Jubilee in the Concertgebouw – May 2025
‘Another home orchestra’ for Mahler
Amsterdam has the longest history and most spectacular latest achievement in organizing Mahler Festivals. Willem Mengelberg invited Mahler to introduce his own music in Amsterdam, at first the third symphony in 1903. Mahler was very pleased with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and even found an interested audience in Amsterdam. He presented altogether six of the symphonies (1-5 and 7) in the Concertgebouw and edited some of them during the rehearsing. As a result, the scores became tuned in – and for – the acoustics of the Concertgebouw. It has been said that Mahler called Concertgebouw as his second home stage, and the respect grew mutual. A Mahler tradition took root in the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, which has earned a wide reputation and fame for ‘Mahler in Concertgebouw’.
In May 1920 Mengelberg and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra presented eight of the Mahler’s symphonies (1-9, but omitting the fourth), Das Lied von der Erde and song cycles in nine consecutive concerts. The project was entitled as ‘Mahler-Fest’. At least the annual Colorado MahlerFest has adopted this language independent title, which suits pretty well to multiple languages – including Finnish, I would propose.
By the way, the MahlerFest 39 Programme,
May 13 – 17, 2026 in Boulder, Colorado is just published.
International Festival – 1995 in the Concertgebouw
Concertgebouw hosted a follow-up festival and symposium in May 1995. This time, several orchestras and conductors shared the performing of the complete cycle: the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic and BBC National Orchestra of Wales; Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Chailly, Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti and Mark Wigglesworth. The Symposium was chaired by Donald Mittchell, Henry-Louis de La Grange and Eduard Reeser. All big orchestras and names in Mahler.
By the way, Claudio Abbado had already organized a broad
Mahler Festival 1985 in London. A subject for another story.
Getting Global – 2025 in the Concertgebouw
A third Mahler Festival – 100 years after the first one was announced. All Mahler’s symphonies were again to be performed in the Concertgebouw in 2020. The performing orchestras were to be: the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic had even bigger plans. The Festival went virtual – and postponed to 2025.
The second attempt in May 9th – 18th 2025 reached a third continent in the list of performing orchestras and seem to have reached all its goals in a massive scale: All 23 concerts and 11 open-air broadcasts were sold out, counting to 56 000 visitors from 56 countries. And two Finns played visible roles in opening and closing the cycle of the symphonies.
As the newly appointed maestro of The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Klaus Mäkelä conducted the Eight with 420 performers including choirs from Paris, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and the Dutch National Children’s Choir on the extended Concertgebouw Main Hall stage. He naturally received good reviews, e.g. by Clare Varney/Bachtrack.com :
“… the performances this week will surely provide a defining point in Mäkelä’s career. From the very first note, meticulous preparation was evident, everyone on stage quite literally singing from the same page. Mäkelä made the difficult sound easy; the challenging, accessible. The journey, seamless and natural, never lost sight of the overarching narrative.”
The Symphonies were performed by the following orchestras:
- The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra was led by Klaus Mäkelä – for M1 & M8
- The Budapest Festival Orchestra was led by Iván Fischer- for M2 & M5
- The NHK Symphony of Tokyo was led by Fabio Luisi – for M3 & M4
- The Chicago Symphony was led by Jaap van Zweden – for M6 & M7
- The Berlin Philharmonic was led by Kirill Petrenko – for M9
- The Berlin Philharmonic was led by Sakari Oramo – for M10 & Das Lied
Somebody might be surprised of listing the NHK Symphony Orchestra in this festival team. I admit that I was too, though I know that it is a prominent orchestra. However, their role in performing the Mahler’s fourth was extremely well reasoned. The NHK Symphony Orchestra was the first orchestra making a recording of a complete Mahler symphony, and that was the fourth in 1930.
Glimpses into the Concertgebouw
Janet Horvath has prepared a good summary and commentaries of the festival (the symphonic part), including also couple minute video greetings from the played symphonies and introductory ‘talk and play’ stories by the Concertgebouw section leaders. The whole story can be seen at ‘interlude.hk’. I select a few examples:
- Martin Schippers, Trombone section leader in the Concertgebouw talks of the historical perspective, playing from the Mahler time original scores and of the rare task for his brass section, a beautiful chorale by trombones in M2. (a clip of 3:40).
- Omar Tomasoni, principal trumpet of the Concertgebouw is a happy offstage posthorn player for M3. Not during this festival, but after delivering his message during a Concertgebouw’s M3, having a good time for a bier offstage, while the colleagues play. He is not explaining what message the posthorn is delivering, but demonstrates the difference between a trumpet and posthorn. According to Mahler, the third symphony depicted evolution from inorganic earth to living beings, from man to divine love and angels. The distant posthorn announces that the humanity is arriving on the scene – the first man at the Concertgebouw foyer bar (in a clip of 3:17).
I must admit, that I had another reason to pick this clip. His name is Armin. A senior researcher on material performance and mechanical engineering from Erlangen, Germany. Not only a research partner and good friend for many of us, former colleagues at VTT, but also a musician playing trombone and other brass. The famous posthorn player in M3. One of the small minority that can alone represent all of humanity.
- Last but not the least, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Klaus Mäkelä miraculously saving Faust and finally concluding that Women are the bosses (… das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan). The last minutes of Mahler’s Eight are followed by smiling faces and standing ovation. (6:45 + 5:15 in this clip)
Chorus Mysticus:
Alles Vergängliche All that is transistory
ist nur ein Gleichnis; is but a symbol;
das Unzulängliche, the incomplete
hier wird’s Ereignis; is here fulfilled;
das Unbeschreibliche, the indescribable
hier ist’s getan; is here accomplished;
das Ewig-Weibliche the Eternal Feminine
zieht uns hinan. draws us ever upwards.