ADAM FISCHER’s remarks on Mahler’s Second
….“ Apart from these considerations in terms of content, Mahler’s Second Symphony has special significance
for me – for entirely different reasons.
The first reason is biographical. Mahler finished writing the first movement in Budapest where he was musical director at the opera. When I was likewise general music director at Budapest Opera, I imagined that Mahler had sat in the same room and gotten angry over the same things as I did. Work at the opera must have been so nerve-wracking that he found no time for anything else. I can only confirm that.
A second thought leads me to Haydn. We know that famous quote from Hans von Bülow, who is reported to have exclaimed that Wagner’s Tristan, compared with the first movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony, was as tame as a Haydn symphony. This mainly leads me to think that von Bülow was probably not yet aware of the direct connection that leads from Haydn to Mahler, which I sense. As far as I am concerned, Mahler is just as much a part of Vienna Classicism as Haydn.
The third personal story has to do with the third movement, which is based on Mahler’s song Saint Anthony of Padua’s Sermon to the Fishes. For the past thirty years I have been working in favor of a series of human and citizens’ rights organizations. I find that no other piece better describes the dilemma experienced by these organizations and movements than Mahler’s song. '
I am most probably not the only one to feel that it exactly describes what we experience in our work: we preach, we are applauded and praised, and then everyone goes on doing things as before. The song symbolizes our engagement with the citizens’ rights movement, and after all we have endeavored to set in motion I am terribly disappointed with the lack of results. Yet something in the song still comforts me: I am always glad to hear that the fishes at least “liked the sermon”, as it says in the end. . ..……….. (from Adam Fischer’s preword of the Booklet)
“An orchestra for Düsseldorf”: that is the objective and the high standard that the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker set for themselves – 250 times a year. This orchestra has an uncommon profile, since it performs not only in the Tonhalle, but also for the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and in Duisburg. On its regular tours to Holland, Austria, China and Japan, the orchestra carries Düsseldorf’s reputation as a city of culture out into the world.
Already in the 1700’s, internationally celebrated artists such as Handel and Corelli collaborated on occasion with the “Düsseldorf Court Orchestra” until the court was dissolved. A century later, in 1818, orchestral culture was re-introduced into Düsseldorf when the Municipal Music Society (Städtischer Musikverein) was founded, attracting celebrated musicians of the likes of Mendelssohn and Schumann to serve as conductors. The orchestra became truly “municipal” in 1864, and after Aachen it is thus the second oldest civic orchestra in Germany. Throughout the following decades it became one of the leading and largest orchestras in the country. Its conductors in the postwar era have been Heinrich Hollreiser, Eugen Szenkar, Jean Martinon, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Henryk Czyz, Willem van Otterloo, Bernhard Klee, David Shallon, Salvador Mas Conde, John Fiore and Andrey Boreyko. Starting in the 2015 season, Adam Fischer has taken up the post of Principal Conductor. The orchestra went on tour to Spain in 2011, guested at the Beethoven Easter Festival in Warsaw in 2012, and enjoyed resounding success in Moscow that same year. In 2014, the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker gave a superb début performance at the Musikverein in Vienna, and were likewise well-received at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In May 2015 they made nine acclaimed appearances in Tokyo.
At the beginning of the 2015/16 season, Adam Fischer was appointed Principal Conductor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and Artistic Consultant of the Düsseldorf Tonhalle. He is also Honorary Conductor of the Austrian-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, founder of the Eisenstadt Haydn Festival, and founder and director of the Wagner Festival in Budapest. Well-known for his courageous political commitment, Adam Fischer has spoken out often in favor of human rights. Together with András Schiff he initiated and signed a petition against racism and discrimination, which they submitted to the European Union.
Born in 1949 in Budapest, Adam Fischer studied composition and conducting in the Hungarian capital, and with professor Hans Swarowsky in Vienna.
After appointments as Kapellmeister in Helsinki, in Karlsruhe and at Munich State Opera, Fischer held the post of General Music Director successively at the opera houses of Freiburg, Kassel and Mannheim, and was also Music Director of Hungarian State Opera in Budapest. Since 1999 he has
been Chief Conductor of the Danish National Chamber Orchestra in Copenhagen. Regular engagements have led Adam Fischer to perform in the great opera houses of Europe and the US, including Vienna, Milan, Munich, Covent Garden, the New York Met and Bayreuth Festival. In orchestra appearances he also conducts the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony, the Munich Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the London Philharmonic (LPO), the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Chicago and Boston Symphonies and the NHK Symphony in Tokyo.
Fischer’s award-winning CD releases include the complete symphonic works of Haydn (distinguished with the German national prize “Echo Klassik”) as well as of Mozart. He has also been awarded the Grand Prix du Disque twice: for his recordings of Die Königin von Saba (Goldmark) and of Bluebeard’s Castle (Bartók). In 2017, Adam Fischer was named Honorary Member of Vienna State Opera.
Born in Budapest, soprano Tünde Szabóki first studied piano at the Franz Liszt Academy in her home town, and went on to study voice at the University of the Music and the Performing Arts in Graz. As a member of the NOVA Ensemble she has guested at renowned festivals including Salzburg, Bregenz, and the Berlin Musikbiennale.
As a soloist, Tünde Szabóki has sung at Rheingau Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Styriarte in Graz, the Bernstein Festival in Jerusalem, Festival de Montpellier, and the Budapest Spring Festival.
Later she was able to embark on the path to the opera stage: Szabóki has covered the roles of
Leonore (Fidelio), the Countess (The Marriage of Figaro), Vitellia (Titus), Donna Elvira (Don
Giovanni), Marschallin (Rosenkavalier), Ariadne, Elisabeth (Tannhäuser), Elsa (Lohengrin),
Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Kundry (Parsifal), Judith (Bluebeard’s Castle) and a multitude of further
roles in Baroque and contemporary opera.
Under the baton of Adám Fischer, Tünde Szabóki has sung solo with the Hungarian Radio Choir
and Orchestra, as well as at the Budapest Wagner Festival and Budapest State Opera. Further
musical collaborations have taken place with Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra,
with Krysztof Penderecki on the occasion of the première of his Eighth Symphony in Budapest,
and with Stephan Soltesz in a Rosenkavalier production at Budapest State Opera.
2019 saw the release of her latest CD recording with chamber music works by Ferenc Farkas on the
Toccata Classiks label (CH), as a continuation of her recording of Farkas’ art songs for Hungaroton.
In 2011, the Hungarian State awarded Tünde Szabóki the Franz Liszt Prize.
Born in Berlin, Nadine Weissmann studied voice at the Royal Academy of Music in London and at
Indiana University in Bloomington. Her first opera house contract was in 2002 with Osnabruck
Theatre; later on she enjoyed great success as Carmen at the Weimar German National Theatre,
where she also covered her first Wagnerian roles. Weissmann garnered international recognition as
Erda in the Petrenko/Castorf Ring cycle in Bayreuth from 2013 to 2017.
Weissmann has sung at Glyndebourne and at Edinburgh Festival, as well as in Barcelona, Madrid,
Valencia, Monte Carlo, Paris, Marseille, Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Dresden, Hamburg, Helsinki,
and Amsterdam.
Her repertoire includes such roles as Laura (La Gioconda), Baba the Turk (The Rake’s Progress),
Leokadja Begbick (Mahagonny), Herodias (Salome), Waltraute (Götterdämmerung), and Old Lady
(Candide).
Weissmann is regularly invited to perform at the Komische Oper Berlin, where she has covered
the roles of Third Lady (Magic Flute), Gora (Reimann‘s Medea), and Ježibaba (Rusalka). Further
appearances on concert and opera stages have led her to perform in Weimar, Geneva, Paris,
Bournemouth, Seoul, Australia, New Zealand, and Salzburg.
Weissmann has collaborated with conductors including Michael Boder, Ivor Bolton, Jesús
López-Cobos, Christoph Eschenbach, Lawrence Foster, Pablo Heras-Casado, Valery Gergiev, Marek
Janowski, Kirill Karabits, Lothar Koenigs, Fabio Luisi, Antonello Manacorda, Zubin Mehta, Kirill
Petrenko, Donald Runnicles, and Christian Thielemann.
During his own time, Gustav Mahler was considered as one of the major conductors of Europe, but nowadays he is considered to a major composer who bridged the Late Romantic period to the modern age.
Few composers are so connected with the symphonic repertory as Gustav Mahler. Composing symphonies was his "core business": in every aspect he developed the symphony towards, and sometimes even over, its absolute limits. Almost all of Mahler's symphonies are lenghty, demand a large orchestra and are particularly great in their expressive qualities. With rustic and mythical atmospheres (the start of the First Symphony), daunting chaos (the end of his Sixth), grand visions (end of his Second), cheerful melodies (opening Fourth), romantic melancholy (the famous adagio of his Fifth), evocations of nature (his Third), megalomanic eruptions in the orchestra (his Eighth), and the clamant atonality of his unfinished Tenth, Mahler's musical palette seemed inexhaustible.
His symphonies are captivating, but some could find it a bit 'over the top' at times. For those, his orchestral songs could undoubtedly show there is an incredibly subtle and refined side to his compositional style as well.
In the Netherlands, Mahler is particularly popular due to its close bond with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, which was already established during his lifetime!
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