Mahler 6 , Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Leipzig Mahler Festival 28/5/23

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Semyon Bychkov: Mahler Symphony No 6

And so to the final concert, after 12 previous live musical events (plus two one-hour sessions of Bach), 11 talks, and one film over 11 days…….

This was (here I go with those superlatives again) a magnificent performance. I doubt if I have ever heard a better one live (I have heard Haitink, Chailly, Boulez and Harding conduct this). The reasons for this were, I think:

1. That the orchestra played magnificently – soaring strings, wonderful first horn, very striking  – in several sense of the word – timpanist, a beautiful warm sound, but at the same time playing as though they were putting a special effort into this performance; their playing had a few minor fluffs, but that somehow emphasised the emotional commitment of the playing – they weren’t a super-orchestra on auto-pilot
2. That Bychkov conducted the work superbly – all the tempi made absolute sense. He also – marked as being necessary in the score but not always observed – took the repeat in the first movement. He played the Andante 3^rd, which to me makes more emotional sense, and is the way I got to know the piece in the recording I had as a teenager (Bernstein NYPO). There were many memorable moments:
   1. The slowing down (but not suddenly and not crassly) for the Alma theme in the first movement
   1. Within quite a fast basic pulse in the first movement, the sense of quiet and ethereality of the passage with the cowbells
   1. The sweep of the end of the first movement
   1. The slow winding down of the slow movement towards its end
   1. The glorious string sound and broadening of tempo for the climax of the slow movement
   1. The careful gradation of tempi in the finale – this can very easily seem episodic, and the conductor has to get the sense of crisis upon crisis building up in the music, with the first two hammer blows as only temporary relief. Bychkov did this superbly
   1. The broadening of tempo before the third hammer blow (which Bychkov like most did not seek to reinstate)

              These are only some of the memorable moments from this performance.

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So, all in all, summing up the Festival in an obviously subjective and fairly general way, I’d say that the only performance I felt was sub-standard as a performance, from a conducting perspective, (though well played) was the 1^st Symphony. I was out of sorts for DLVDE and so can’t comment on that. The evening with Das Klagende Lied was interesting and absorbing. Symphonies Nos 2, 4, 7, and 10 received very good performances. The stand-outs for me were Symphonies Nos 3, 5, 6, 8 and 9., particularly Nos 5, 6 and 9 The orchestras were all strikingly good in their different ways. A marvellous 11 days!