The new season of the Berliner Philharmoniker has begun. The opening program of the season consisted a single work, the seventh symphony in E minor by Gustav Mahler, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. This was the composition that made Rattle’s career in Berlin. Shortly after he performed it in June of 1999, the orchestra members elected him (in a secret ballot) to be their new Chief Conductor. Rattle has had a long-standing mastery of the Mahler repertoire, and his recording of the seventh with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in June of 1991 was selected for inclusion in the EMI Complete Works collection, issued in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the composers works.
In many respects this is one of the hardest of the Mahler symphonies to get to know. This is due heavily to the considerable uncertainty of its opening gestures, contrasting sharply with the well-defined marches that introduce so much of Mahler’s music (including several of his song settings). Thus, whatever excellent audio recordings of the symphony may be out there (and there are many), this is music that benefits from a visual channel. Mahler always knows how to exploit his orchestral resources to their fullest, but the ear does not necessarily recognize where his priorities are. Thus, the skilled use of the visual channel can often clarify those priorities; and the camera work provided for the Digital Concert Hall of the Berliner Philharmoniker continues to maintain that skill at the highest level, bringing transparency to listeners who, knowing the work only through audio recordings, may have considered the work to be opaque.
All this is background to reinforce the news that the opening concert of the new season of the Berliner Philharmoniker is now available in the Digital Concert Hall. It is a performance, given on August 26, that clocks in at slightly under 90 minutes, making it somewhat more leisurely than the EMI recording with the Birmingham. My guess is that, as Rattle becomes more comfortable with both the score and the performers he is leading, he is more inclined to dwell on the higher priority moments and gestures as another means of clarifying the bulk of the overall architecture. If we think of him as a sort of tour guide through a rather complex labyrinth, we might conclude that he has now internalized the map so well that he is confident in every step he takes. Thus, while we may not always be sure where we are being led, we always feel secure in following him.
I have to say that, when it comes to complexity that plays out over time, I think it is often critically necessary to discard Lewis Carroll’s advice to begin and the beginning, go on until you get to the end, and then stop. Ray Monk’s How to Read Wittgenstein taught me that explanation depends heavily on the order in which you choose to explain things, and that does not always have to be the order in which you encounter them. Applying this to the Mahler seventh, I would argue that the third of the five movements is the easiest to grasp (and thus serves as the core of the composition in more than a metaphorical way). (I would observe here that this is the only movement of the Mahler seventh that Michael Tilson Thomas performs in its entirety in his Keeping Score project about Mahler.) The movement is a Scherzo, and it could not be a better introduction of Mahler at his most sardonic. Also, it has a firmly established 3/4 rhythm, even if Mahler does not always let it play out at a steady tempo. (Rattle’s sense of the relationship between rhythm and tempo in this movement is delightfully expressive.)
On either side of the Scherzo are movements that Mahler labels “Nachtmusik.” (This led at least one record producer to put “The Song of the Night” on the album cover.) The first is a funeral march; and the second is a serenade, whose accompaniment includes both a guitar and a mandolin. (This is a good example of where the visual channel helps. One is usually aware of these instruments when listening, but seeing them clarifies their overall role.) It would probably be fair to say that the funeral march was Mahler’s favorite genre; and this one is pretty much true to traditional march form, complete with a trio. Also, the tempo is steadier than that of the Scherzo, making the movement consistent with the funereal mood. The serenade, on the other hand, is far more flexible. It also has a somewhat warped sense of humor, since its “theme” is basically a closing cadential gesture. Thus, each time the theme recurs, one wonders whether this will be the time it brings the movement to a conclusion.
That leaves the outer movements, both of which have provoked no end of contentious commentary. From a formal point of view, the concluding Rondo has a firmer sense of structure. However, it is more a rondo of fragments, rather than themes; and the patterns of recurrence do not always follow strictly rondo-like iterations. In addition, the rondo is “invaded” by the opening theme of the first movement through some highly elegant contrapuntal legerdemain, which makes for makes for a recollection of the same strategy in the final movement of the first symphony. Once one grasps the extent to which the seventh symphony concludes with a rondo-that-is-not-really-a-rondo, one can begin to get comfortable with the radical departure from sonata form in the opening movement. It all comes down to accepting Mahler’s focus on fragment. Here again the camera work is a great asset, since the point of view follows the play of the fragments across the different instrument in the ensemble. Once the fragments are accepted as the fundamental building blocks, one can begin to apprehend how the first movement peregrinates among them, rather than laying them out in a framework of exposition and recapitulation. One might say that, in place of recapitulation, we have a somewhat Proustian “search of lost time,” as each fragment gradually assumes its own characteristic significance by inducing its own experiences of recollection.
This is one way to get a handle on listening to the movements of the symphony played in the proper order. Another is to just let Rattle be your guide. As I already observed, he has clearly found a comfort level in letting the whole experience play out at the right pace. That comfort level has been excellently enhanced by the video recording of what is happening where in the course of the path down which Rattle is leading us. This video may be one of the best ways to find clarity in a wonderful piece of music that too many critics are eager to dismiss as obscure
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