From the opening fanfare delivered by the eight-strong French horn section, the work’s mood of dramatic heroism (a distant echo of Beethoven’s third symphony), juxtaposed with ironic asides, was well matched by the stamina and commitment evident from various sections of the orchestral. Principal Trombone Mark Davidson’s long rhetorical solo for trombone in the first movement gave one of many standout individual performances upon which a successful performance of this uniquely complex score depends. Equally impressive was Principal Trumpet Owen Morris, whose precise and clear tone superbly conveyed moods of both delicacy and exuberance. Associate Principal Shane Hooton beautifully realised the long offstage flugelhorn solo in the third movement, and violinist Dale Barltrop, whose many solos from the concertmaster’s desk were nothing short of exquisite. A shout-out, too, to the percussion and double-bass sections, who were a rock-solid foundation throughout.

Mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (photograph by Laura Manariti)

For the fourth and fifth movements, the symphony introduces the human voice, initially a soloist singing words from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra. Here they were delivered by young American operatic mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis. A charismatic singer with a rich velvet tone, Bryce-Davis certainly demonstrated why she is widely considered to be a rising star of her generation. Her voice is not yet, however, as large and penetrating as it may yet prove to be, and her pronunciation verged on the mannered at times, with an occasional over-emphasis on final consonants and aspirants.

In the fifth movement, which sets a poem from Mahler’s beloved Des Knaben Wunderhorn (‘The Boy’s [or Youth’s] Magic Horn’), Bryce-Davis was joined by the upper voices of the MSO chorus and a children’s choir consisting of singers from the Young Voices of Melbourne and St Catherine’s School, well prepared by Acting Chorus Director Steven Hodgson. While their placement in the choir stalls to the left and right of the stage (and not directly behind) lessened their sonic impact, they conveyed this poem’s mood of naïve jubilation undercut by an awareness of human sinfulness, all resolving in the promise of heavenly bliss.

This in turn serves as an introduction to the work’s glorious conclusion, an adagio that, for those of us who have recently seen Maestro, cannot but recall the similarly ecstatic ending of Mahler’s Second, his ‘Resurrection’, and Bernstein’s (or indeed Bradley Cooper’s) rendering of it.

While I confess not to being a fan of MSO’s habit of now marketing these performances as ‘Jaime conducts …’ (I suspect it will be some time before the orchestra can claim a similar kind of familiarity between Martín and his Melbourne audiences) this symphony is clearly a work he knows and loves well (he also conducted it for his inaugural concert as Chief Conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin in October 2019). Throughout, Martín directed with clarity and conviction. At the end, both he and orchestra received due acclamation from the large Hamer Hall audience.

Jaime Conducts Mahler 3 (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra) will be repeated at Hamer Hall on 16 March 2024. Performance attended: 14 March.