Exactly nine months after setting down Maher’s Eight in the
Kölner Philharmonie Markus Stenz and his orchestra returned there to
record the Seventh Symphony, the work with which they closed their 2011/12
concert season. The finishing line is now getting closer for Stenz; we only
await recordings of three symphonies: the Sixth, Ninth and Tenth - the
latter in whatever form he chooses to present it. I hope
Das Lied von der
Erde may also be included. Stenz leaves Cologne in the summer of 2014,
when he will have completed ten years with the Gürzenich-Orchester. It
was made clear in the
announcement of his departure that by the time he leaves their Mahler
cycle will be complete. I see from
Stenz’s website that he’s
performing the Sixth in Cologne in November this year and that’s the
last Mahler in his concert schedule with the orchestra for the coming season
so presumably the other recordings needed to complete the cycle are already
safely ‘in the can’.
The Seventh has long been considered the most problematic of
Mahler’s symphonies and, speaking for myself, I find it not only the
hardest to understand but also the hardest to love. I hasten to add that I
view that as a failure on my part. However, I do feel that the symphony
perhaps speaks less directly to us than do Mahler’s other symphonic
works. The booklet note includes a quote in which Mahler described the
symphony as one of “predominantly cheerful, humoristic content”.
Was his tongue in his cheek when he made this comment or was he, perhaps,
mentally comparing the new symphony with its grimly tragic predecessor? In
passing, it’s rather remarkable that Mahler was sketching the two
‘Nachtmusiken’ movements at the same time as he was writing the
finale of the Sixth. Returning to Mahler’s description of the Seventh
as “predominantly cheerful” that’s not a view with which
it is terribly easy to agree until we reach the boisterous finale. The
symphony has been likened to a journey from night to day and that’s
the analogy that I find most helpful in listening to the work.
Markus Stenz’s reading opens strongly; the rhythms are well
defined and the baleful tenor horn is given good prominence. As this
substantial movement unfolds Stenz brings out the grotesque and stentorian
aspects of the music very successfully. Initially I wondered if sometimes,
when Mahler’s mood relaxes and becomes more lyrical, Stenz is not a
little too expansive - as in the calmer section of music between about 8:50
and 13:09. However, on reflection I think that’s just an impression;
most conductors in my experience tend to take such passages broadly. What is
beyond doubt, I think, is that the martial passages in this movement, of
which there are many, are projected strongly and with due weight. This
reading held my attention.
The first of the two ‘Nachtmusiken’ is a spooky march
which several of Mahler’s associates, later compared to
Rembrandt’s celebrated painting,
The Night Watch. However, the
Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock was surely right to point out that Mahler
‘cited the painting only as a point of comparison’. Diepenbrock
went on to comment that the movement is ‘full of fantastic chiaroscuro
- hence the Rembrandt comparison.’ Stenz and his top class orchestra
bring out this “fantastic chiaroscuro” very well indeed in a
performance that lets us hear all the piquancy of Mahler’s scoring.
The rhythms are well articulated and between them the performers and the
Oehms engineers achieve excellent clarity.
The third movement is well described in the notes as ‘a
“danse macabre” of the strangest kind.’ The movement is
marked
Schattenhaft (‘shadowy”). The music is constantly
restless and scurries along. Little musical figures or fragments that are
often grotesque rush into the musical foreground and, just as quickly,
recede from our consciousness. Stenz has shown regularly during this Mahler
cycle that he has a very keen ear - not for nothing is he a noted exponent
of contemporary music. That keen ear serves him very well in an excellent
account of this movement which must be fiendishly difficult to balance and
bring off.
After the Gothic scherzo the warmth of the
Andante amoroso
comes as something of a relief. This is done with finesse and affection
though it’s a clear-eyed performance; the affection never teeters over
the edge into sentimentality. Mahler’s delicate, often chamber-like
textures are realised very well in this Cologne performance.
The Rondo finale has come in for a good deal of criticism over the years;
some
commentators have held that it’s a rather superficial let-down. In the
wrong
hands it can give the impression of unyielding and rather forced jollity
but,
as so often with Mahler, there’s an awful lot going on below the
surface.
Quite rightly, Stenz is unapologetic about the music and there are no half
measures
in his reading but, equally, he’s alive to the frequent changes in
mood,
often fleeting, that crop up in the movement. It seems that the Cologne
orchestra
revels in Mahler’s high spirits and virtuoso demands and the Rondo is
often
pretty riotous - indeed, garish at times. If this symphony is a journey from
night
to day then, by and large, we’ve now arrived in bright daylight; the
baleful
tenor horn and the dark martial rhythms of the first movement seem a long
way
in the distance, as Mahler surely intended. After we’ve experienced
all
the colours and good humour of the Rondo Stenz and his players bring the
symphony
home jubilantly with bells and brass heralding Mahler’s tumultuous if
somewhat
rhetorically overblown conclusion.
This is a pretty impressive reading of the Seventh and it’s a
very good addition to Stenz’s Mahler cycle. I listened to the
performance in conventional CD format and it seems to me that the Oehms
engineers have provided bright, clean and clear sound which is well-suited
to this score. I look forward to the concluding instalments in this Cologne
Mahler series.
John Quinn
Markus Stenz’s Mahler cycle on MusicWeb International
Symphony No 1
Symphony No 2
Symphony No 3
Symphony No 4
Symphony No 5
Symphony No 8
Lieder aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Masterworks index:
Mahler Symphony No 7
Tony Duggan’s
synoptic survey of recordings of Mahler’s Seventh
[73:35] 
