Questions, answers and the overwhelming outpouring of love
Mahler’s mighty Resurrection Symphony in the majestic acoustic of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge
On Saturday 7th June 2008, the massed forces of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society led by musical director Timothy Redmond will perform one of the most powerful works in all classical music, the Symphony no. 2 by Gustav Mahler.
Mahler’s glorious and ultimately triumphant work is the emphatic answer to the evening’s beginning when a solo trumpeter will ask the woodwind and strings Charles Ives’ Unanswered Question – the big question – what is the meaning of our existence? Six times the trumpet asks the question and the answers given are the woodwinds’ increasing agitation and the strings’ eerie calm.
And then it’s time for Mahler’s symphony – when the gigantic architecture of his total vision can only be matched by the intricate design of King’s College chapel itself, and a performance of complete commitment and ecstatic passion.
In the Resurrection Symphony Mahler asks the same question as Charles Ives, but, unlike Ives, and after a titanic life-and-death struggle, he offers an uplifting and completely convincing shout of pure hope and profound ‘overwhelming’ love (in his own words) as his inspirational answer.
But it doesn’t start that way. It starts with a long movement called ‘Funeral Rites’ which is full of anger and despair, the brass-band-like incidents reminding the composer of family deaths, and the whole orchestra desperately trying to rise above the tragedy of our lives which end, relentlessly, in death. And then, as if to lift us from the gloom, the second movement is based on a typical Austrian Ländler, and there’s a scherzo of power and quirkiness before the mezzo soprano (Anna Burford) sings of an almost heartbreaking longing for a relief from earthly woes.
The last movement begins with another cry of orchestral panic. There is an offstage band reminding us of the death and despair that has been lurking behind every note of music so far. But gradually the first glimmerings of hope appear. And when the soprano (Nina Bernsteiner) and chorus finally make their appearance they sing ‘o glaube – oh believe!’ And as their voices rise in joy, increasing in volume until the very roof of the chapel quivers with their radiance and the huge orchestral forces that propel them forward, they tell us that ‘nothing is lost, you were not born for nothing, we rise on wings to die – and to live again’.
That, then, is the answer and there is, literally, nothing else quite like it.
The concert starts at 8.00 pm. Tickets (£25, £20, £12 and £5) from the Cambridge Arts Theatre Box Office (01223 503333) or at the door.
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