Wigglesworth's magnificent Mahler 9

As far as the mind can remember, we have had three previous performances of Mahler's Ninth Symphony at DFP since 1998. Benjamin Zander initially led a heart-wrenching interpretation of this valedictory opus in 2002. In 2011, Claus Peter Flor led a swiftly paced performance which lacked repose, whilst Yoel Gamzou in 2016 did significantly better than Claus Peter Flor.

Mark Wigglesworth's concert of the Ninth had no companion piece like Zander's and Flor's concerts. Often, conductors try to give the audiences more time value for the money by inserting a short companion piece before the Ninth. On this occasion, the superlative quality of the MPO playing and Wigglesworth's vividly characterised interpretation shone through and the shortened time value of the concert was entirely superfluous.

The opening theme in the first Andante comodo movement was taken more languidly than usual in a gorgeously autumnal tone colour, so that when the three massive climaxes appeared later, they felt properly earned. In the slow unfolding and eventual derangement-to-reconciliation of the first movement’s journey, Wigglesworth’s allowance for extreme mood changes might seem unrestrained to some listeners. It felt right, however, the only honest way to reflect the piece’s terrifying revelations of death’s inevitability.

The swiftly paced dance-led second movement, opened with a Ländler with rugged coarseness which embraced its bucolic country roots before transitioning to a wild Scherzo. The third movement, Rondo Burlesque set at a cracking pace was almost carnival-like in its boisterous energies amidst its biting satire.

The final Adagio combined supreme serenity, utmost calm and Zen-like concentration to almost unbearably moving effect. The MPO string sound, alternately whispered and thrillingly saturated, wrung every last drop of emotion from Mahler’s lines, while the solo work from across the orchestra’s sections was superb – guest principal flute Dora Seres' soli deserve a very special mention.

After the last great climax of shattering intensity, string playing of such intense beauty, longing and poignancy faded away and a long silence ensued, which Wigglesworth held for as long as possible. Then the tumultuous applause inevitably broke, as the audience sensed that Wigglesworth and the MPO gave us a most magnificent and monumental account of Mahler’s Ninth.

This was the most peerless concert that I have heard the MPO give in the 2019 season, supplanting the impressive Akiko Suwanai and Alexander Briger concert from this February. On this showing, my guest from USA opined that the MPO and Wigglesworth far outshone the regular orchestra she hears, the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas.

Gamzou's magnificent Mahler Tenth

No-one before or since has had more to say in a symphony than Mahler. He remains the most complex of all symphonists, and this daunting prospect in itself may account for the large number of empty seats in the DFP Hall in late May 2017. Despite the presence of a very brilliant Mahler conductor Yoel Gamzou, who previously directed a most moving Mahler Ninth Symphony in August 2016 at the DFP, the singular work of Mahler's Tenth Symphony in Gamzou's own realisation and elaboration of the late Austrian composer's unfinished drafts failed to attract a large KL audience.

Gamzou first came in contact with the Adagio from Gustav Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony when he was about 12 or 13 years old, whilst fishing curiously amidst a jungle of books and scores in a local library. When he discovered that it was only the first movement of a large unfinished symphony, he instantly started investigating and was immediately confronted with the commonly accepted misinformation that the piece was a mere skeleton, a "preliminary sketch", and that it was of no use to get one’s hopes up about finding any "real symphony" out there.

One day, Gamzou suddenly felt as if the few bars in the middle of the Purgatorio (the third movement of the symphony) started telling him exactly how they wanted to be heard. His hand, almost unintentionally, took a pen and some music paper and started jotting down a few bars. Before he realised it, his Purgatorio was complete, fully orchestrated and annotated.

Frans Bouwman, a Dutch scholar who was first and foremost a musician, has dedicated his entire life to Mahler in a very selfless manner. Few people have ever amassed such an amount of knowledge about Mahler's Tenth as Bouwman has, and Gamzou believes nobody possesses such understanding of its meaning as he does.

Bouwman went on to help Gamzou for almost 10 years, providing material, allowing him glimpses into previously unpublished sketches, accompanying early performances and try outs, spending weeks and weeks correcting, proof reading and offering his knowledge, experience and above all his love for Mahler’s music with endless generosity. This is how the only "completed" version that has been prepared by a living conductor came into being. (The late Rudolf Barshai is the other conductor who has done a Mahler Symphony No 10 completion.)

In concert, the first movement (Adagio) opened with a meandering, barely tonal melody in the violas before they were joined by the whole orchestra, with a heartbreakingly beautiful melody in the violins. The movement inexorably led towards a dissonant climactic chord, which contained 9 of the 12 notes of a scale (known as the first announcement of the apocalypse), before quietly withdrawing; as if Mahler were reluctantly accepting his own impending death.

In the first Scherzo (Schnelle Viertel), Gamzou guided the MPO expertly through the frantic and exceedingly tricky changing metres of the scherzo as well as the sudden gearshifts of dynamics. The musical phrases took on a mocking tone, with the alternating Ländler-like sections being quite grotesque.

The third movement (Purgatorio) brought something resembling a sense of calm, but with violent outbursts potentially lurking behind every turn. The final outburst plunged straight into the fourth movement and second scherzo of the symphony (The Devil is dancing with me), a violent, tempestuous contrast to the seeming sense of peace of the former movement.

The very beginning of the fifth and final movement is very terrifying: twelve strokes of a muffled bass drum, played as loudly as possible; twelve universal, devastating strokes even more terminal than the hammer strokes of the Sixth Symphony, twelve strokes comprising the last hour of the universe, each one more shocking and rattling than the previous one.

Out of this, a soaring flute melody beautifully and hauntingly played by Hristo Dobrinov provided a glimmer of hope. The ensuing main section brings back the agitation of the Purgatorio, ending in a return of the nine-note dissonance. In its wake, an ethereal, hymn-like passage for the strings concluded the work, with Gamzou motionless for over a full minute before tumultuous applause erupted.

In a future season, it may be good to see Gamzou with the MPO again in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, prefaced by a short Mozart symphony, say like No 33 in B flat major K 319.

Gamzou’s extraordinary Mahler 9

Mahler’s Ninth is no ordinary piece for armchair or concert hall listening. This work in particular is fatally imbued with themes of his own approaching demise, constantly speaking of farewells that are loving and fervent as well as admiration for that which is left behind. Bitterness is also in abundance.

Encouraged by a friend who attended Yoel Gamzou’s MPO rehearsal as well as his concert on 23 January 2016, I sacrificed my Sunday afternoon nap on 24 January to watch an amazing performance of Mahler’s Ninth.

The concert opened with Mahler’s Five Rückert Lieder, warmly sung by the Brazilian baritone Paulo Szot. The MPO and Gamzou accompanied Szot discreetly.

Having being weaned on Herbert von Karajan’s award-winning DG live Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra recording from 1982, I found it very interesting that 28-year old Gamzou’s interpretation of the symphony managed to trump Karajan's reading in places and convince me of this young conductor's talent for Mahler’s music and very intimate knowledge of a piece which some conductors would not even touch at 50 years old.

The first movement (Andante comodo) was fully of intensity and beauty, played with secure technical command and with vivid characterisation. The second movement (Im tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers) was faster than usual, as Gamzou drove the MPO to great heights of virtuosity.

The Rondo Burlesque: Allegro assai was waspish at a fast pace and the MPO rendered this movement with heart stopping virtuosity too.

In the final Adagio, the collective MPO played well but lacked the last ounce of spirituality. At the end of the movement, a member of the audience rudely broke the spell of “dying away” (ersterbend) by clapping way too soon.

I'd be first in the ticket queue if Gamzou were invited back to conduct more Mahler with the MPO. He's a conductor who really studies the scores intently, conducts with clarity and balances the complex Mahlerian strands and textures perfectly.