Fischer and Mahler’s Titan

The BFO’s Children's Choir is set to make its debut at a grand concert. The project, which was conceived by Iván Fischer, brings together young singers with exceptional abilities from different parts of Hungary and offers them opportunities to perform and participate in individual and group musical training sessions. The program combines the rich traditions of Hungarian choral singing with the cutting-edge educational methods of the best international schools. As part of this, the children’s choir will perform songs from different national traditions, from Hungary to Israel, Japan, and Mexico. The leitmotif of the entire selection is the conviction that we belong not only together but also to the natural world around us. The young titans will be followed by another “Titan,” Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, a work of rich and varied emotions that premiered in Budapest and, notably, incorporates a children’s song.

Each nation has certain songs that in some way become part of its national identity. These songs rarely belong to authentic folk music and tend rather to be musical settings for poems believed to be traditional songs, songs from the world of formal music that have been given folk motifs or made part of what is understood as folk tradition, or choral works with roots in folk music. One thing is certain: these simple yet beautiful songs, which often speak of love through images of nature, evoke a strong sense of empathy for and understanding of the soul of a nation.

The program opens with the Swedish traditional song “Now far eastward I’ll hie me” (Till Österland vill jag far), in which beautiful landscapes, the tree of life, and an evergreen garden await us on the path to love. The next work, a musical setting for the Russian poem “In the Flat Valley, on a Lonely Oak” (written by Alexei Merzlyakov in the 1810s), uses the image of a solitary tree to describe the pain of loneliness. “In a Green Forest” (Zöld erdőben), discovered by Zoltán Kodály in the village of Mníšek nad Hnilcom in Slovakia (or Menyhe by its Hungarian name), expresses a sense of longing with the purity characteristic of Hungarian traditional songs. We then leap to the other side of the globe with “Row my Boat” (Lolo mi boto), a Surinamese song performed in an arrangement by Max Knigge that conjures the experience of rowing together in the waves and the wind. This is followed by Naomi Shemer’s Hebrew prayer “Tfilati,” based on the text of Psalm 55. “La sandunga” is a Mexican traditional waltz arranged for choir by Françoise Leleu. This song, the melody of which is generally attributed to the Oaxacan musician Máximo Ramón Ortiz, has become the unofficial anthem of the people of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, so it is surprising that the lyrics are actually about a Zapotec woman mourning her deceased mother. In contrast, the Japanese song “Cherry Blossoms” (Sakura), arranged by Michael Neaum, captures the beauty of rebirth. This is followed by another work from Europe, “From a Foreign Place” (Apo xeno meros), a Greek traditional song about unrequited love. The BFO’s Children’s Choir will conclude this section of the concert with an Estonian work, the “Summer Waltz” (Suvine valss) from Arvo Pärt’s children’s song cycle, which was originally composed for the play Adventure in the Forest.

After Beethoven, writing symphonies was no longer a matter of simple routine. Composers were less inclined to turn to the genre, and when they did, the result was often numerous drafts and revisions, several versions, and continuous struggle, as frequently noted in their letters. The final versions, of course, were also often great masterpieces. Mahler started to work on his first symphony at the end of 1887. Initially, he planned it to be a five-movement symphonic poem with a program. “A symphony must be like the world,” he wrote to Sibelius. “It must embrace everything.” This attitude is reflected in the interrelated motifs stretching across the movements, the self-references, the stylistic diversions, and the varied instrumentation. The symphony starts with a long, slow introduction. Then we gradually arrive from the motif fragments to the main motif of the composition. The deleted “Blumine,” now performed as an independent concert piece, was replaced with an energetic scherzo in the second movement, which is followed by a unique slow movement that includes klezmer music, a soldier’s march, and a children’s song performed by double bass. The piece concludes with a passionate finale, tragic at first, but eventually bringing triumph.