Hungary Mahler: Anna Lucia Richter (mezzo-soprano), Christiane Karg (soprano), Hungarian National Choir (chorus master: Csaba Somos), Budapest Festival Orchestra / Iván Fischer (conductor). Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, Müpa, Budapest, 6.5.2025. (LJ)
Mahler – Symphony No.2 (‘Resurrection’) in C minor
Never has the phrase ‘go big or go home’ carried more weight than when referring to Mahler’s Second Symphony which requires over one hundred musicians, chorus, and soloists. Famously, Mahler’s manuscript for the symphony remains the most expensive musical manuscript sold at auction. (Sotheby’s sold it to an anonymous bidder for just over £4.5 million in 2016.) With Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra (which Fischer established in 1983), Mahler’s late-Romantic and early-Expressionist soundworld filled the 1,656-capacity concert hall that sits on the banks of the Danube on the Pest-side of Budapest.
The symphony is both imposing and restrained, jarring and lyrical. In all of its vastness and textural detail, this symphony is one to be seen as well as heard. A recording of Fischer conducting the BFO was done in 2006 for Channel Classics. It was made in the same venue as this performance: Budapest’s vast Palace of the Arts, referred to as Müpa and is a fantastic recording. Whilst recordings convey Mahler’s themes to varying levels of effectiveness, bringing out different textures to greater or lesser success, to truly appreciate the enormity and intimacy of this work, it needs to be experienced live. It requires, as the title of my review suggests, stage presence. Fischer and the BFO delivered this in abundance. The conductor himself recognises the theatricality of the work, stating, in Gramophone magazine, that he works with the BFO ‘as a stage director works with actors.’ Standing choristers, enchanting solo mezzo-soprano (Anna Lucia Richter) and soprano (Christiane Karg) positioned at the front of the orchestra (not with the choir as Mahler instructed in the last live performance he conducted), a large string section playing pizzicato or col lengo (where the wood of the bow strikes the strings) at various moments, offstage brass and percussion echoing from both the left and right hand side of the auditorium, and the memorable three bells with their non-pitched steel rods struck with a hammer in the fifth movement (spotlit on the top floor alongside the organist). All of this gives the piece its theatrical sense of drama.
Mahler composed this symphony between 1888 and 1894. The fact that he started with the first three movements (which he performed) before eventually finding the resolution to these opening movements some years later is an indication of its difficult genesis and of the complexity of the piece. Indeed, the work explores the grandest of themes: the meaning of life, death, and what awaits us after death. Musically, it is a minor symphony that moves from the minor key (C minor) into the (relative) major key (E-flat major). During this journey, there were several standout moments where individual musicians or sections demonstrated their skill. The almost call-and-response dialogue between flute and violin in the first movement, pizzicato strings in the second movement, and oboe solo in the fourth movement (following Anna Lucia Richter’s heartfelt ‘im Himmel’) were all noteworthy moments that demonstrate the orchestra’s all-round skill to perform with boldness, expressivity, and sensitivity at the right moments.
The first movement, originally a standalone symphonic poem (‘Totenfeier’, or ‘Funeral Rites’), became the basis on which Mahler developed the rest of the symphony. The BFO conveyed a necessary sense of forward motion, connecting the opening movement with moments in subsequent movements. The opening tremolo and cello and bass recitative was dramatic and crisp. This section of the orchestra was impressive, giving these opening bars a vocal quality. Performed in this way, the orchestra took the audience on an epic journey from death and hopelessness to eternal life and hope.
The second movement is intended to contrast with the first as it depicts a moment in the life of the person deceased. Here, the BFO demonstrated their lyricism, wit, and unity. The third movement consists of the anguish, irony, and uncertainty that comes from asking profound questions about the meaning of life. It is based on Mahler’s earlier setting of the Wunderhorn song about Saint Anthony’s Sermon to the Fish. Incomprehensibility, cynicism and the despair that comes from this resound. Fischer conveyed the meaninglessness of life in this part of the movement, in a way giving meaning to Saint Anthony’s futile preaching to the fish. Then, we hear the well-known, piercing ‘death shriek’ (a chord marked fff). The BFO did not hold back in their dynamics here! Mahler is quoted as stating: ‘I salute conductors who, when the occasion arises, modify my score to suit the acoustics of the hall.’ The acoustics at Müpa’s Béla Bartók Concert Hall are excellent and the size of the hall means that it can deal with some impressive fortissimos and gong clashes, such as those boldly delivered by the BFO’s percussion section.
In the fourth movement (subtitled ‘Urlicht’, meaning ‘Primeval Light’), hope enters in the form of the ‘O Röschen rot!’ (‘O little red rose!’) song, about an angel lighting the way to God. Anna Lucia Richter sung with sensitivity and depth but, when compared with Petra Lang’s arresting performance in both the live performance conducted by Pierre Boulez (available via EuroArts Channel) and the CD recording with Riccardo Chailly for Decca from 2001, there was a little too much tension in her voice. Whilst the naivety of this song (in effect, a childish vision of Heaven) did not surface, Lucia Richter’s more introspective interpretation was thought-provoking.
Finally, the fifth movement sees a personal story take on universal proportions. The orchestra is joined by the chorus and both soloists. Here, Mahler takes the audience from death to resurrection. It is a huge movement that requires an orchestra and its conductor to bring about a feeling of resolution and perform with untrammelled emotion, without slipping into melodrama. It begins with the same cry of despair that was heard at the end of the third movement and develops through variations of the recurring ‘O Glaube’ (‘O believe’) theme. The chorus were memorable (especially the basses) and added great depth and emotion to the movement. Fischer’s decision to keep the chorus seated (they stood later) created an element of surprise for the audience when they initially sung with the orchestra. Soprano Christiane Karg’s voice was pleasant; she demonstrated good control and diction but lacked some volume and therefore did not quite inspire faith in the promise of eternal life that the final hymn requires (‘Hör auf zu beben! / Bereite dich zu leben!’; ‘Tremble no more! / Prepare yourself to live!’).
Whilst the musicians, chorus, and soloists were each highly commendable at various points during the performance, on this occasion the final word must be given to the conductor. Fischer’s architectural control of the symphony was clear, especially in the way he held the pauses to generate tension or allow for release. Dynamics in this symphony are vital to create progression, definition, and enough atmosphere to convey the range of emotions required in and across each movement. Under Fischer’s baton, the BFO were attentive to gradations of dynamics and tempi and generally avoided the temptation towards melodrama.
Fischer navigated the five-minute pause between the first and second movements well. As now customary, he used this time to bring on the choir. But once all choristers were on stage, he waited a couple of minutes longer before returning to the stage, giving shape to the symphony as a whole. It’s a surprisingly long break at such an early stage in the performance but one that needs to be observed as the timings between each movement of this piece contribute to the architectural shape of the work. Where the third movement needs to bleed into the fourth, there should be a slight pause between the fourth and fifth movements. Gilbert Kaplan discusses this in his essay ‘How Mahler Performed His Second Symphony’ for The Musical Times (published in 1986). The audience were polite to applaud the chorus and soloists as they entered between movements one and two, then two and three, but this sadly detracted from the immersivity created by the BFO. The final rapturous applause, however, was one in which I joined with gusto after the BFO’s gratifying sense of jubilation at the end of the fifth movement.
Lucy Jeffery