Mahler’s Fourth opens the Rome Philharmonic’s season tonight

At the end of 1918, Arnold Schönberg founded the Society for Private Musical Performances in Vienna, a venue where one could listen to the ‘new’ music that was rarely performed in theatres. The evenings were governed by precise rules: critics were not admitted, the programme was not disclosed in advance, and both applauding and whistling were forbidden. The only thing that mattered was listening carefully, and this was achieved through lengthy rehearsals and frequent performances, far removed from the conventions of concert life. Chamber music pieces were played in their original form, whilst orchestral works were performed in reductions for piano or small ensemble. Among the latter was Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, transcribed by Erwin Stein and performed by the Society in 1921. More than a century later, the same symphony – in the transcription prepared by Klaus Simon in 2007 for the Holst-Sinfonietta of Freiburg – opens the chamber music season of the Accademia Filarmonica Romana at the Teatro Argentina.

The concert is this evening at 9 pm with the Solisti della Filarmonica, fifteen musicians brought together by artistic director Domenico Turi in an ensemble that takes its name from the group founded in 1993 by Giuseppe Sinopoli to bring together Italian instrumentalists associated with the Roman institution, focusing particularly on the repertoire of the Second Viennese School. On the podium is Sieva Borzak, an Italian-Russian conductor and staunch advocate of Simon’s version: “With this abridged version, everything is clearer and more accessible.”Composed between 1899 and 1900 and premiered in Munich in November 1901 under the composer’s own baton, the symphony concludes with ‘Das himmlische Leben’, a Lied based on a text from the collection ‘Des Knaben Wunderhorn’, which the soprano – here, Désirée Giove – must sing ‘with childlike and serene expression’. The verses describe a paradise of dancing and music, where Saint Martha stands in the kitchen and the angels bake bread.

In the Scherzo, the solo violin is tuned a semitone higher to give voice to Freund Hein, the figure of Death who, in German folk tradition, plays the violin and draws the living into a dance. Thus, for a few hours at the Teatro Argentina, the history of the Philharmonic intertwines with the attempt to create a new listening space. Perhaps this is precisely the role of an institution which, whilst having been part of Roman culture for over two hundred years, seeks to look ahead and stimulate its audience, sometimes taking them outside their comfort zones. This will be the case throughout the season, which alternates between big names and young performers in a repertoire spanning four centuries. The programme ranges from a recital by the Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova (19 November) to the Christmas concert (20 December) in the restored Teatro Valle, where Simone Vallerotonda and I Bassifondi will perform Kapsberger’s I pastori di Bettelemme, a musical dialogue published in 1630. In 2027, the season will continue in the same vein until the closing concert featuring Enrico Dindo (cello) and Andrea Lucchesini (piano), who will pay tribute to Beethoven on the bicentenary of his death.