideal shape for this work and has the more sonorous organ. (I sang this work there as a boy with the Highgate School Boys Choir, back in 1966: one Leonard Bernstein conducted, soloists included Gwyneth Jones, Norma Proctor and Donald McIntyre. Bernstein conducted the orchestra with his right hand, the offstage brass with his left!).
The orchestra, unusually for a Mahler symphony, plays almost a secondary role in this work. The London Philharmonic were in competent rather than scintillating form, a few brass fluffs can be forgiven in view of the huge forces on the stage, the brass particularly. The offstage brass, high up in a box, concluded the work in style. The gentle cymbal slide, which should send a shiver down the spine, was completely inaudible, and the mandolin and harmonium only just seen and heard.
Whilst the opening ‘Veni Creatus’ lacked some power, the concluding ‘Alles Vergängliche’ lifted us out of our seats. The central sections were suitably mysterious but a mite dull. Edward Gardner had the work under full control, the performance was measured and solid, rather than inspired.
A performance of Mahler’s Eighth – infrequent as they are – should overwhelm, take the breath away, and this one just did not. I blame the video and other distractions (such as constant lighting changes) rather than the musical performers who all did their best in the circumstances. This festival seems to be an experiment by the Southbank Centre to fill the hall (they have announced that the hall will be closed on Mondays from now on), but many traditionalists might now avoid concerts with added side-shows. Whether this attracts a new younger audience remains to be seen.
John Rhodes
Featured Image: Mahler’s Eighth Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall © Mark Allan/LPO
So miserable! Were we at the same concert?
Jim for S&H: We understand you had a different opinion to our reviewer, just as another comment seems to agree with John, both comments would benefit from a couple more sentences explaining either why you didn’t … or why you did … like this concert.
The Concert sold out before Christmas so no need for all the gimmicks.
Harsh to call out an entire section for ‘fluffs’ – these are humans, playing live. I think I heard just one significant blip from the brass. In my opinion would have been more interesting to talk about brass intonation and phrasing and be more positive. I was sad to read that.
Awesome Mahler Eighth Symphony ‘A Symphony of a Thousand’, ‘Veni creator spiritus’ was breathtaking, I got why Mahler suggested a 15 min break, which no one ever does, I could have done with a brandy and a lie down lol!
Edward Gardner leaping around like Lenny reincarnated, he was having a ball.
The staging, though not to my taste I found parts of that distracting, but it looked great for those not used to a festival event.
The Mahlerians were out in force, and the atmosphere around the RFH all afternoon and evening was full of smiles and excited fun.
To share that with the people that mean the world to you is MAGIC.
Yes, the concert’s opening gambits were not promising, but I thought Gardner paced Part II to perfection, piloting a performance of sustained radiance rather than incidental excitements: ultimately very moving. All those crucial moments towards the end – Doctor Marianus’s assault course of a tenor solo, Mater Gloriosa’s pp high B, Sarah Wegener’s sustained high C (also pp) in the Chorus Mysticus – were securely taken: how often does that happen? There were things in this performance that will live in my memory.
I’m in the ‘underwhelmed’ camp. It is something about Gardner’s approach to Mahler, apparent too in his recent LPO performance of the Fifth, which seems to suck the soul and significance out of the music leaving you with the abysmal question: what the blazes was that all about? – or even worse, ‘So what?’ In this performance, right from the opening, I knew something was missing. Partly, of course, a decent organ that could shake the foundations. The RFH organ looks tremendous – well, would have done were it not for those ghastly screens with their totally distracting screen-saver convolutions in front of it – but it never really seems to have the power from the big pipes to really thunder. Everyone who performed, performed well, and the choirs were tremendous, but even at the opening there was somehow a lack of meaning, of heartfelt commitment. It was as if the conductor had said, ‘Sing it right, but don’t sing it as though you mean it. If you do that, you might wobble…’ Fast forward right to the end, when the two sopranos do their ever higher arabesques on ‘…ziet uns hinan’, normally a moment that tears my heart out, tears run down my cheeks, but on this occasion they seemed to be singing it near perfectly but – but – but not a hair stood up, no moisture ran from the eye. Similarly the descending flute etc., and the entry of the final chorus, all accomplished very nicely, but not a hint of mystery, of breath-bated anticipation, it was all empty nonsense. So much so that instead of being moved to emotions threatening the limits of what your heart can contain, you had time to think about what on earth this Faust business is all about. Is it just us blokes who have the chance of an eternal feminine hovering around to relieve us of the consequences of our ill-advised choices and draw us ever upwards? Do women have a chance of an eternal masculine that might lift them up a bit, or do they have to rely on the eternal feminine too? Well, maybe I wasn’t following the words well enough because no-one listening to the music could bear to keep their eyes open and confront those ghastly screens where, almost indecipherable, some words gave a hint of what was afoot. I loved the loud bits, the very, very loud bits – yes, yes, they were exciting, very exciting – but every now and then a beloved intrusion from the brass, or wonderful woodwind solo, would be played faultlessly but devoid of meaning. It was tragic. Everyone stood up at the end, a standing ovation – yet again. I think this comes from the USA. Last time I was there, every concert I went to, even lunchtime chamber music titbits, there was a standing ovation, so that the audience could pretend they were at something really special. But this standing ovation after Mahler 8 was somehow short-lived. You’d expect a good quarter of an hour’s clapping and cheering and hollering after such a work, but tonight the applause seemed (to me – but how could I know?) more a response to the mightiness, loudness and spectacular nature of the whole endeavour, not an expression of endless gratitude for the gift of a life-affirming, afterlife-affirming revelation of blessed forgiveness. It was indeed mighty, very loud and spectacular – but so what? I just got the feeling that Maestro Gardner doesn’t know what this music is for, or maybe he just has different and less exalted ideas than I do.
For Ken Ward …did you hear Vladimir Jurowski’s Mahler 8? How would you compare it?
For some reason – and I can’t remember why – I don’t think I was there for Jurowski’s performance of the Eighth, Henry. So I can’t do that comparison. Sorry. But I suspect I would have found Jurowski’s approach more rewarding.