Kahchun Wong’s inaugural season as principal conductor of the Hallé began with Mahler’s First Symphony, and will conclude with Beethoven’s Ninth, so it’s fitting that, halfway through, he should take on a work with echoes of both: Mahler’s Second Symphony, the “Resurrection”, conceived in response to its predecessor, and concluding with a monumental choral finale full of hope for redemption.
Bridgewater Hall’s lively acoustic is always an exciting place for a fortississimo, and Wong deployed a supersized Hallé here with a keen balance between restraint and sheer muscle. From an opening statement of such heroic intent that one almost expected to see Siegfried sailing up the Rhine, he sculpted a first movement whose solemnity still found space for light and shade, revelling in solo and sectional highlights while maintaining the inexorable funeral march underpinning them.
That core of flint held fast even through the symphony’s nostalgic second movement – applying measured clarity to its Ländler rhythms and disarmingly delicate pizzicati – before asserting itself with renewed vigour (and volume) in the surging climaxes of the third, taken at a brisk, danceable pace, with woodwinds crystalline in their precision and strings teetering thrillingly on the knife-edge of stridency.
With the arrival of voices in the fourth and fifth movements came a concession to pure lyricism: Sarah Connolly’s Urlicht was a moment of radiant stillness, and amid the sound and fury of the final scherzo, the immaculate first vocal entrance of the choir – singing while still seated, and without scores – seemed to shimmer out of the ether, before mingling to celestial effect with Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha’s opalescent soprano.
Sir John Barbirolli, who conducted the Hallé’s first ever performance of this symphony in 1958, reportedly quipped it was especially appropriate that he do so, given he had effectively “resurrected” the orchestra during his tenure, restoring it to prominence after a period of crisis and dwindling reputation. Wong, by contrast, joins the Hallé at the height of its powers – and on the strength of this compelling Resurrection, he knows precisely how to wield them.
