Interview with conductor Ronald Zollman

Maestro, when did you first conduct the music of Gustav Mahler? One reason I ask is that, in my experience and in the experience of the musicians I’ve spoken to, both audiences and the musicians themselves often need time to accept Mahler’s works.

Mahler always greatly appealed to me and I had a kind of private plan that I would start in the right place, namely with Symphony no. 1. But things have not worked out according to this plan! I was first offered the chance to perform a Mahler symphony in 1983. The invitation came from Australia. Naturally, I told them I wanted to do the 1st symphony, the Titan. But the other side said: “please no, we’ve heard that one many times here, what about the Sixth?”. I sighed – starting directly with Mahler’s Sixth, that’s a tough nut to crack! I tried to find various ways to get out of it and persuade them to pick a different one. My manager at the time, a very intelligent and wise person, said to me: “you know, you don’t just turn down Mahler’s Sixth, if only because you won’t get offered it many times in your career”. So I ended up by accepting the challenge, and threw myself in it with enthusiasm, anxiety and at times even despair (a fitting state, for a symphony called “the Tragic”!). I believe that in the end the performance went well, and the public’s and orchestra’s reaction were both definitively very warm. I should add that my manager was wrong about one thing at least: in spite of his prediction, I’ve been really lucky with Mahler’s Sixth, and I have performed it more than 25 times in concert halls on 4 continents. I always look forward to my next meeting with this magnificent piece of music, and particularly now, for this Prague performance.

Gustav Mahler wrote his Tragic Symphony at one of most idyllic times of his life. And I, like other listeners, get goose pimples when I realize that the tragic musical images were later played out in the composer’s real life. How do you look at this?

You know, Mahler was the kind of person who constantly lived with a feeling that the sword of Damocles hung over him. And like other people who have the same feeling and superstition, one thought was always in his mind: God, forgive me, if I have experienced too many good things and too much joy in life. He was worried that the periods of happiness and pleasant experiences would soon be replaced by bad times, grief and suffering. That was his view on life, one that certainly very connected to his origin. He was anxiety from head to toes, looking at the past like a lost paradise, fearing the future, and expecting the worse from anything that came up. His love for Alma, expressed in music by the second theme of the Tragic Symphony, is also full of worries and fear that everything would soon end, that Alma would leave him, that he, she or their children would die. He was not capable of experiencing his relationships simply, in happiness. He was soon overcome by fears and unpleasant ideas. The rare moments of pure serenity in his music are therefore even more impressive, because they feel so fragile. And one should almost ask oneself whether he had not the capacity and power to provoke Fate! As you surely know, he wrote Songs on the Death of Children before the death of his own daughter! In other words, Mahler had an unusually pessimistic nature.

With the 6th symphony he changed his mind about the order of the 2nd and 3rd movements several times. What order do you perform them in?

I’ll put it like this: there is no ideal solution, if only because on one hand the Scherzo and the 1st movement have so much material in common, which is not ideal for two subsequent movements, but on the other hand the slow movement is obviously intended to be immediately followed by the finale, for clear harmonic reasons. These two contradictory reasons lead to many debates, and have been the source of a lot of doubts, starting with Mahler himself. My option is to give the priority to the argument that the finale must be like a catharsis breaking the calm and serene atmosphere of the slow movement’s end, and that’s the reason I go for the option consisting in placing the Scherzo in second position, and the Andante in 3rd position.

If you allow me, I’ll be a little more specific about the link between the slow movement and the finale of this great symphony. The start of the 4th movement reminds me of a piece of silk that one tears, thus abruptly ending the idyllic, tender mood of the 3rd movement. This is not just a question of atmosphere, but also of tonality. The fourth movement begins with harmonies directly connected to the Andante, and moves then back to the key of A minor, in which it is further essentially written. To quote a very known precedent, Dvořák does exactly the same in his New World Symphony: here, the Largo begins in E major (a tonality close to the E minor key of the first movement) and very quickly, in the space of a few bars, switches to D flat major, the key in which the entire 2nd movement is further written. Composers like sometimes to link one movement to the next one not only by given a worded advice, but also by making it a musical – in this case, harmonic necessity. In such cases, very often, there isn’t even a worded indication: the music speaks for itself, and the performer should be able to understand this kind of hidden message. A bridge from one movement to the next one can then be built, and this appeals even to the layman, who – though unconsciously – grasps better the deep meaning of the music.

That is precisely what happens with Mahler’s 4th movement when it is following the Andante, and that’s what is lost when this movement is put in 2nd position. But there is no ideal solution, and we now are left with the other aforementioned problem to solve: how to deal with the first two movements, the Allegro and the Scherzo, which are to a considerable extent similar, as far as the key (A minor) and some of the thematic are concerned? My approach is based on the recommendation Mahler expressed in his second symphony. There, he urges the performer to wait for a long while (approximately 2 minutes between this 20 minutes long 1st movement and the shorter 2nd movement). He obviously gives this advice because he wants the tension to be released naturally, and the new mood to install itself more organically. So, this is the way I proceed in the 6th symphony as well: after the overwhelming 1st movement, I give the players, the audience and myself (!) the necessary time to cool off. I could say it another way: for once, the audience’s coughs are welcome… as long as they stop before we start the 2nd movement! And when at last starting the 2nd movement, I also make very sure that the tempo is slightly different from the one taken in the 1st movement, so that it is clear that we’re in for a different story. This solution definitively works… I’m not saying it’s ideal because, as I indicated earlier, there is no ideal solution. Nevertheless, the main thing for me remains the wonderful link between the Andante and the Finale, and it is worth this little compromise!

This was your last concert with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra in the current subscribers’ season. Do you already have new ideas for the coming seasons?

Yes, but why don´t we talk about them in the spring, perhaps!

Okay, thank you very much for today’s interview.