Review
TITLE: Mahler Symphony No. 6, Orchestra of Opera North
VENUE: Huddersfield Town HallBY: CHRIS ROBINS
CONDUCTOR Jac van Steen, who always does electrifying work with the Opera North Orchestra, paired two symphonies from the beginning and end of the Viennese tradition – Haydn’s 44th from the 1770s and Mahler’s 6th from the 1900s.
Both cover angst and despair, Haydn in 20 minutes and Mahler in 90.
Both are driven by inexorable rhythms. Both have slow movements placed third in their four-movement schemes, rather than the usual second. Both have hammer blows in their final movements – Haydn’s delivered by strings and Mahler’s by percussion.
I know it is heresy to say so, but I think the Haydn is the better piece.
Jac van Steen played it with gravitas and uncompromisingly quick tempos, its intense first movement relentlessly searing.
It is extraordinary how Mahler is always a ‘special occasion’ for concert audiences these days. Perhaps it is his sheer gigantism – this was the largest orchestra Opera North have ever fielded in Huddersfield – or perhaps it is the required feats of virtuosity, which were all performed excellently here.
Certainly, the end of the 6th Symphony was greeted by a large audience with storms of applause and whoops of emotion.
The 6th Symphony has a harder edge and is more intense and less romantically nostalgic than Mahler’s others.
It is, arguably, the last in which he had anything much to say.
Jac van Steen kept it tightly controlled and compressed, taut as a bowstring, its military marches and café tunes the nightmarish distortions Mahler intended, and its ambiguities superbly presented.
