<<  -- 5 --  Tess Crebbin    BATON MAGICIAN?

TC: What does Mahler mean to you?

DS: The world. To me, having grown with Bernstein's Mahler, and studying all the Mahler symphonies and having conducted nearly all of them, Mahler is as close to exploring the mysteries of human existence as you can get. Maybe it's the passion for music within me, or my personal outlook on life, which makes me feel this way. To me, Mahler's symphonies are about every aspect of life imaginable and they nearly contain every emotion known to man: the height of ecstasy, the depth of despair, life's playfulness, its wittiness, its love and passion, its tragedy. Mahler is about the great outdoors, about intimacy ... Every emotion that a human being can experience Mahler was able to somehow put into music, and with the most amazing colors. His palate of colors was spectacular.

TC: How does this translate musically, from a conductor's point of view?

DS: You have the most intimate moments with just chamber music quality, and then you have this bombast, this orgy of sound, with a four hundred piece orchestra. Conducting a Mahler symphony is always very powerful, whether you do the 6th symphony with the hammer strokes, or the ninth with the way life just fades out at the end. The last two pages of the ninth symphony take eight minutes to play, just two pages, this evaporation of the soul ... Or take the posthorn in the 3rd ... The third symphony to me is just one of the greatest. There is this famous quote when Bruno Walter arrived, visiting Mahler at his country home in the mountains. When he got off the boat, Walter looked up at the splendid mountains and Mahler, who was writing his third symphony at the time, remarked: 'Don't bother looking there, it's all in my new symphony.' The idea that the symphony would open with eight horns in unison at the beginning is just unbelievable. Or take the 5th symphony, starting with just one trumpet solo, this military funeral march in a way, and then breaking out into this unbelievably passionate music.

TC: Mahler has it all, then?

DS: Absolutely. Aside from the great music, the immense depth of emotion, it is also great fun for the musicians. Every instrument is a soloist and the musicians experience a feeling of truly being challenged when they play. They are never bored playing a Mahler symphony. And for a conductor, the idea that you could be immersed in all of this emotion, immersed in all of this incredible sound, is fantastically fulfilling.