Cambridge Philharmonic Society
Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony
King’s College Chapel
Saturday 7th June 2008

‘A symphony,’ Gustav Mahler once famously declared, ‘should contain a universe’. Conductor Tim Redmond and the Cambridge Philharmonic Society kept that firmly in mind on 7 June when they performed Mahler’s Second Symphony to a packed King’s College Chapel. From the savage slash of the violin and viola’s octave G tremolo at the beginning to the radiant close of the choral finale, this performance will live in my memory as an exhilarating and purposeful voyage from spiritual darkness into a blazing light of glory in eighty minutes, incorporating a huge variety of moods on the way. It was indeed a thrilling universe of sound.

Composed for a virtuoso orchestra, a sensitive and well-drilled chorus and two soloists in this case the young soprano Nina Bernsteiner and mezzo Anna Burford, − who can combine radiant tone with the ability to ‘ride’ the orchestra and chorus without stealing their thunder, (both ladies succeeded most nobly), Mahler 2 makes colossal demands on everyone involved both technically and emotionally. But above all, it demands a conductor who knows where, how and when to place the climaxes and how to sustain the music’s momentum over five movements, four of them by no means short, through a kaleidoscope of changes in texture and tempo. The three inner movements in particular are frequently experienced as a kind of drift into self-indulgence (and all too often of boredom) between the formidable opening movement and the gigantic finale. Not so here. The lightning mood-switches, split-second-timed hesitations and brilliant changes of texture Mahler asks for were faithfully realised. (They’re all set out in the score anyway). It reflects enormous credit on Tim Redmond and his forces that despite the King’s acoustic, which is never kind to string tone, so much of the detail came through with remarkable success and without any sense of disrupting the shape and flow of the music. Mr Redmond clearly understood what Mahler was getting at. More than that − he conveyed it to his soloists, orchestra and chorus and they in turn conveyed it most effectively to the audience. To take just one detail of hundreds, the first rapt entry of the chorus, with a staggeringly soft and beautifully balanced sub-pianissimo followed on to the magically clear call to rise in glory from the offstage band, cunningly placed in one of the side-chapels close to the high altar, was to me at any rate quite breathtaking.

This whole performance, in fact, came across as one of the high-points in the Phil’s long history; and judging from the prolonged and enthusiastic applause at the end, a lot of other people thought so, too. Moreover, Charles Ives’ fascinating The Unanswered Question was a perfect foil and prelude to Mahler’s masterpiece.

Notes for editors

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