Gustav Mahler, Symphony No 6
Auckland Philharmonia
The Great Hall, Auckland Town Hall
August 20

This week the Auckland Philharmonia will be playing one of the first and probably the greatest autobiographical symphony of the twentieth century with Gustav Mahler’s sixth symphony.

Beethoven’s great symphonies portray mankind in a heroic manner. He attempted to show man in pursuit of higher aims but they were figures of almost mythic proportions. Mahler on the other hand puts himself at the centre of the music with the music expressing his own fears, emotions and aspirations. Like the contemporary thinkers such as Sigmund Freud he was endeavoring to find the universal truths from within the individual.

Composed in the early years of the twentieth century the sixth symphony presages the tumultuous world evenmts to come. It also prefigures the calamities which would afflict the composer; the death of his daughter, his loss of prestige in being dumped from the Vienna Sate Opera and his being diagnosed with a terminal heart condition.

The first three movements are conservative in form and tone but there is an insistent drama from the very first movement, with a martial theme which is repeated in the subsequent movements. The opening gives the idea of a forced march at breakneck speed as though the composer is on a mission or being pursued.

The second movement alternates passages of cheerfulness with passages of impeding doom while the third movement provides some relief with more joyous music.

However as Heath Lees writes in the programme notes to the concert “Only in the last movement of the Sixth Symphony does the ominous message seem to reign supreme. During the course of the earlier movements there is a clear intention to maintain a balance wherever possible. In the large opening movement, for example, there are two main themes — an overbearing, march-like theme, and a soaring, lyrical melody in the strings. Alma Mahler later recalled Mahler saying that it was in this theme that he had tried to capture her musically, and it certainly has its triumphant pride of place at the end, following a central section of pastoral nostalgia (complete with cowbells).

Traditionally, a scherzo is a playful, more relaxed movement. Here, in the second movement’s scherzo, an element of play does exist, since children’s games are first implied, but Alma, who had the benefit of Mahler’s most intimate comments on this work, explained that “the childish voices become more and more tragic, and at the end die out in a whimper”. By contrast however, the following slow movement in E-flat major, a world away from the home key of A minor, is Mahler at his most melodious, seeming to draw out the whole movement in one single line of inspiration.

Then comes the terrifying finale, a cycle of gradually mounting waves of energy, each of which breaks over one of Fate’s hammer-blows. The third and last of these signals a complete death-like finality, in the wake of which, the symphony disappears into the void.”

Conductor Eckehard Stier
As well as being the music director of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, the German conductor Eckehard Stier is Music Director of the opera house in Görlitz and Chief Conductor of the New Lausitz Philharmonic Orchestra.

With a repertoire of 70 stage works and twice as many symphonic works, Eckehard Stier is a leading figure in the new generation of young conductors.

Eckehard Stier’s musical personality has developed through a whole life of experience, beginning his career as a boy soprano and section leader in the world renowned choir, the Dresdner Kreuzchor. In 1991 he was the first winner of the choir’s Rudolf Mauersberger scholarship. At the age of 14 he had his first conducting lessons with Prof. Volker Rohde in Dresden, and he became conductor of the orchestra at the Kreuzchor school. As a student at the Carl Maria von Weber Conservatory in Dresden under Prof. Siegfried Kurz, he became leader of the Conservatory Orchestra and holder of Richard Wagner scholarship. During this period he was conductor of the world premiere of The White Princess by Johannes Wulf Woesten and did guest performances in Germany and Switzerland with opera productions of Salieri’s Prima la musica, poi le parole and Mozart’s Così fan tutte. During his studies he was also assistant to Hartmut Haenchen in Wagner’s Parsifal at the Nederlandse Oper in Amsterdam and undertook courses with Sir Colin Davis, David Epstein and Mario Venzago.

In 1995 at the age of 23, he became staff conductor with the Opera Theatre of Chemnitz, conducting a wide repertoire of opera and ballet productions in the following years. During this time he was also assistant to Oleg Caetani for Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame at the Stuttgart Opera, for The Maid of Orleans at Opéra Nationale du Rhin in Strasbourg and the Wagner Ring at the Chemnitz Opera. Aside from his engagement with the Chemnitz Opera Theatre, he also guest conducted such works as La Bohème, Fidelio and Tchaikovsky`s The Maid of Orleans with the Komische Oper of Berlin, Nürnberg Opera, State Opera of Hannover and the Strasbourg Opera.

Following success in a new production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman in Görlitz, in 2003 he was named Chief Conductor of the New Lausitz Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director of the Görlitz opera house. Because of the special location of this town near the borders of Poland and Czech Republic, in recent years he has realized some successful international co-productions with the Polish orchestra of Jelenia Gora and the Czech opera house in Liberec.

He recently conducted concerts with the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Dresdner Philharmonic Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Middle German Radio Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig's famous Gewandhaus, the Münchner Symphoniker, the State Philharmonic Orchestra Halle, the Anhalt Philharmonic Orchestra in Dessau, the Chamber Orchestra of Saxony and Chemnitz's Robert Schumann Philharmonic Orchestra. He has a regular relationship with the Dresdner Sinfoniker, a project-orchestra with musicians from the best German orchestras playing concerts mostly of contemporary music. With this orchestra he gave the German premiere of Theo Loevendie’s Johnny and Jones at the famous Dresden Music Festival, as well as the festival performance of the four ancient operas by Mikis Theodorakis for his 80 anniversary in Athens. In April 2006 he made his successful Australian debut with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra conducting Bruckner's Ninth Symphony. In 2008 he will also make his debuts with the Odense Symphony Orchestra in Denmark and the Joensuu City Orchestra in Finland.

In addition to his conducting activities in all areas of classical music, his tremendous affinity for jazz has led to a number of successful collaborations, including conducting the German premiere of Howard Brubeck`s Dialogues for Jazz-Combo and Orchestra in Dessau. As a pianist he recently recorded a CD of jazz ballads with saxophonist Ive Kanew.