Conductors generally get slower with age. Not just the speed with which they move, naturally enough, but the tempi they adopt. Think of late Karajan or Klemperer, Bernstein or Barenboim with their general gear shifts towards the marmoreal, as if to signify profundity. At the venerable age of 97, and after suffering a fall last year, Herbert Blomstedt moves with understandable caution to take his seat at the podium, here taking the arm of the Philharmonia’s leader, Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay. His gestures are contained now, but his music-making remains as lively and alert as ever.
In his lengthy career, Blomstedt hasn’t conducted a lot of Mahler – he’s always been much more of a Bruckner guy – but in recent years he has led a number of orchestras in the Ninth Symphony, including a recording with the Bamberg Symphony. Just last week he conducted it in Helsinki. Now it was London’s turn.
It’s difficult not to see the work – and this performance – as a farewell. The Ninth was Mahler’s last completed symphony and, although he began drafting a tenth, it has the pall of death hanging over it, starting with the irregular rhythmic motif at the symphony’s opening, which Leonard Bernstein was convinced was a premonition of death, depicting Mahler’s irregular heartbeat. Next to the sighing falling interval, the composer himself wrote “Leb wohl” into the score.
“Do not go gentle into that good night,” wrote Dylan Thomas, but Blomstedt’s vision of the Ninth here was less raging “against the dying of the light”, more of a fond farewell, a contented leave-taking. The sunset of the great closing Adagio glowed with rich, mellow beauty.
This was indeed a mellow Mahler 9, but not a lethargic one (84 minutes including some lengthy pauses to reset between movements). Conducting with expressive hands, often just a finger jab to cue sections or a small sweep of the arms, Blomstedt drew superb playing from the Philharmonia, particularly the strings, drawing out the middle voices of the cellos and violas and their inner harmonies.
The Andante comodo contained plenty of atmosphere – eerie harps, sinister muted brass, baleful clarinets – but it was not dragged out. The second movement’s Ländler was earthy and clod-hopping before morphing to a waltz, whirling almost out of control with comic punctuation from the horns, doing their best Fafner impressions, and grumbling contrabassoon. The Rondo-Burleske was far from an exaggerated caricature, but there was still room for snarky E flat clarinet interjections.
At 24 minutes, the Adagio flowed with purpose, powered by phenomenal string playing; not a harrowed leave-taking, but gloriously life-affirming, full of peace and quiet contentment. After holding the silence for 30 seconds, Blomstedt finally dropped his arms, triggering an instant standing ovation.
The symphony was prefaced by Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 4 in D major, played by Leonidas Kavakos who also directed quite a large ensemble. After taking a while to find his stride, Kavakos found his sweet spot for the Andante cantabile and the closing Rondeau was suitably graceful. But Mahler’s Ninth can stand perfectly well by itself in a concert programme, especially when conducted by an elder statesman of Blomstedt’s stature in a simply unforgettable performance.
