[concert] Mahler - Resurrection Symphony - Philharmonia / Bach Choir, Zander.
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthMahler: Symphony #2 'Resurrection': Philharmonia Orchestra / Bach Choir, Sylvia Schwartz (sop), Katarina Karneus (mezzo): conducted by Benjamin Zander. Westminster Cathedral, 24.03.09
I'd never heard this piece performed live before, and I'm not sure I've even listened to it all the way through: at any rate, there were plenty of surprises -- you haven't been surprised musically until the Westminster Cathedral organ comes in, fortissimo, just behind you.
This symphony starts with Death, and gives you a 5-minute break after the first movement in which to reflect on mortality. Westminster Cathedral is good for that kind of thing: lots of ornately colourful religious decor to a height of 20 feet or so, then unrelieved black right to the zenith. Easy to imagine the sound of black wings, or of whistling in the dark. Easy to see shadows too crisp-edged to have been cast by anyone down on the floor.
Whistling shadows were doubtless the off-stage brass unit -- pure, echoing, remote horns, the Last Trump somehow more distant (though louder) than the sirens outside on Victoria Street. And the choir bringing light into the darkness (literally, I think: some of the lights came up, or became brighter, when the choir began to sing). Oh, how I envy Mahler's faith: all are saved, none are denied light and love and healing and comfort.
Glorious music, occasionally reminiscent of Tchaikovsky (the scherzo) or Beethoven (all that dark measured bass) or Verdi's Requiem, but distinctly more modern than any of those and yet not too modern for my Romantic ear.
I'd never heard this piece performed live before, and I'm not sure I've even listened to it all the way through: at any rate, there were plenty of surprises -- you haven't been surprised musically until the Westminster Cathedral organ comes in, fortissimo, just behind you.
This symphony starts with Death, and gives you a 5-minute break after the first movement in which to reflect on mortality. Westminster Cathedral is good for that kind of thing: lots of ornately colourful religious decor to a height of 20 feet or so, then unrelieved black right to the zenith. Easy to imagine the sound of black wings, or of whistling in the dark. Easy to see shadows too crisp-edged to have been cast by anyone down on the floor.
Whistling shadows were doubtless the off-stage brass unit -- pure, echoing, remote horns, the Last Trump somehow more distant (though louder) than the sirens outside on Victoria Street. And the choir bringing light into the darkness (literally, I think: some of the lights came up, or became brighter, when the choir began to sing). Oh, how I envy Mahler's faith: all are saved, none are denied light and love and healing and comfort.
Glorious music, occasionally reminiscent of Tchaikovsky (the scherzo) or Beethoven (all that dark measured bass) or Verdi's Requiem, but distinctly more modern than any of those and yet not too modern for my Romantic ear.
