STUDENT MUSIC REVIEW: The RNCM Symphony Orchestra, RNCM, Manchester.

The RNCM's mighty Symphony Orchestra gave it's first full public concert of the season this evening, and goodness gracious me, it has set the bar extremely high for itself for any further concerts throughout the year. Not content with Mozart or Mendelssohn, they went straight for the jugular and chose one of the longest, hardest, and certainly the most inaccessible of the 10 symphonies composed by Austrian, Gustav Mahler. 

Before that behemoth however, they played a shorter piece by contemporary American composer, Steven Stucky, his 'Funeral Music For Queen Mary, After Henry Purcell'. Stucky's love of Purcell's music is well known, and here, he has taken a piece of music composed in 1695 which was played for the funeral of said Queen Mary, and transmogrified it reimagining perhaps what it might have sounded like had it been composed by Purcell in the 20th century. It is an unusual piece, scored for wind band, harp and piano, and sits somewhere between Baroque and 20th century both stylistically and aurally. Conducted by student conductor Agata Zajac, it was rigid, regal, melancholy, yet exacting, clear, and dynamically satisfying.  

After a brief but enlightening talk by the work's conductor Antony Hermus, we then settled in to listen to (without interval) the entire 90-minute symphony. Mahler's 10th symphony was left incomplete at his death - (this, along with a couple more famous composers who failed to complete a tenth symphony before their passing, has become known as 'the curse of the ninth') - and so we listened this evening to the most often performed version, completed by Deryck Cooke. 

Mahler was at the height of his compositional prowess, but sadly his personal life was in complete turmoil. His 10th symphony therefore is his most dissonant and difficult to listen to, as he poured all of his emotions feverishly and uncompromisingly into this symphony, aware of his own mortality. Mahler throws everything into this work. He is well known for utilising musical fragments from the sights and sounds of he quotidien life... the Viennese cafe society, the woods and mountains of the area around Maria Worth, the weather, but most of all the people and the music of the people. This symphony is no different in this regard, as we can clearly hear all of the above and more in this work juxtaposed with his own personal screams of anguish as harmony jostles with discord, lyricism with dissonance. A battle ensues throughout this piece - which never truly gets resolved - between beauty and ugliness, love and hate, life and death, hope and despair.

Some composers wrote music that can be listened to and enjoyed subliminally.. a catchy tune, clever harmony, and you find yourself humming that tune the following day. However, there are other composers who demand a level of intellectuality in order to understand the music, and require the listener to do nothing else whilst it is being played other than listen, and listen intently. Mahler, of course, falls in to the latter category, and with the help of Hermus's introduction, we were able to better understand the work and listen out for the moments in the score which he highlighted.

Antony Hermus was a superb conductor, and was physically and emotionally drained at the end of this piece. Precise, clear, passionate, emotive, animate, and above all, truthful to Mahler, the orchestra responded to him superbly and he managed to wring the very best out of every musician. Wow, just simply, wow. He and the RNCM Symphony Orchestra truly deserved their extended standing ovation at the end of this evening's performance.  

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 4.11.22