Concert Review – Philharmoniker: Around the World with Mahler

“Mahler rocks!” Written on the festival guest shirt, you can understand this slogan. If you understand rock music as something that likes to tap the drum out loud and doesn’t care about the preferences of the older generation, Gustav Mahler is definitely right there, especially with his third symphony. Working for about 150 musicians and dancers with a connection to the classical symphony Like a Fish with a Bicycle, she wants to put together a musical picture of the entire world along a record approximately two-hour length, from the untamed mountains to human love – and it does so in the context of a bonding music of Brucknerpathos, a procession march, a church service choir and a field Mahler’s very special, melancholic tune with a penchant for bad turns.

The Vienna Orchestra has now balanced this colossus with conductor Anders Nilssons at the Großer Festspielhaus on Saturday, and there is no doubt: neither the orchestra or vocal ensembles participating (BR Choir, Salzburg Children’s Festival Choir) nor the soloists of the musician lack the flexibility and tenacity of Martin Gabriel with Glisande abyss even Violetta Ormana as alto speaker for Nietzsche’s Midnight Song. But because Nelson eschews vocal radicalism — gaudy or intimate — in favor of a routine middle ground, favorites like the third-motion solo trumpet lose their appealing effect and the symphony feels like it’s crossing the two-hour limit. Nietzsche says the world is deep. Here it also looks very long. However, full applause after completing the force tour.