SIRENS, BELLS AND WHISTLES

Conductor Andris Nelsons led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a richly anticipated program of Nocturnes by Claude Debussy and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No 4 in G. The program is part of the BSO’s recognition of the 125^th anniversary of Symphony Hall by performing some of the works that premiered around the time of its opening in 1900.

Andris Nelsons conducts Debussy's Nocturnes with the BSO

Nocturnes consists of three movements, each expressing a different color, or mood. Originally inspired by a series of poems by his friend Henri de Regnier, in the course of composing the work Debussy was further inspired by American painter James McNeill Whistler’s “Nocturnes” series of paintings and his “Arrangement in Black and Gray” (widely known as “Whistler’s Mother”). Debussy described his Nocturnes, and especially the first movement, Nuages (Clouds), as “the study of gray.”  According to Debussy, this movement was meant to evoke “the unchanging aspect of the sky and the slow, solemn motion of the clouds, fading away in gray tones lightly tinged with white.”

Lorelei Ensemble in Debussy's Nocturnes with the BSO

The second movement, Fétes (Festivals), suggests a celebratory air complete with the approach of a parade, with trumpets, trombones, and a tuba calling forth a marching band that swells and diminishes as the movement comes to a close.

Andris Nelsons conducts the BSO and Lorelei Ensemble in Debussy's Nocturnes

The third movement, Sirènes (Sirens) is filled with flowing and fluid harmonies, plucked strings summoning flicks of white foam on water. Appropriately enough, the vocal artists in this movement were members of the world-renowned Lorelei Ensemble. (Lorelei is the name of a deadly rock formation on the Rhine River, said to be the home of an alluring siren by the same name.) Debussy’s use of wordless voices as orchestral instruments in the third movement was a ground-breaking innovation at the time he composed the work in the late 19th century. Last heard by this reviewer in Julia Wolfe’s Her Story at Tanglewood, Lorelei always captures the subtle harmonies and colors of treble voices; here eliciting the seductive threat of the sirens attempting to coax entranced sailors to an ecstatic destruction. I found it unfortunate that the staging did not allow a better view of the singers.

Concertmaster Nathan Cole in Mahler's Symphony No. 4

Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 opens with cheery sleigh bells followed by the whistles of piccolos that give way to a slower, more pensive melody carried by the cello. Just as Debussy evoked the fascination of destructive beauty in his Sirènes, Mahler mixes rustic Austrian Ländler (folksongs) with a lively scherzo; the movement required Concertmaster Nathan Cole to switch between two violins, one tuned to convey an otherworldly “devil’s dance;” in Mahler’s words, “mysterious, confused, uncanny,” that entices victims to dance with death as it leads them to their graves.

Soloist Nikola Hillebrand with Andris Nelsons and the BSO

The final movement of the symphony is the highlight of the program. German soprano Nikola Hillebrand made her BSO debut to sing Das himmlische Leben (Life in Heaven). Subtitles of an English translation of the poem projected onto a large screen allowed us to appreciate the humor in this somewhat comical child’s view of heaven involving plentiful food and Catholic saints who fish, cook, laugh, and dance. Hillebrand was perfection—her voice clear and assured. Angelic in a silver gown with winglike sleeves and wavy long hair, she was an exact match for an angel I purchased many years ago at a Christmas Market in Nuremberg.

photos by Winslow Townson, courtesy of the BSO

Debussy and Mahler
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston
ends on October 4, 2025