Page 242 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

This symphony was so radical in its ear-shredding dissonance and sheer blank-eyed horror that
the musicians didn’t dare go ahead with the premiere. This was 1936 after all, at the height of
Stalin’s Terror. This tremendous performance caught the way genuine feeling keeps trying to be
born – a sad little melody in the bassoon over here, a fragile moment of rosy harmonic pinkness
over there in harps. But these were soon blotted out by the return of the music’s relentless war-
machine, gathering in sinister quietness in the side-drums before rising to engulf everything.

Rattle’s performance had an annihilating force, but was also subtle enough to offer a lesson in how
tyranny degrades whatever it touches. Even the moments of tenderness seemed dubious, because
they had this tendency to turn into parodies of themselves, a corruption brilliantly caught by the
numerous instrumental soloists – too numerous to list, alas.

After the apocalyptic ending, which felt like witnessing the aftermath of nuclear war, everyone sat
aghast, hardly daring to move. It was overwhelming, and not an experience you’d want on every
visit to the concert hall. But it was proof, if anyone actually needs it, that this art form can reach
into every crevice of the soul. We’d traversed the breadth of human experience in two-and-a-half
hours, from the most delicate shades of nostalgia to the obliteration of everything. IH
See this concert on mezzo.tv from 16 March.