Every performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in Singapore is an occasion. This has never changed since its premiere here in June 1994, with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by billionaire publishing magnate turned specialist Mahler, Gilbert Kaplan. Those were the claustrophobic days of packing over 250 performers onto the cramped stage of Victoria Concert Hall. Since 2003, Esplanade Concert Hall has played host to multiple Mahler Seconds, conducted by Lan Shui, Chan Tze Law and the late John Nelson. The last of these was in 2019, marking Shui’s farewell at the end of his 22-year tenure as SSO music director.
A pair of Resurrections closed the 2024-25 season, the penultimate one for Music Director Hans Graf. He will be remembered for overseeing the difficult pandemic years and transforming the orchestra into a very convincing vehicle for the symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn. In epic canvasses such as this Mahler behemoth, he is a master of breadth and scale. At 82 minutes, this was neither the swiftest of readings, nor the most protracted. It was just nice.
Nice does not begin to describe the meticulous thought and care for detail and effect invested. There was no showboating, like conducting without a score, and there was no doubt who was fully in control. The declamatory opening over string tremolos for the first movement’s funeral rites was stirring, even arresting, but not overdone. The sense of tragedy wasn't projected in-your-face but gradually built up over the movement’s course. The vista of pastoral bliss and alpine meadows in quieter parts would be subverted by the inexorable march to come, and the pay-off was well worth the wait.
The five-minute pause between the first two movements was not observed, with barely a minute to allow latecomers to settle into their seats before the Andante moderato’s graceful Ländler lilt. Here was the only respite in the symphony’s troubled trudge from death to life, with a delightful interplay of the Singapore strings in the counter-melodies. The final run of the main theme with plucked strings (held like lutes or guitars) seemed like a nod to another Viennese master’s Pizzicato Polka.
No Mahler symphony would be complete without a movement examining the morbid or macabre, and the Scherzo quoting his Wunderhorn lied Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredikt (Saint Anthony of Padua’s Sermon to the Fishes) served as that ponder on the futility of life. The rhythm established by the timpani, punctuated by rustling ruthe (bundle of rods tapping a bass drum’s frame), over which a slithering melody on the strings held sway. The shriek of anguish at its end (echoing the First Symphony’s “cry from the wounded heart”) foretold the tumult to come. The fourth movement’s orchestration of another Wunderhorn song, Urlicht (Primal Light), ushered in the beautifully mellow voice of mezzo-soprano Tanja Ariane Baumgartner. Her utterance of “Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott” (I am from God and would return to God) provided the reassurance before the final movement’s life and death struggles.
“Breathtaking” might just summarise the symphony’s last half-hour with its magnificent brass chorales, pitched battles with offstage brass and percussion, and choral contributions. Friedrich Klopstock’s Resurrection was intoned with all singers seated, and Maria Bengtsson’s pristine soprano wafting ethereally above a group of 16 sopranos was a moment to remember. Then the 186 singers of the Singapore Symphony Chorus, Singapore Symphony Youth Choir and Symphonia Choralis rose to their feet, bringing the symphony – and the occasion – to a triumphant close.
