If there would be one piece to show someone asking “who is Mahler?” the third symphony would undoubtedly be my first choice. Though it does not perhaps reach the heights of expressionism of some of his later symphonies, it perfectly exemplifies everything Mahler’s music is about: contrast between emotional extremes, ingenuitive orchestration, and a juxtaposition of the sublime and trivial. What perhaps identifies this piece apart from Mahler’s other symphonies its incredible drama. For a start, it is comprised of two parts, the second of which is divided into five smaller movements, giving it a feeling more like that of an opera with two acts and 6 scenes than a traditional symphony. Musical ideas seem to interrupt each other; wither and die rather than develop; burst forth out of nothing, giving the piece a real sense of a story but one that can be applied universally to one’s own experiences: something that only music can achieve.
This performance by the BBC Scottish Orchestra gave me more goose bumps more times than a musical performance ever has. Rarely have I seen a professional orchestra more involved in the music, working incredibly hard to convey existentialist messages embedded in the music. I particularly enjoyed the gay abandon with which they approached the deliberately trivial or banal moments of the piece; a wonderfully shameless spirit that seemed to conjure images of Mahler sticking a very musical two fingers up to the critics of his second symphony and his attempts to make his symphonies ‘like the world’. Many times I found myself smiling, almost chuckling at these quasi-ironic features to then be confronted once more with the expressionistic reality of the music; a contrast that makes both elements all the more lucid and powerful, as if to say “you really shouldn’t be laughing at this”. Well captured was also the contrast between the constant –dare I say, daily– terrestrial turmoil, and the metaphysical, timeless, ethereal qualities created by interjections from offstage trumpet solos, evoking a sacred break from worldly troubles, particularly in the third movement.