There’s always that fear when there’s only one piece on the programme, and so no interval, that you are in for a long slog. But far from it with Stéphane Denève’s interpretation of Mahler’s full and complex 6th Symphony.
There are four movements but the order they are played is interesting for whilst the published score has as the second a Scherzo, when Mahler conducted them at his own premier in 1906 he put the third, an Andante, before the Scherzo. We heard the Symphony in the order it was published; in Glasgow the night before they heard it the way Mahler first performed it.
Katherine Wren, the viola player of fifteen years with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, carefully and enthusiastically explained the technical differences in her first pre-concert talk in the Usher Hall. Always a perfectionist we could hear in the background the conductor having a last minute rehearsal on the stage before the audience was allowed in. Katherine Wren spoke, as an aside, of the possibility that he might have made further changes whilst she was upstairs talking to us.
It is a lively symphony and gives prominence to every part of the orchestra over its extent, especially to the lesser used instruments such as the piccolo, tuba, two harps and triangle. Robbie Gibson on the triangle some of the time and otherwise on his drums, and playing alongside his father, was surprisingly influential and a triumph.
Cowbells in the background every so often reminded us that Mahler started to write the piece in Carinthia in the Alps. We did not see the cowbells but they were behind the stage doors which, for audible effect, at times were opened wide and other times only a bit.
Towards the end there was raised a huge and no doubt very heavy hammer which twice fell on cue with a powerful thud. Meanwhile a nearby percussion player had moved out of the way for his own safety.
In the week in which Stéphane Denève announced that he is to become Chief Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2011, although also staying a further year in Scotland until 2012, he and all his players can be proud of an almost full house and probably the longest and loudest applause of their Usher Hall season so far.
Event: Friday 12 March 2010 7.30 pm.