Darkness into Light
Aug. 25th, 2022 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiWhen I saw the listings, Prom 49 was The Big One. I did wonder whether it was too big; but, surely, an opportunity never to be repeated: Sir Simon Rattle with the London Symphony Orchestra conducting Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection). (In fact, according to the Proms archive, he has previously conducted this symphony at the Proms, with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1999). I've seen this symphony at the Proms twice before - in 2006 under Bernard Haitink and in 2017 under Sakari Oramo. But I decided this was an occasion for graft, not for checking my privilege.
So I set my alarm early, and got out of bed even earlier, having had a poor night's sleep as if a child full of anticipation for Christmas. For the first time in months it was dim enough to need to put the light on. A quick breakfast, a quiet drive into Reading, an early train in to Paddington, and a brisk walk across Kensington Gardens. I was at the Royal Albert Hall a shade after 8am, and the queue was already half-way down the steps; in fact it extended only slightly more by 9am, when the raffle tickets were handed out. However, in the current system, that guarantees a place in the queue only; as concert tickets must be bought online, there is a risk that you might find yourself at the back of another queue when the day tickets go on sale at 10:30. It was a predictably challenging experience, and I had to be determined that pressing the "Refresh" button was safe on receiving error page after error page. I was somewhat reassured when I found that this maintained my session and did not throw me out to the waiting room, but less endeared by the sound of my banking app telling me that money had been paid, corresponding with a web page that said "Sorry, something went wrong". In fact I did receive my e-mail confirmation almost immediately, which was enough to stand down, but later in the afternoon I did hear from someone whose money was taken and did not get a ticket confirmation; she went in person to the box office to resolve the matter, which I think was the right thing to do, but those staff must have spent the whole day dealing with "tired and emotional" people. The website operates a queueing system, which suggests some thought has been given to the matter, but you would expect that the volume of people progressing onto the site proper from the queue should be tuned so that the site can cope with the traffic. Apparently not, on this occasion.
When I returned later in the afternoon, the queue was definitely thrumming. Promenaders can be abrasive (particularly to queue-jumpers) but the atmosphere was good-natured. We lined up in one direction; an adjacent queue in the opposite direction consisted of hopefuls for returns. They were having some success; periodically, someone from the box office would ask if anyone in that queue was prepared to stand (possibly in the gallery); clearly there was an attempt to get as many people in as possible. My 41st position in the queue was good enough to get a fairly central position in the second row of the Arena: achievement unlocked. The capacity has been reduced from pre-Covid numbers, but it was still busy enough and humid enough to feel that the air conditioning was struggling. I noticed, unusually, that there were a couple of pockets of concertgoers seated around the fringes of the choir - clearly any space that could be sold was being sold.
Rattle began the concert by taking to the microphone and dedicating the concert to the memory of Harrison Birtwistle, who died earlier this year, and opened with his Donum Simoni MMXVIII ("A gift for Simon, 2018"). I'm not going to be a fan, but I've heard worse. It had the merit of brevity.
And so to the main event. Where to begin? It's a familiar enough work, and Rattle's 1987 CBSO recording sets the bar high. It's psychological programme music, more an exploration of states of mind than pictorial invention. The raw anguish and chaos in the first movement; calmer reflections in the second, but still interrupted by emotion; ambivalence in the third movement, with a transcendence towards the end; the short but sublime Urlicht of the fourth movement; and the journey, long and still troubled, but to an eventual and unequivocal resolution in the finale. Like Beethoven's Fifth, or Stravinsky's Firebird, it is a journey from darkness into light. Rattle stretches the work in all directions; his outrageous ritardando in the centre of the first movement still surprises, successfully, yet I doubt other conductors could get away with it. He performed a similar trick with some of the drum rolls in the finale, which seemed to go on forever. The offstage brass and percussion were out there, somewhere; it was impossible to pin them down, just in some musical aether above us in the Hall. Dame Sarah Connolly sang Urlicht in this performance and Louise Alder joined her as the soprano in the final movement. Both were sublime. As I've noted before, the finale is long, but I think I understand better why it seems that way: in contrast to that other famous choral symphony, Beethoven's Ninth, here the choir only joins in very much towards the end. It did seem strange that they sang whilst remaining sitting for some time, but like everything else in this performance, it worked. The applause would, inevitably, have gone on for ever, but with audible "thank you" and - pointing at the Arena, "you guys!" - Rattle led the LSO from the stage.
So I set my alarm early, and got out of bed even earlier, having had a poor night's sleep as if a child full of anticipation for Christmas. For the first time in months it was dim enough to need to put the light on. A quick breakfast, a quiet drive into Reading, an early train in to Paddington, and a brisk walk across Kensington Gardens. I was at the Royal Albert Hall a shade after 8am, and the queue was already half-way down the steps; in fact it extended only slightly more by 9am, when the raffle tickets were handed out. However, in the current system, that guarantees a place in the queue only; as concert tickets must be bought online, there is a risk that you might find yourself at the back of another queue when the day tickets go on sale at 10:30. It was a predictably challenging experience, and I had to be determined that pressing the "Refresh" button was safe on receiving error page after error page. I was somewhat reassured when I found that this maintained my session and did not throw me out to the waiting room, but less endeared by the sound of my banking app telling me that money had been paid, corresponding with a web page that said "Sorry, something went wrong". In fact I did receive my e-mail confirmation almost immediately, which was enough to stand down, but later in the afternoon I did hear from someone whose money was taken and did not get a ticket confirmation; she went in person to the box office to resolve the matter, which I think was the right thing to do, but those staff must have spent the whole day dealing with "tired and emotional" people. The website operates a queueing system, which suggests some thought has been given to the matter, but you would expect that the volume of people progressing onto the site proper from the queue should be tuned so that the site can cope with the traffic. Apparently not, on this occasion.
When I returned later in the afternoon, the queue was definitely thrumming. Promenaders can be abrasive (particularly to queue-jumpers) but the atmosphere was good-natured. We lined up in one direction; an adjacent queue in the opposite direction consisted of hopefuls for returns. They were having some success; periodically, someone from the box office would ask if anyone in that queue was prepared to stand (possibly in the gallery); clearly there was an attempt to get as many people in as possible. My 41st position in the queue was good enough to get a fairly central position in the second row of the Arena: achievement unlocked. The capacity has been reduced from pre-Covid numbers, but it was still busy enough and humid enough to feel that the air conditioning was struggling. I noticed, unusually, that there were a couple of pockets of concertgoers seated around the fringes of the choir - clearly any space that could be sold was being sold.
Rattle began the concert by taking to the microphone and dedicating the concert to the memory of Harrison Birtwistle, who died earlier this year, and opened with his Donum Simoni MMXVIII ("A gift for Simon, 2018"). I'm not going to be a fan, but I've heard worse. It had the merit of brevity.
And so to the main event. Where to begin? It's a familiar enough work, and Rattle's 1987 CBSO recording sets the bar high. It's psychological programme music, more an exploration of states of mind than pictorial invention. The raw anguish and chaos in the first movement; calmer reflections in the second, but still interrupted by emotion; ambivalence in the third movement, with a transcendence towards the end; the short but sublime Urlicht of the fourth movement; and the journey, long and still troubled, but to an eventual and unequivocal resolution in the finale. Like Beethoven's Fifth, or Stravinsky's Firebird, it is a journey from darkness into light. Rattle stretches the work in all directions; his outrageous ritardando in the centre of the first movement still surprises, successfully, yet I doubt other conductors could get away with it. He performed a similar trick with some of the drum rolls in the finale, which seemed to go on forever. The offstage brass and percussion were out there, somewhere; it was impossible to pin them down, just in some musical aether above us in the Hall. Dame Sarah Connolly sang Urlicht in this performance and Louise Alder joined her as the soprano in the final movement. Both were sublime. As I've noted before, the finale is long, but I think I understand better why it seems that way: in contrast to that other famous choral symphony, Beethoven's Ninth, here the choir only joins in very much towards the end. It did seem strange that they sang whilst remaining sitting for some time, but like everything else in this performance, it worked. The applause would, inevitably, have gone on for ever, but with audible "thank you" and - pointing at the Arena, "you guys!" - Rattle led the LSO from the stage.