The evening’s choristers welcomed us with a waiata by Robert Wiremu, sonorously set over chanting syncopations, with soaring soprano lines and slyly quoting the Brahms theme that influenced Mahler’s opening tune.
Saluting the landscapeof Aotearoa, from maunga and awa to moana, it sensitively complemented Mahler’s symphonic message of heeding the world around us.
The massive 95-minute symphony must have been a mighty challenge for conductor Gemma New and tonight, its first movement seemed tighter and tauter than ever, under her incisive baton; exquisite poetry stood proudly against a succession of rousing marches.
The massive 95-minute symphony must have been a mighty challenge for conductor Gemma New, writes William Dart. Photo / Supplied by orchestra
Was she mindful of Mahler describing the second movement as his most carefree music he had ever written, I wondered, as she took special delight in a few gnarly moments? Yet who could not be totally enchanted by the beautifully finessed gossamer of its final pages?
Although it did feature some fine and furious flurries, the third movement’s essential gentleness was crystalised in its magical distant horn solo.
American mezzo Sasha Cooke made her debut with this orchestra some years ago singing Mahler. Tonight, gowned in silver, it seemed as if she were one of Mahler’s angels, delivered Nietzsche’s warning words with a directness and warmth, pertinent in our times of climate consciousness.
American mezzo Sasha Cooke made her debut with this orchestra some years ago singing Mahler. Photo / Supplied by orchestra
Ironically, there was no chance of missing the utter seriousness of this movement when New and her musicians invested its comparatively stark scoring with an even greater sense of foreboding.
Cooke was also immensely touching in the movement that followed, as the penitent sinner, surrounded by jubilant, chiming choristers.
In the final 30-minute Adagio, one of Mahler’s greatest slow movements and a mighty testament to the power of love, New was in her element. Effortlessly navigating passages of chorale-like serenity along with mighty orchestral climaxes, she gave us the very emotional assurance that Mahler had originally intended.
