Despite its unofficial subtitle, Mahler never settled on a definitive narrative for his Second Symphony. But although he scrapped his own programmatic explanations, the sense of epic trajectory has clung on. Like Beethoven’s Ninth, the symphony’s finale features a chorus and soloists as well as vast orchestral forces in a shattering, cosmic-scale climax.
No surprise, then, that the ending of the Hallé’s first Proms appearance with their new principal conductor, Kahchun Wong, was utterly gripping: the breathtakingly elemental chords of its opening; offstage horns slicing laser-like through the air; climaxes snatched away to leave tiny, muttering details; the nightmarish outbreak of brass and percussion from the gallery. Conducting without a score, Wong maintained ultraprecise coordination across the cavernous Royal Albert Hall. A full hour into the performance, the nose-to-tail Prommers stood as if transfixed, even before the Hallé Choir and Hallé Youth Choir entered with their first unaccompanied passage – minutely blended and astonishingly quiet. In the symphony’s final minutes, with an organ pedal that vibrated through the floor, catastrophically powerful lower brass and bells pealing from the gallery, Wong ditched his baton and manoeuvred his supersized forces with tremendous, muscular arm sweeps, as if single-handedly hauling an ocean liner into dock. Many sprang to their feet with the final chord still ringing.
What made that finale so powerful, however, was Wong’s commitment to the long game. A big baton-flick upwards at the start launched energetic scrubbing from the upper strings – but Mahler’s strange, frantic motif for the cellos and basses was earthy rather than ferocious and Wong returned to a baseline of pianissimo, gossamer tone (polished rather than characterful) at every opportunity. The second movement was a strictly genteel, sugar-coated account of Mahler’s Ländler. Only in the third did something more vivid begin to take hold: sinewy woodwind solos, snarling stopped horns, the big, slow bloom of two gongs. The subsequent orchestral song featuring Emily D’Angelo’s creamy mezzo felt oddly underpowered, as if Wong was pulling back still further with the finale in mind. But the refinement of Wong’s approach also persisted, beguilingly, into the fifth, providing lightness and limpidity for each of Mahler’s deep shadows.