TALES FROM THE GREEN ROOM

MAHLER SYMPHONY NO.8 with KLAUS TENNSTEDT (and a footnote concerning Leonard Bernstein).

There are some who try to cajole me into writing a book about some of my more interesting experiences, including acting as chorus master, first with the London Symphony Chorus between 1976 and 1982, and then with the London Philharmonic Choir from 1982-1991. In these years I worked with almost all the great conductors of the time….it would be quicker to name those for whom I did not act as chorus master, including von Karajan and Seiji Osawa.  With the LSO it was Abbado, Bernstein, Previn, Colin Davis, and with the LPO it was Tennstedt, Haitink, Solti, Mehta, Muti, Masur, Rattle and many others.  There are plenty of anecdotes which I may list at some point, but with Tennstedt there is a story.  This surrounds his monumental recording of Mahler Symphony No. 8, the so-called ‘Symphony of a Thousand’.  I suppose the work would support 1000 performers, but there are very few settings in the world in which this is practically possible.

Mahler Symphony No 8

By the late 1980s Klaus Tennstedt had recorded all of Mahler’s symphonies except the 8^th.  It is not, in my estimation and that of many others, the greatest of Mahler’s symphonies, but to every choral singer it is the one they want to perform.  Mahler 2 has an overwhelming final 10 minutes, and Mahler 3 has a 5-minute naïve (intentionally) movement for soprano and alto voices and boys’ choir, with a soprano and alto soloist.  I presume Tennstedt was under pressure from EMI to complete the cycle by recording the 8^th symphony with the LPO.  He later conducted three performances in the Royal Festival Hall with the LPO and the combined choirs of the LSC and LPC.  I was Chorus master for the recording and for these live performances (not acknowledged in the BBC credits at the end, though the make-up team were!). I will mention the concerts briefly at the end.

20^th April 1986 was to be a day in my life! This was the first day of the recording, with two three-hour sessions, on which the whole of the first movement of Mahler 8 had to be securely down on tape. The schedule for the week had been organised around the comings and goings of the soloists, some of whom on the succeeding days were flying backwards and forwards on private jets to perform in La Scala and other European opera houses. The only day when all came together was Sunday 20^th. Without that being accomplished the recording would not have been possible.

Klaus was in one of his notoriously high-tension states, something with which I (and the LPO more frequently) had had close dealings over the years, not always happy ones, but the entire orchestra and choir were united with one feeling, and that was of admiration for this great conductor and his achievements, and his overall devotion to the LPO.  I remember speaking to one of the female violinists on another occasion when Klaus had been in a particularly vile mood and she said words to the effect ‘if I lie down, please beat me up some more. I can’t get enough of it.’ Other conductors, and one in particular who also was given to such moods, were not forgiven. Klaus was 100% genuine, universally admired, and adored for his humility with it all. He was not by any means an easy conversationalist, but what he didn’t deliver in words he delivered overwhelmingly in music.  Every concert was an epic.

The recording was made in Walthamstow Town Hall. The large choir was assembled in the gallery, and the orchestra and soloists were in the main area on the ground floor. The recording studio with all the equipment was backstage, and it was connected to the main Hall via a curving passage perhaps 20m long, as I hazily, and perhaps inaccurately recall.  Its significance will become apparent later!  I will not name names here, but they are on the recording. I went into the backstage area to meet the Producer.  We both knew what we were doing (though not what we were in for!), so there was little need for detailed discussion.  Klaus then came into the room, and in a very definitive way said to me, in front of the Producer ‘I only will listen to you. I trust only you’.  Producer thus firmly put in his place, and this comment was as unhelpful to me as it was to him. Once Klaus was out of the room I did my best to reassure the Producer that I understood my role, and anyway he was one of the best in the business. We had six hours to complete the 25-minute movement – enough time and well within the allowed amount of recorded music in two three-hour sessions.  The second session ran from 3 to 6 pm

The morning session began, and Klaus got through either all, or a substantial amount of the first movement. As is the norm in these situations, the conductor then comes back to listen to the results together with the producer and other interested parties (soloists etc). Sometimes in recording sessions I would take this opportunity to run out and clear up any problems that had occurred with the choir, and this formula worked on many occasions. The time I spent behind the scenes with Klaus were entirely given over to him, in his gravelly cancer-operated throat, becoming increasingly irritated by the fact that he couldn’t hear the strings. First of all he would say it in uncompromising terms to the Producer, and then he would turn on me and ask me if I could hear the strings, to which the answer had to be ‘no’, whether or not I could hear them! Fortunately for me the answer was ‘no’ anyway. This was Mahler 8, and there was an enormous amount of noise from all performers, and a challenge to anyone to get the recorded sound correctly balanced and proportional so that the strings could be heard.

Well this went on for fully five hours of paid session time. Add on an hour or two for the lunch break. ‘Bear with a sore head‘ doesn’t begin to address it, and as the day rolled on the temperature rose and Klaus was inconsolable. Absolutely Inconsolable.  About midway through the second three-hour session, he came back yet again raging at the Producer, who, you can imagine was not best pleased with how things were going. Klaus left to try again and the Producer then took his opportunity to round on me by saying it was about time I did my job and let him get on with his. I explained that I wished for nothing more, but I had not created the situation, and had been placed in it by Klaus.  I was the go-between, but I assured the producer that I would do everything I could to support him, as I had been doing all along. Hard as it was, that was for some time best achieved by agreeing with Klaus.

Half an hour later and another ‘take’, and time beginning to look somewhat desperate, Klaus comes back screaming ‘ganze Bogen, ganze Bogen. I hear nothing. Ganze Bogen.’  Tennstedt was a violinist and was standing demonstrating playing with a full bow.  He then again turned to me: ‘Can you hear the strings?’  At this point I decided that honesty was not necessarily the greatest virtue, and replied with something like ‘I think it’s coming over rather better now Klaus’. The words had hardly left my mouth before he scowled at me with his sweaty face and blared out ‘Now you are lying. Now I cannot trust you either!’  Klaus returned to the podium and my relationship with the producer relaxed considerably as he now fully appreciated what I was up against. The final hour of the Sunday sessions was approaching, and not a second of music had been recorded. At about this time the “Senior Vice-President and Artistic Director of EMI Classics International” arrived. I presume he had been called in to preside over what was happening. It may have been the lighting in the room, but I recall that his face was deathly pale with a tinge of green. He was clearly a worried man with an ‘I’m about to lose several hundred thousand pounds’ look on his face. He spoke to me and asked if there was anything I could do to resolve the state of panic which was evolving. I said I could try and get a bit firm myself, but there were risks involved clearly. The reply was “do whatever you can and what you feel is possible”.

It was 5 o’clock, and I could hear Klaus shuffling his way down the connecting passage. I left the room and met him in the passage and delivered my speech. ‘Klaus, the whole musical world is waiting for this recording which will complete your Mahler cycle on disk.  Don’t come back into the studio again. You have one hour in which time you should record the whole movement twice, without worrying about whether you can hear the strings or anything else. This will allow 50 minutes of recording, and after the first take of 25 minutes, I will come out and give any notes that you or anyone else needs, and everybody will have a 5-minute rest. Then at 5.30, do another complete take.  This will give 5 minutes for an emergency “patch”, and then we can assess the result when everybody has gone.” Klaus gave me one of his sad but affectionate looks, and turned round. ‘I vill try’, he grunted. He duly delivered two monumental renditions of the first movement.  The result on disc is now acclaimed by many as the finest that has been heard, and what we can now listen to still.

The following days were relatively uneventful, with evening sessions from 7-10pm, which allowed the choir to get from their workplaces to Walthamstow and flights to come in from European opera houses. There was one last sting in the tail. The offstage brass players who appear at the end of the first movement and again at the very end of the symphony had come at some point to add their two short moments. (I presume this was also on the Sunday, in which case the very end would also have been recorded that day, but my memory is rather vague as to when they were done).  I can’t be sure what Klaus was thinking but he didn’t know or recognise the players and it seems he dismissed them without caring too much.  I think he thought some of them looked a bit like spivs and obviously couldn’t play properly, even though they were top players from other the other London orchestras. Of course it would be inconceivable in any circumstances for the LPO fixer to book any other than the best.  However Klaus was finished with them at undue speed and they left….’cash and dash’ is the expression.  Nothing more was said about them to anyone, and we presumed he was happy. 

At 10 pm on the final Thursday evening we were putting on coats to go home.  Klaus then turned to me and said ‘now I vant you to record the offstage brass with these players here’.  No-one had asked them for overtime and they were not best pleased.  These fanfare finishes are physically demanding, and there is a limit as to how many attempts one could have before embouchures became too tired…this late at night after a 3-hour recording session.  I didn’t exactly feel that appreciated by the players as they were by then not in the greatest of moods!  Co-ordination with the main orchestra (coming through on my earphones) proved tricky and elusive.  There are about 7 seconds when some bass instruments in the main orchestra play and hold a ‘pedal’ E flat and the organ plays two or three chords, while the offstage players play the start of their fanfare.  Coming exactly on time and together after 4 ½ slow bars is not a problem when all are present.  Connecting with nothing precise to follow is a matter of luck. It could have worked first time, but in several attempts we either arrived at the connecting point a fraction too early or a fraction late. If too early then a miniscule adjustment next time to play a tiny bit slower would cause an overshoot, and vice versa. These adjustments involved small fractions of seconds.  It was approaching half-past ten and we all agreed that there was one final attempt left in us. There was fatigue and people had trains to catch. Failure would, I presume, have led EMI to book another session at a later date, which would have been very expensive.  We started, and to my astonishment it connected successfully. (We were about 100^th second late, but in the grand scheme that was acceptable).  I was so shocked that I half-stopped conducting, expecting another bad join. Fortunately the players carried on through my momentary hesitation and we reached the end. That is what you hear on the recording! 

Nothing had matched the extreme tension of the first day, but for a seemingly endless 30 minutes this was another hard test.  The recording was in the bag, and the result was brilliant.

About five years later the three Royal Festival Hall performances happened in the few months before Klaus eventually had to retire because of his ill-health – I think this was 1991.  We squeezed into the hall with stage-extensions built, and there were three magnificent concerts, one of which is available in full on YouTube.  Klaus was struggling with fatigue, and I went to see him in his room about 20 minutes before each concert. At the third concert he seemed to be near some point of collapse. 

‘Good luck tonight’ said I.  ‘How are you feeling?’

‘I cannot.  I cannot.  I have no strength left in my body. I cannot’, he repeated.  He seemed pretty well to be like that most of the time he conducted by then, so I brushed it aside with some vague ‘you’ll be fine’ sort of remark.

‘You must. You must’ he whined.  You have to go on.  I cannot’. I’m not naïve enough not to imagine the audience reaction to be told that I would be there instead, or that the orchestra would have allowed it. I made my escape with a few more encouraging remarks.  Klaus came on stage, his body language (he was good at this!) saying ‘look at this dying man coming out onto the podium’.  There was long standing ovation before the concert, and, as before, he produced another overwhelming performance. 

At my final concert with the LPC in which Klaus was conducting Beethoven 9 (always quite the most impressive interpretations I ever heard) he made a short and affectionate speech at the end of the rehearsal. Despite all the tension over the years, I had been the beneficiary of a very inspiring collaboration.  “I only trust you”.

Footnote

In an entirely unrelated incident to the saga of Mahler 8, this footnote comes with a health warning. I am recording it here because it really happened, even if most people then and now would not actually say it. I hope it doesn’t raise too many eyebrows; times have moved on.

I was chorus-mastering for Leonard Bernstein with the LSO and LSC.  He was warm and affectionate to everyone, and we were performing a Haydn Mass.  Not exactly his normal repertoire and there was no attempt or nod towards authenticity.  There was a tempo which bothered me on the morning of the concert – much slower that I had ever heard or anticipated, and which required some intervention to give the choir some added breathing places. I asked Bernstein to confirm that this would be the tempo for the concert (probably with hindsight a stupid and naïve question!).

He put his arm round my waist and his answer had no bearing that I could think of to what I had asked.  “Dear boy”, he said, “to get on in this life you have to be one of two things; either you have to be Jewish, or you have to be a homo-sexual, and I have the great good-fortune to be both of those things.”

Maybe some more anecdotes will follow.  One day.