Ivor Cutler called silence the music of the cognoscenti. But there’s silence and there’s silence, and a regular concertgoer hears a fair bit of both. The ability to fold silence into a musical line – to create the impression that a conductor is somehow sculpting a sound which doesn’t exist – is an indicator of high artistry on the podium.
Conversely, there’s the embarrassing strained silence when, at the end of a work, a conductor decides to keep the baton raised and see how long he can hold back the tide of applause. It’s spray-on sublimity; an attempt to force the illusion of shared transcendence. It’s the musical version of faking an orgasm.
The silence in the Royal Festival Hall at the end of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was of a different order. The conductor, Herbert Blomstedt, wasn’t grandstanding. He’d conducted baton-less, sitting on a piano stool, and barely raising his hands above the level of his chest. And at the end, the intensity was absolute. When it’s fake, there’s always a giveaway; impatience prickles in the air and you can sense even small movements. This was real: the deep, concentrated hush of 2,700 people sitting and listening as if the silence was part of the symphony. There’s no sound remotely like it.
Then the spell broke. Even for these ovation-happy times, the audience was quick to stand, and it’s true that everyone present (including the players of the Philharmonia) will have arrived primed to expect profundity. Blomstedt – and there’s no point hedging around this – is 97 years old, which is unusual even in a profession that places a premium on age. Leopold Stokowski was active until the age of 95, while Pierre Monteux signed a 25-year contract with the London Symphony Orchestra (with an option to renew) shortly after his 86th birthday.
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