Mahler No. 6 in Hong Kong

Last Saturday was an important day for all Mahler fans in Hong Kong.  It was the evening of the long awaited Mahler No. 6, one of Mahler's most personal symphonies written by him at the height of his career as the head of the Vienna Opera following a string of successes of his previous symphonies, operatic productions and songs. He married in the singer Alma Schindler in1902, had his first daughter in 1903 and then started writing the first draft of his Symphony No. 6. And of course, by the time of its first formal premiere, he had a second daughter Anna, conducted his Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 5 and also produced Beethoven's Fidielio and started writing his Kindertotenlieder. The No. 6 was first performed on May 27, 1906 at Essen, an industrial town which later produced the tanks for WWI. It was said that the famous "blows of fate" in the symphony foretold the death of his daughter, his own heart disease and even the coming of the first world war. Whatever the truth of such so-called artistic premonitions, the No. 6 was a very remarkable symphony in many ways.

The symphony, nicknamed the Tragic Symphony and lasting a full 80 minutes, was rewritten a number of times, before and after its first performance in 1906, sometimes with 5 blows of fate, sometimes with three and sometimes with two, the version used in de Waart's Saturday concert. Edo de Waart had a sound box specially constructed with a window (I'm not sure if there are two because from the position I was sitting, I could not see the back of the oblong shaped box but I suspect it must be one, otherwise the sound would be dispersed) at the shorter end with a huge smaller oblong shaped wooden sledge hammer created purely for its sonic effect. The box drum was placed to the left hand side of the stage. Then there was the use of the cowbells the sound of which had to be produced sometimes off stage to create the impression of distance, as in the final movement. Finally, this is a symphony in which the brass winds and percussions were used to maximum effect, creating a most varied sonic landscape in contrast to those passages in which only one or a few instruments or sections of the orchestra was or were involved . No wonder my hi fi friends love this symphony and would frequently use it to test the capacity of their system to reproduce the sonic image of a full orchestra. I need not say what kind of dismay would appear on their faces each time they try to do so, no matter how expensive their systems, unless of course, their listening space is in excess of 1000 square feet and the speakers are correctly placed in relation to the relevant walls and there is appropriate matching of amplifiers and speakers with suitable digital and analog interconnect, speaker and power cables, appropriate anti-vibration devices like nails or pneumatic board to support the relevant  playback source, pre-amplifier and power amplifier and suitable sonic treatments to the walls of the room are added at the right places to improve the room accoustics and to remove unwanted booming and loss or addition of reflected high frequency sounds . 

The symphony opens with a very rhythmically in almost military fashion with strong opening which developed later into the so-called "Fate" theme and very far into the movement, the very soft and tender string "Alma theme" (Alma Schindler being the very attractive and colorful woman singer whom Mahler married and whom he made to promise to give up her career but who had torrid affairs with various artists in Vienna like Gustav Klint, his teacher Alexander Zemlinsky, the painter Oskar Kokoschka, the architect Walter Gropius whom she later married in 1915 after Mahler's death in 1911 and the writer Franz Werfel). Mahler then introduced the soft cowbells which he heard in the solitude of the mountains whilst he was composing the symphony to suggest the sound of the earth. Then we revert to the initial marching rhythm and the Alma theme and the movements ends on a heroic climax.

The second movement and the third movements, which were written first before Mahler wrote the other movements, were the Andante moderato and Scherzo, the first in , being very quiet, in complete constrast with the first movement in Allegro energico, ma non troppo but at its climax, the earth theme represented by the cowbells re-appears but the calm remains. The tempo kept on changing with its triple beats and it is said that Mahler was inspired by the wobbly walks of toddlers.

The third movement was in Eb major in 4/4 tempo again resumes the marching rhythm of the first movement but quickly develops into a climax with all kinds of sonic effects from the brass and the wood winds to imitate the play of little children according Alma, but the fate theme reappears to cast a dark shadow over their play.

The final movement in Allegro Moderato, in sonata form in C minor which later changed to A minor in 2/2 beat was the most dramatic. This is the movement in which the blows of fate, which Alma said, represents the death of the hero, appear in the form of the big wooden box drum, were intended to imitate the hacking of an axe. De Waart adopted the two-blow version.  It opens with shimmering strings and then a funeral theme appears but quickly rises to a climax in which the blows of fate were struck, after which the movement continues with reminisences of earlier themes including those of the cowbells and the symphony ends not in a climax but in the quiet sounds of A minor from the strings.

The HKPO gave a magnificent performance under de Waart and they got some well deserved applauses from the capacity concert crowd lasting nearly 5 minutes! This is a piece which requires perfect performance from each section of the orchestra and with military precision in the control of the sound of their instrument but except for a few uncertain low brass notes, the HKPO gave its all. A wonderful concert experience which one can never never get from his hi fi system, no matter how good!