Saturday, October 4, 2025
8:00 PM
The Boston Symphony Orchestra, joined by soprano Nikola Hillebrand, depict a child's view of heaven in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. Before that, the Lorelei Ensemble brings Debussy’s impressionist Nocturnes to life.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Nikola Hillebrand, soprano
Lorelei Ensemble
Beth Willer, artistic director
Claude DEBUSSY Nocturnes
Gustav MAHLER Symphony No. 4
In the second part of a three-part interview, BSO Concertmaster Nathan Cole describes the musical and technical challenges of the violin solo in Mahler's Symphony No. 4. To listen, use the player and read the transcript below.
Learn more about the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2025-2026 season on their site.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Brian McCreath The second week of the season, as I mentioned, features Mahler's Fourth Symphony, a huge solo in this as well, but challenging in a very, very different way. You're still, well, I'm curious whether you feel like you're inhabiting a character. There's some ways of looking at the Fourth Symphony that people will say you are inhabiting this character of Death. I don't know if you particularly look at it that way, but the challenge really is that you have to play a second violin, a different instrument, because it's tuned differently, a technique called scordatura, but describe how it is different from your normal violin.
Nathan Cole Well, if I were a woodwind or brass player, it might not be all that different because they grow up, you know, this whole idea of transposition for those instruments was supposed to make it easier to switch from instrument to instrument. So, you could be reading the same notes, but now you pick up this clarinet and it sounds in one key. You pick up a different clarinet, do the same fingering, sounds in a different key, and that was supposed to make things easier. And it may be for them, but for string players who never, never do this, it can be quite a challenge because here's the music written in one key, but because each of the four strings is tuned up a whole step, every note is going to sound a whole step higher than I'm used to it sounding. And so that has to be really practiced just to get the feel for it, which brings up the question, why would he do that, right, since there aren't any notes in the solo that wouldn't be playable on a normally tuned instrument. So why switch? And it's because when you tune those strings a whole step up - the whole step might not sound like much, but it really dramatically changes the response of the instrument and the timbre. The way that proper instruments are made, the wood is tuned to resonate with the normal open strings of the violin. And when you go against that, now different notes are ringing like the F-sharps. So the beginning of that solo... [demonstrates musical phrase on the violin] Everyone in the audience should go like that, kind of screw up their eyes when they start hearing that sound.
Brian McCreath And so Mahler knew what he was doing to get that effect. What role does that play in the symphony then? Why does he want audiences to have that reaction?
Nathan Cole Well, I imagine, because it's primarily a dance movement that that solo appears in and it's kind of a German or Austrian romantic idea that Death is a character who invites you or who beckons you, like in Schubert's string quartet, "Death and the Maiden," the story is that Death is almost seducing this young lady and eventually he succeeds, which means she crosses over to the other side. And here, Death is inviting everyone to dance, and the town fiddler takes up his fiddle and keeps coaxing everyone to join in the dance. And, you know, Mahler doesn't say... It's not a programmatic symphony exactly, but if everybody dances, have they crossed over?
Brian McCreath And by the time we're at the fourth movement, there's a woman singing about heaven, so we can sort of feel that that trajectory is something that got completed in that way. So the challenge of that solo is both really technical because of having to have a second instrument with you and then picking it up and putting it down, switching back and forth. I don't know how many times you have to do that in the movement, but it's not only a few, I guess, right?
Nathan Cole It's a number of times and it's funny how, when you're very used to doing something in one way, which is sitting on a chair and playing the violin, how even changing a small thing can be... I remember... The mandolin, for example, is tuned as the violin is, which means that I can at least pluck out some notes on a mandolin. And in other orchestras, when I was not concert master, I sometimes was tasked with playing mandolin solos in some orchestral pieces that had them. And I realized that I forgot how to count when I played the mandolin. I could play the notes, but I couldn't count rests and I would mess up rhythms. It's just holding a different thing. And so even this act of sitting on stage and putting your instrument on a chair or hanging it by the music stand - we haven't decided exactly how we're going to do that here in Symphony Hall - just that act feels so strange, you know, am I going to drop it when I put it down? You never put it down.
Brian McCreath This is something to see as well as hear. It sounds like a really great reason to be here in the hall for that concert.
Nathan Cole Well, also for those who haven't heard the symphony or who don't know what's coming, everybody's wondering, what's that other violin doing near the first stand, just sitting there? Why another one? I haven't noticed a spare for other concerts. And then you pick it up for the first time. And I'm always tempted to check the tuning, you know, right before, because the violin tends not to want to stay in that upper tuning, but I don't want to give away the game either.