Once you hear Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, you become a different person. That’s what conductor Herbert von Karajan once said. Wondering how many people experience the same thing since they were allowed to experience the symphony on stage – Between the Orchestra – while the NNO played.
“Are you careful where you walk? A double bass can easily cost 100,000 euros.” These are words of warning that Anthonie Feenstra gives the hundred lucky ones before they are guided in groups to the stage in the large hall of the Groningen cultural center De Oosterpoort.
Just in front of it, Feenstra, public & market team leader, is still talking to guest conductor Antony Hermus in the foyer. There is no trace of nerves in Hermus, he radiates exceptionally looking forward to it. He makes no secret of the fact that he is a great fan of the work of the composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). He is more than happy to share his enthusiasm and convey it to an audience.
Mahler can be very intense
“Mahler can be very intense,” says Hermus. And he doesn’t just mean emotional depth. It just depends on where you sit, but it is not without reason that the earplugs are given to visitors.
“I was on stage once, but I don’t remember how I got there,” I hear a lady say as the doors to the backstage open and we walk through the wings. Once on stage it looks wonderful. The room, which normally seats about eleven hundred people, is empty. Besides musicians, there are groups of people everywhere.
A symphony must contain everything
It is a quarter past nine and Hermus appears on the scene to stand on the box. “The orchestra is a kind of family that you belong to today to experience this concert together. We are not giving everything away, we are still in the middle of the rehearsal process for the concerts that we will give on Friday in Leeuwarden and Saturday here in Groningen.”
Hermus introduces a quote from Mahler himself: “A symphony must be like the world: it must contain everything.” It is nevertheless striking that the Bohemia-born composer starts his five-part composition with a Funeral march in which death is central. In C-sharp minor.
Uncomfortable looking back
Suddenly the game is on the wagon. From somewhere behind me to my left a trumpet sounds and it is as if the procession is starting dramatically. It still feels a bit too uncomfortable to look back extensively from where I sit. In front of me on the left I see violas, on the right cellos. It is almost disrespectful to look so closely at the musicians, fingers that deftly touch the strings of the wooden instruments. It’s also nice to see Hermus’s inspired face while he conducts.
So strangely enough there is life after death. This Fifth Symphony marks a second life for Mahler, who suffered hemorrhages that almost killed him a few months before he started composing. And once he started writing in Austria in 1901, he met the love of his life: the composer Alma Schindler, almost twenty years his junior. They married four months later.
Addictive, that experience with these heavenly sounds
Mahler wrote the fourth movement for her, it Adagietto , in F major. “A declaration of love, with a central role for the harp,” says Hermus. “It sounds, among other things, in the film Death in Venice , but was also played at John F. Kennedy’s funeral. And Leonard Bernstein has the open score on his chest in his grave.”
When the strings start en masse, it’s almost as if I’m floating away. Precisely because I am in the middle of the sound, it makes a very overwhelming impression. Addictive, because I want to experience that experience with these intoxicating and heavenly sounds more often.
Declaration of love cannot last long enough
That in the concluding fifth part, Rondo Final (in D major), there is still a party and the orchestra is unpacking, escapes me somewhat. Actually, I want to go back to the declaration of love that couldn’t last long enough for me.
After 45 minutes it is over and the musicians stand up to receive the applause. Finally I dare to turn around. I look into the friendly face of Justine Gerretsen who created such striking sounds with her oboe. She laughs and clearly had fun making this special experience possible.
A different experience and experience
“We did something like that about ten years ago during a gala,” says Marcel Mandos. The artistic director himself is also enthusiastic about this form. “I now sat at the back with the horns and percussion. That gives a completely different experience, you don’t hear what the violins are doing at the front and you notice how important the role of the conductor is in keeping everything together and in balance.”
My stage neighbor Aad is standing in the foyer with his wife Jannet. “An experience,” they say in unison. They come from Almere, but they met in 1970 during their student days in Groningen. And until recently they played together in Toonkunst Bussum, an amateur orchestra. He viola, she cello. “It would take us three months to study these 45 minutes,” says Aad. “Great to see how the musicians played up close!”
Between the Orchestra, in Leeuwarden and Groningen
The NNO plays the complete Fifth Symphony by Mahler plus work by Debussy on Friday in Leeuwarden (15/12, De Harmonie) and Saturday in Groningen (16/12, De Oosterpoort). In May, Tussen het Orkest returns, with Ravel, Szymanowski and Stravinsky on the program (subject to change).