Photo / Steven McNicholl
Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Mahler Ninth was destined to be one of the high points of this concert season. Music director Eckehard Stier had alerted audiences that it would be a life-changing experience and the conductor's track record with Mahler augured well. Significantly, the APO had not performed the symphony since 1998, with Enrique Diemecke on the podium.
On Thursday night, Stier plunged us into Mahler's world in the composer's nervous, tentative opening bars; violins, effectively placed on either side of the conductor, brought us our first taste of melody.
The conductor clearly revelled in the way the composer crowds and intensifies his textures; when trumpets ushered in the first of many climaxes, Stier let it all bloom, ecstatically. Chilling, ominous marches passed by and, in the midst of it all, there were melodious distractions in a flute and horn duet.
The great Mahlerian conductor, Bruno Walter, saw the second movement as a farewell to the dance. Mahler's performance directions of "somewhat awkward and crude" could give licence for excess but Stier avoided cheap parody, as the score whirled from earthy landler to an often soured Viennese waltz. Perhaps this could be an image of changing times in 1909, when the symphony was written. The Rondo-Burleske, with its premonitions of Shostakovich, deals out bitter contrapuntal invective and Stier let the sinews show; the momentum seemed unstoppable.
When frantic counterpoint was put aside for reflection, some slightly threadbare tone was exposed but the drama was not impaired.
The final summation, the great 27-minute Adagio, was superb.
Put alongside the orchestra's 1998 performance, one heard a new strength and vigour in this year's strings, and Stier enunciated every inflection with the skill of an actor.
There may have been occasional frailness when strings scaled Olympian heights, but in the subdued final page, with its achingly beautiful cello solo from Eliah Sakakushev, we had the music to accompany the writer Stefan Zweig's last glimpse of the composer, a vision of "boundless sorrow, transfigured by greatness".
By William Dart
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