Nick Harte reviews de Castro-Robinson, Mahler, Berlioz, presented by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Northey, at the Douglas Lilburn Auditorium in the Christchurch Town Hall, Saturday 1 August 2026.
Eve de Castro-Robinson’s Hour of Lead (2024) takes its namesake from the Emily Dickinson poem which reads:
After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –
I’ve become a hardcore Dickinson fan over the past few years so it was a pleasure to experience a work which grapples with one of her most complex texts. The piece is also inspired by artist Julia Morrison’s own response to the great Hilma af Klint, a series titled Ode to Hilma. The piece begins with stern chords and the rhythmically playful yet stringent spectre of Stravinsky. De Castro-Robinson has a unique compositional voice and provides a 21st century update on the collage-like experiments of early Schnittke and Pärt. These composers’ works radically leap from textural dissonance to quotations of Bach and Mozart, and de Castro-Robinson also utilizes the divide between intensity and tranquillity like a painter of sound. Filmmaker David Lynch said many times that his work required both extreme darkness and light in order to achieve his desired effect and de Castro-Robinson successfully unearths a similar contrast with her piece. Life is awash with both triumph and disaster and music should indeed offer a reflection of these states. While there’s a lot of brooding atonality, there’s also relief in the form of humorously swelling violins (reminiscent of Ligeti at his most mischievous) and cute, twinkling mallet percussion. The short piece ended with the entire orchestra stamping their feet in unison before the composer emerged onstage for a hearty round of applause. It’s truly wonderful to encounter a modern work alongside two more traditional pieces, especially with such precise performances attached.
Mahler has long been one of my favourite composers and his vocal composition is where the emotional heart of his music lies. I’d argue that the composer’s Kindertotenlieder (Songs of Dead Children) might have fit the night’s thematic structure even more snugly than Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), but I admire conductor Benjamin Northey (a brilliantly subtle listener)’s dedication to the Emo thesis presented in the programme. The baritone Faamanu Fonoti-Fuimaono painted a remarkably evocative picture of existential heartbreak and the Wayfarer’s inner turmoil. His interpretation was as focussed as nearly any recording of the piece I’ve enjoyed listening to. Lyrically, this is basically a late 19th century version of My Chemical Romance (who I had the displeasure of performing before at a festival in Shanghai), but with actual talent, emotional depth and some good taste. Mahler’s excessively overqualified orchestrations always astound me in person, regardless of the level of performance, but the CSO were adept at drawing out the deceptively labyrinthine intricacies of the score. It must be a real blast to perform his works.
Composer Jonny Greenwood has said he struggles with 19th century romanticism and I tend to generally agree (with the exception of late 19th century composers like Mahler, Schoenberg and Ives). The total mathematics of the baroque and the 20th century’s uncompromising transmogrification of sound are far more compelling to this set of ears. I’ve always wanted to be proved wrong about Berlioz; I always want to love every piece of music I encounter. Those few bars of gorgeous sound nestled within the 5th movement of his Symphonie fantastique (Berlioz’s parodic setting of the Dies irae) are rightly cherished by millions, many of whom will have discovered them accompanying the eerie aerial shots which open Kubrick’s The Shining, as electronically interpreted by the unparalleled Wendy Carlos. These in demand few seconds of music have adorned many other films including Sleeping with the Enemy, The Return of the Living Dead and Ratatouille due to their dark, yet approachable, cinematic qualities.
However, upon hearing the piece again, this time in person, I feel that for a piece that was praised for its “bizarre” and “monstrous” qualities when first premiered, it today sounds dainty, stuffy and forgettable. What a slog it was waiting for those precious few bars. The piece feels very much like a white male’s lighthearted fantasy of witchcraft, like a musical Malleus Maleficarum adapted by Looney Tunes. The opium, witches, execution, etc, promised in the narration are infinitely more tantalising than the accompanying music. Yes, it’s a symphony, but it’s really not that fantastic. I also could have lived without Northey’s decision to incorporate narration of the composer’s explanatory notes between each movement, as the music spoke for itself (for better or worse). The decision had the effect of dragging the audience out of the listening experience due to the pompous theatricality of the trespassing spoken word, and telling them how to feel about the music before they’ve encountered it on their own terms. There was a ton of overly basic unison stringwork which seemed far too jovial and trivial for a witches’ sabbath (which is the theme of the 5th movement), but this is merely a critique of the composition itself. Nonetheless, the orchestra performed the piece perfectly (and I’m used to listening to Boulez’s surgical recording) and with great sensitivity and clarity. Hearing an orchestra perform a work of this scope was still an exhilarating experience and the CSO have never let me down.
de Castro-Robinson, Mahler, Berlioz was performed Saturday 1 August, 2026.
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