BBC Proms Masterworks: Strauss and Mahler BBC Proms

Hope, disaster, joy and oblivion.

We're going on an orchestral odyssey into the emotional abyss

in one of tonight's masterworks -

Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony.

It's an appropriately momentous piece for a Prom

that's been designated by UNESCO as the 2014 UNESCO Concert For Peace,

this year, when we're marking the 100th anniversary

since the outbreak of World War I.

But, this is a vertiginously challenging symphony,

technically, and above all, emotionally.

And it's conducted by a musician

who has "risk" as his essential musical DNA,

and at the tips of his fingers.

And, with an orchestra who only rarely play together.

Valery Gergiev conducts the World Orchestra For Peace.

But before he and the orchestra get to the Mahler,

they're taking on a work

of sheer orchestral virtuosity and sumptuousness.

Richard Strauss's symphonic fantasia on his opera

Die Frau Ohne Schatten.

But, believe me, tonight at the Proms, anything could happen.

I've just heard the World Orchestra For Peace

rehearse for the very first time,

Strauss's Symphonic Fantasia on Die Frau Ohne Schatten.

Now, to be honest, it sounds a bit like what it is,

which is 102 individuals from 78 orchestras in 32 countries.

It's a bit like a collection of ingredients

that are meeting each other, but not quite coming

together in that full gastronomic - or musical - experience,

and they've only got two days for that to happen.

Now, one of the orchestras, one of the countries represented, is Australia,

the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

The leader of the second violins is Monica Curro

and she's the co-principal leader of the second violin section

in this performance of the Strauss in the World Orchestra For Peace.

I'm going to find out from Monica Curro what it's like to be part

of this thrilling, and rather dangerous, orchestral experience.

The orchestra is an unusual creature

where it's made up of

extremely proficient and extraordinary soloists

and leaders and concert masters.

So, there's a lot of instruction

which doesn't have to come from anybody

because the level of proficiency is very high,

but also the level of listening.

And so, they're not used to following anybody

they're used to leading people and you have to listen to do that.

So, everybody's listening.

You can almost see the listening, it's that palpable.

Is that when you get lots of leaders trying to lead? You would think so.

But it's not, actually. Because, what happens between every piece

is this vastly different seating.

So, there's never an alpha person,

because the person who will lead the Strauss, for example,

will be on the fifth desk for the Mahler.

So, it's all very egalitarian and collegial

and everyone's just there to make it really good.

It's just a very auspicious occasion.

In the middle of all that textual complexity of Strauss's music,

are there any particular moments that we should listen out for?

Mostly from you, of course, but anywhere else in the orchestra?

There's a moment that starts in bar one and finishes at the end

because it's incredibly hard.

There are billions of notes, and I was talking to the viola players,

we were lamenting how it's not really in our contract

to have to play that high. But, Strauss didn't care.

We are right up in mouth position,

I'm getting a bit of vertigo, actually, on my part!

But, yeah, it's definitely challenging,

especially, as you say, in two days.

And it's throughout, is unrelenting. It's relentless.

Relentlessly complicated

and the texture is so thick, as well!

You just can't... If you lose it, you're going to lose it.

You're going to be lost for half a page!

And there are lots of fairytale dimensions for us to get lost in

as listeners, to Strauss's music, too.

But there's no need to worry too much about the opera's story.

It premiered in 1919 and Strauss made this fantasia in 1946.

The story's about an immortal fairy who tries to steal

the shadow of a human woman, but she fails in her quest,

thanks to an epiphany of compassion.

But, forget about all that, and instead luxuriate

in the orchestral high wire act

that we're going to see in the next 20 minutes or so

and hope that the players of the World Orchestra For Peace don't,

in fact, get lost.

PIECE ENDS

APPLAUSE

MURMURING

Well, frankly, I'm astonished.

That journey from the first rehearsal of that piece that

I heard this orchestra, to what we've just heard is like comparing

a group of individuals to a fully fledged Strauss orchestra.

Of course, it's a huge feat the players, including Monica Curro.

Monica, how were those billions of notes for you?

The funny thing is that you think that it's going to be horrendous

and, like you said, we've only had a couple of days,

but it was just divine. It was divine.

I'm flanked by this Spanish genius here,

and this Concertgebouw monster here.

Nothing could possibly have gone wrong.

It was just so divine, the sound.

Being in a part of that level and world of sound was just...amazing.

How has it happened? I mean, watching Gergiev conduct

and watching you all move together. as well,

I don't know if there's a little fairy dust sprinkled

on that magic toothpick with which he's conducting you tonight.

How is it actually happening?

Are you aware of what's...? How this is actually possible?

I think there's a completely different level of concentration

at the gig rather than at the rehearsals.

In the rehearsals, you're thinking about your own thing,

and the nuts and bolts,

and "Maybe that fingering wouldn't have been so good as that other one."

And, "Oh, I have to listen out for the violas there,"

But inner dialogue conversation completely stops in a concert.

It's just play.

And everyone just goes...

It's like being, I don't know, hit by the wave or something.

Monica, thank you. Listen, I've got to let you prepare

for the next behemoth on this programme.

Oh, that's easy compared with...!

That's my bread-and-butter! I don't do opera.

That's unbelievable! That shows what this orchestra is capable of.

Monica, thank you. Thanks.

This Prom also featured the European premiere

of Roxanna Panufnik's Three Paths To Peace,

Next, Mahler's Sixth Symphony.

Now, this is a work that conductor Valery Gergiev knows intimately.

He's conducted it many times all over the world

over the last couple of decades.

But you can't take any performance of this piece for granted,

I met him at rehearsals and asked him

what kind of challenge this is,

to put together this enormous symphony

Yes, there is a challenge. You need a good orchestra.

There is no chance you can make a good orchestra

if musicians do not hear extremely well.

They have to understand each other and hear.

That's how you make music together.

Here, and you listen.

And then, they listen to the one who is maybe 20 metres away,

but you listen all the time.

You can't make a good concert if you don't hear.

And, of course, Mahler, his Sixth Symphony

has this anxiety, even fear, sometimes

that something terrible can happen.

That's why his Sixth Symphony sometimes is called "tragic".

There are many moments which are clearly nothing to do with tragedy.

He's so close to nature and the beauty of the landscape.

When you have cowbell,

and cowbell just transports you completely,

takes you somewhere else.

The cowbells are in the first movement,

as a vision in the first movement,

they are a lot of the slow movement and in the finale, too.

Yes, and I think this symphony does not...

..predict any historical events, but...

So, it's not a premonition of the First World War, you don't think?

No, I don't think particularly this symphony.

I think in this symphony,

you hear something what doesn't make people feel protected,

feel comfortable, feel very well placed, you know?

Ain't that the truth!

This symphony contains some of

Mahler's most hallucinogenically nightmarish music,

above all, in its half-hour long finale.

But in the three movements that come before it,

there are images of grotesque playfulness in the scherzo,

of uneasy alpine tranquillity in the slow movement that comes second.

And the very first movement, you'll hear a dark march

right at the start of the symphony that drives the music on

to soaring heights of expressive intensity and passion

and down to lows of implacable torment.

And the whole symphony ends by consigning its hero and us,

as its listeners, to a fate of horrifying and tragic desolation.

Prepare yourselves for the next 80 minutes of music,

just as these musicians are preparing to take you

on a journey of musical and existential discovery.

APPLAUSE

MOVEMENT ENDS

APPLAUSE

PIECE ENDS

APPLAUSE

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

LOUD CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

It's difficult to know how to respond to the experience

of living and dying - metaphorically, at least -

through Mahler's Sixth Symphony.

Applause seems a bit weird to me. I mean, what are we applauding?

Our own emotional wreckage? The end of all things?

Questions that don't have easy answers.

But perhaps that's the point of this work and this concert.

We're all left with this challenge with how we deal with the trauma

of the symphony individually, ourselves,

and collectively, as an audience, as a community.

And maybe that's the connection between this Prom,

this orchestra, the World Orchestra For Peace,

and some wider idea of peace.

That is up to us what happens next.

APPLAUSE CONTINUES